Spotlight on Cambodia Education: LWB’s Landfill Program

LWB’s Cambodia education programs provide access to education for Impoverished children who would otherwise have little hope of a brighter future.

In the region where we work, many children live at the local landfill with their families and attend our Cambodia education programs. For the children in our landfill program, our efforts include four distinct programs:

LWB also provides extra support for middle and high school students as well as higher education programs that extend to college-aged young adults.

To read a personal account about life in the landfill, please check out this fascinating blog by our CEO, Amy Eldridge.

LWB’s Early Childhood Development Center

LWB’s Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) provides nurturing care, healthy food, and development opportunities for young children while their older siblings attend school, or while their parents are working. The children not only benefit from having a safe place to spend the day with adult supervision, but they also have their health monitored and enjoy educational activities, receive nutritious meals and snacks, and have plenty of good old-fashioned playtime.

Our ECDC is a great place for kids to learn how to share and cooperate with their peers.

Catch-up Class

LWB’s Catch-up Class is designed to help impoverished older children who have had little to no formal schooling. This class helps kids enter the education system at a level consistent with their same-age peers as quickly as possible.

Many of these children are at first shy and embarrassed, knowing they are “behind” their peers. Our aim is to give them the skills and confidence they need to succeed through individualized, focused lessons with clear goals, engaging study materials, and enthusiastic praise and support.

Once a child is “caught up,” they can proudly enter the appropriate class in our Believe In Me school.

Believe In Me (BIM) Rangsei School

LWB’s Believe In Me schools support elementary school aged kids, preschool to grade six, who are on target for learning in rural Cambodia. Foundational classes emphasize core subjects like Khmer language, mathematics, science and social studies; physical and health education; computer literacy; and local life skills.

All students, including those from the landfill, receive breakfast and lunch daily at our BIM Rangsei school.

Food Relief

Food is a key need every day for the children who live at the landfill site. In addition to receiving a healthy breakfast and lunch each day at school through our Cambodia School Nutrition program, the children also benefit from emergency food supplies and fresh vegetables to enjoy at home. Rice, the most important element of a Cambodian diet, is the foundational dish that provides both nutrition and comfort at lunch and dinner.

Another essential element is fresh vegetables. One reason our children can now stand strong and healthy – and study hard! – is having a balanced diet with essential vitamins and nutrients. Every day, the kids from the landfill receive tasty, fresh meals with vegetables such as carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, banana blossom and some type of leafy greens.

Mindy: A Beautiful Example

Adorable Miss Mindy showcases how the different components of the Landfill Education program work together.

Mindy and her parents live at a landfill site near the Thai border in Cambodia. She attends the LWB Rangsei Believe In Me school five days a week and has benefitted from our ECDC program since 2022. While Mindy is in class, her parents scour the landfill for items to sell to support their family. Although this is certainly not an ideal lifestyle, it is our dearest hope that we can give Mindy the chance to escape a life of poverty through education. We want her to dream BIG!

We love seeing what a bright and healthy little girl Mindy has become. In addition to providing Mindy with an age-appropriate education, LWB is supporting her and her family with nutritious food donations. It is so much easier to study and learn with a full belly!

Mindy is the kind of kid who prefers vegetables to meat. Her teachers have taught her that eating vegetables will provide her with good physical health and help her body resist disease. That’s why vegetables have become her first choice to eat. However, she admits some types of vegetables are not her favorite due to their more bitter taste (i.e., bitter melon or gourd). That’s okay Mindy, some things are just an acquired taste.

Whenever she is about to have a meal at home, Mindy carefully washes her hands first to avoid ingesting any germs. She is meticulous about doing this every day at home and at school and helps her teachers to remind others about the importance of hand washing.

Despite only being in pre-school, Mindy is a smart girl who can already chant all the Khmer consonants and vowels clearly. She has been encouraged by her teachers to work on these skills both at school, and also to review the lessons and practice them regularly even when she is at home.

Not only does Mindy excel in spoken Khmer lessons, her writing skills are above age-level! She also likes to draw pictures, play puzzle games, and read illustrated books which describe animals, vegetables, and fruit, and to learn traditional Khmer dances.

At school, Mindy is sociable and very comfortable with her surroundings. She and her friends and classmates work well together to achieve common goals — and they love to share things with each other, too!

We’re grateful to Mindy’s generous donors for supporting her, either through sponsoring her education or via food donations.

Our Cambodia education programs are truly life-changing for children in the landfill community. If you would like to help little ones like Mindy who live in difficult places, we would be so grateful for your support!

Help us to help them DREAM BIG!

Back to Blog