Focolare throws lifeline to Cambodia’s poorest

PHNOM PENH (UCAN) — A personal sponsorship program run by the Italian lay organization Focolare is providing schooling for children in the country who otherwise could barely feed themselves.

Orphan Mao Sampors, 14, and his two older brothers, for example, live with their aunt Im Vang, 59. She earns 5,000-6,000 riel (US$1.20-1.40) by selling cakes from her home.

That is just about enough to feed herself and Sampors, while his two brothers work as laborers but Vang had no hope of sending any of them to school.

The Focolare movement is helping them with a scheme in which a sponsor “adopts” a child and finances his or her schooling.

The program, centered on the Spatoch Catholic church in Phnom Penh, helps some 150 poor or orphaned children and youths across the country.

Sampors, who has been sponsored for eight years, receives US$15 a month for school materials, snacks and uniforms, and another 25,000 riel for extra tutorial classes in mathematics, physics and chemistry.

“I am very happy that the Church helps me in my studies. I don’t have anything to give back in return, but I will always study hard. I want to finish high school,” the Buddhist boy told UCA News.

Vang is also grateful.

“I could not give him a schooling without this Church support,” she said. “I want him to have a good future working in an office or NGO. I don’t want him to be selling cakes like me.”

Father Bob Piche, who heads the sponsorship program, said children need an education to build a future and contribute to society.

The Paris Foreign Missions priest said that at the monthly gatherings when the students receive their funds, he and other Church workers always discuss their studies.

“We impress upon their parents or guardians how important education is. We find that every child wants to study,” the Canadian priest said.

The program is also supported by Enfant du Mekong (Children of the Mekong), an NGO that runs children’s projects in Southeast Asia. Sponsors are mainly from Canada, France, Italy and United States, as well as Cambodia.