Empower Cambodian children with quality education

End-of-year Letter -- 2022

Dear Supporters, Teachers, Students, Parents and Family Members,

I am deeply grateful for your generous support in enabling Cambodian children to receive quality English education at ODC.With few cases of Covid-19, day-to-day living in the communities has returned to normal and this has allowed teachers and students back on campus. International tourists have returned to Cambodia and businesses are flourishing once again.

2022 has been a hugely busy and successful year for ODC with record number of students enrolled, professional staff training and development conducted, two new local teachers welcomed to our team, standardization of curriculum evaluated, student expectations raised and a new toilet block built!

At the beginning of this year, ODC welcomed 201 students in eleven classes. Throughout the year, ODC has raised our student expectations in terms of academic achievement, attendance and punctuality. The end-of-year exam took place on 21^st – 26^th November, and many of our students surpassed our expectations. I must pay gratitude to our teaching staff/team because without our team’s efforts, things couldn’t be possible.

With a dedicated and inspiring team of six teachers, three teacher-in-training scholars and a Headmaster, ODC has been able to provide excellent English lessons to underprivileged children. ODC is symbolized by the tree of life, with the core values of compassion, honesty and integrity at its roots and our team live by these values daily and instill them in our children. The team regularly attends staff training and development on a variety of teaching skills - theoretical and practical methods on teachings the four macro skills in English; promoting speaking and critical thinking skills, engaging young learners to speak English, reading lesson anatomy and its useful techniques, extensive reading and listening, concept checking questions, support and challenge in mixed ability classes, teaching kindergarten program (English Phonics) etc. All training is conducted by trainees from trusted and well-known English teaching schools.

I am proud to announce that one our students, who is also a teacher-in-training scholar and attended ODC since it originally opened, has been accepted by a renowned university in Siem Reap to study TESOL in 2023. It is her dream to become an English teacher so that she can serve her community. She is a passionate, caring and outstanding young leader. Thanks to the sponsorship of one of ODC’s Board of Directors, she will be able to fulfill that dream.

In 2023, we plan to cap our student enrollment at 200. We will have 10 classes, with a maximum of 20 students per class. We expect to have at least 5 qualified teachers, and will continue to train young students to become future teachers. What we experienced in 2022 has made us decide to look for additional funding resources because we want to ensure the long-term impact and sustainability. Next year we will charge a nominal tuition fees of $20 per semester or $40 per year for each student. However, for those children who come from low-income families, they can apply for the scholarship. We also plan to raise funds locally and encourage the local communities to participate in our mission. Our exciting journey in academic year 2023 starts on 2^nd January.

On behalf of ODC team, I express our genuine appreciation to you. Without your support and generosity, it is impossible to produce the results you are reading throughout this report. I am hopeful this report can remind you and me of why we are doing what we love doing through the humanitarian, development and advocacy works serving those in need. Despite the obstacles all the efforts are worth with many positive outcomes on the lives of the underprivileged children and communities in Cambodia.

Sincerely

Chhaiya IM

Founder and Headmaster, ODC Organization

Dear Supporters, Teachers, Students, Parents and Family Members,

ODC is immensely grateful for your support and would like to update you on what’s been happening in the third quarter of this year.  With high vaccination rates and low cases of Covid-19 in Cambodia, our ODC campus is buzzing with students and teachers. Almost all businesses are open and day by day, more tourists are pouring into our world famous temple complexes. As a result, hotels are welcoming them and tourism related businesses are looking forward to a busy high season. Recently, Cambodia has been impacted by storms and most parts of the country were flooded. Fortunately, ODC was not severely affected and we hope that we can stay safe for the rest of the rainy season.

Our student enrolment at the start of semester 2 in June was 201. With hard work and dedication from our teachers and parental cooperation and support,  our students have made outstanding  progress. They have lived up to the high expectations regarding attendance, punctuality and academic achievement. All students have met the 90% class attendance and 60% achieved >80% in the end of semester 1 test scores.

To ensure the quality of teaching, our teachers attend monthly teacher-training sessions to learn essential skills that they can implement in the classroom. There is good evidence that with effective teaching strategies our students are making great progress in the four macro skills; reading, listening, speaking and writing. Every Friday, our students enthusiastically come to ODC for their speaking lesson. 

ODC was built and financed to teach approximately 100 students, but as a result of the pandemic we accepted more students as a number of NGOs closed their doors.  Our commitment to offer the best English education to each child remains strong, however as the end of the year nears, our resources to offer free English classes to so many students are limited. To enable to us to continue teaching all the students this year, ODC will have to make some temporary changes to the  teaching/studying schedule from 3rd October through to 31st December. Students will study 3 days instead of 5 days per week. This implementation is necessary to reduce staffing and other associated costs. In 2023, ODC hopes to return to our regular 5-day teaching schedule, but we will have to commit to accepting less students . ODC is committed to keeping all our projects within budget going into the future. The Board has unanimouly decided to put several projects on hold such as building a libary room, listening center and a reception room.

In closing, we would like to reiterate our whole-hearted gratitude for your on-going support and generosity. Your commitment to ODC’s is transformative and opens so many previously closed doors for our students and thus empowers our whole community.

Sincerely,

Chhaiya IM

Founder and Headmaster, ODC Organization