Partnerships that reach further

PHNOM PENH

Eggshell Preschool

The Eggshell preschool is a beautiful, tranquil setting intentionally located in one of the most destitute and chaotic slum areas on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. The families in the village struggle with domestic violence, profound poverty and addictions (gambling, alcohol, violence); the children coming to the preschool often show signs of deep trauma, abuse and neglect. The centre focuses on early intervention to ensures the preschoolers not only have all the skills they’ll need when they enter primary school but are kept safe despite their circumstances.

Over the years REECH has provided the preschool with educational resources, toys and portable beds for afternoon naps. More recently REECH has been paying the salaries of several staff members providing employment to local village single mums.

PHNOM PENH

Precious Women

Precious Women has been working with highly vulnerable young women in Phnom Penh for the past 15 years. REECH first learned of their work in 2014 and we’ve been a strong supporter ever since.

The agency’s founder Solida Seng has long been concerned with the young women working in Phnom Penh’s karaoke bars and beer gardens which often masquerade as brothels. Her staff are trained to build relationships with these young women and over time introduce them to a life-skills program that teaches various soft skills such as women’s rights, ways to advocate for their rights, crisis pregnancy, safe accommodation. The aim is to help the women feel respected, safe and empowered.

The Precious Women’s program that aligns strongest with REECH’s priorities is their high school scholarship program that was established three years ago in partnership with the school principals of local high schools. The aim of the program is to identify young girls who are at risk of leaving school early and sent to work by their families to earn an income. As these girls are unskilled, they’re often placed in karaoke bars and become sex workers.

The scholarship program provides each student with a school supply pack, school uniforms, bags of rice and a small monthly allowance. The girls regularly meet with Precious Women staff each month. The staff encourage and support the girls in their studies. All the girls in this program will be the first in their family to complete high school. REECH provides each program participant with a push bike so they can get to school safely. When finances allow, REECH also finances the school supply packs and school uniforms.

PHNOM PENH

Hope for Cambodian Women

Cambodia’s garment industry is worth US$13billion and is the country’s largest employer. Each year thousands of young teenage girls are taken from school long before they are ready and sent to work in garment factories either in Thailand or Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. The factory conditions are exploitative, unsafe and unregulated. Many girls and young women leave the industry through boredom or injury. As they are unskilled, they have little option but to find work in the city’s thriving sex trade industry.

Hope for Cambodian Women (HCW) is a registered not-for-profit agency that has intentionally located its offices in the Phnom Penh’s garment factory precinct. The agency recognises the risk young women are at should they decide to leave the factories. They provide alternate career pathways for them to take by offering free classes in English and Chinese as well as learning computer skills. Under HCW’s “catch up” program, girls and young women can return to high school and take their Year 12 exams. Those with the capacity are invited to enrol in university.

REECH fully funds the agency’s education program which includes paying the salaries of the teachers and tutors as well as the fees for those going to high school and university. Those graduating are the first in their families (and often village) to finish high school as well as the first to enter and graduate from university. For most, these achievements are beyond anything they could ever imagine and, as corny as it may sound, their lives are quite literally changed forever.

REECH invests HCW’s staff by inviting them to participate in the annual teacher training workshops REECH runs each July. Agency female leaders also regulars at the SoulSpace retreats REECH runs every second year providing them with a chance to refresh, regroup and unwind.

REECH Cambodia also provides pre-loved laptops to the HCW uni students to ensure they’re not disadvantaged in their studies when it comes to accessing technology. High school and uni students also receive sustainable sanitary products as part of REECH’s Dignity Project to ensure they have all the period products they need to be in class every day of every month.

HCW does amazing work in changing the lives of young Cambodian women. The easiest way to learn more about their work is to either search for their video clips on YouTube or on follow them on Facebook:

PHNOM PENH

Hard Places Community

While Cambodia has made enormous progress in economic development over the past ten years, an estimated 17.8% of the population still lives in poverty (Unicef Estimate, 2022). For poor kids living in the nation’s capital, Phnom Penh, this means they are sent to work on the streets each day selling anything from cigarettes to balloons, cheap plastic toys to sex. Street based child sexual exploitation is rife amongst these street kids, many of whom have no family to provide safety and support. With limited police presence and parental supervision these kids are vulnerability to sexual exploitation and prostitution.

Hard Places Community has an active presence in Phnom Penh’s sex tourist district five days a week from 7.30am to midnight. They connect with up to 400 kids and run child-focused programs in public parks, beside the riverside, near the markets, on the soccer field – wherever the kids are. HPC’s youth workers invest in the lives of these street kids, get to know their parents, advocate for them should they be approached by paedophiles. It’s heartbreaking and gutsy work.

One of the ways HPC builds relationships with kids in through their sports program. Over the years REECH has purchased so many soccer boots and outfits to ensure each kid who is interested gets outfitted so they can play on a soccer team. REECH has also provided resources for the kids’ clubs including lego, toys for play therapy, kids’ sized tables and chairs and the all important first aid supplies.

Each year, REECH finances one of HPC’s youth workers. These workers are a constant presence on the streets and back alleys, always on the look out for the safety of their kids.

And of course HPC staff attend various REECH training programs such as the teacher training workshops and Becoming, REECH’s young women’s leadership program while senior female staff are regulars at the REECH SoulSpace retreats.

PURSAT PROVINCE

Disability Development Services Program (DDSP)

DDSP is one of Cambodia’s largest providers of services to those with a disability and REECH has been connected with, and worked alongside, this amazing agency for just on twenty years. DDSP aims to help disabled kids, teens and adults access a wide range of services to help them improve their quality of life.

DDSP’s strong emphasis on education is a great fit with REECH’s commitment to facilitating education. REECH funds the agency’s Mith Komar Pikar program which includes integrated classes for kids with disabilities as well as their respite centre. Given the number of teachers REECH supports it’s hardly surprising to see some of them at the teacher training workshops REECH runs each July. Given not all could attend REECH took teacher training to Pursat in 2025 and ran a day of workshops for all the DDSP staff as well as site visits to several of the inclusive classrooms.

REECH also resources various DDSP programs by purchasing physiotherapy and rehabilitation materials such as wheelchairs and mats, providing home based physiotherapy to kids living remotely and the special needs teachers and assistants at both the integrated classes and the Talou daycare respite centre.

For years, a dilapidated tuktuk would travel kilometers each day to pick up young adults from remote villages and take them to the Talou daycare centre. Finally in 2025 the tuktuk died and those attending daycare were no longer able to access this important social hub. Through a generous donation to REECH, a new, custom built tuk tuk was purchased and presented to DDSP in July that year. The young adults were delighted to be able to return to the daycare centre and reconnect with their friends.

But by far the biggest fun thing REECH does with DDSP is the agency’s annual Big Bike Giveaway when huge numbers of bikes are gifted to families with a disabled child who live in remote locations. The bikes are used to take home grown veggies or chooks to the local market for sale or for kids who have graduated from the local primary school to attend high school in the neighbouring town. It really is incredible how a bike can facilitate both micro-finance and education.

KRATIE PROVINCE

Cambodian Care

Cambodian Care (CC) is one of the few REECH supported agencies that operates both in Phnom Penh as well as in the provinces. Their city-based staff attend REECH’s teacher training workshops and retreats. Of all the initiatives this agency runs, it’s their program that specifically targeting teenage girls and young women living in remote provinces that ticks many of the REECH boxes.

Cambodian Care’s Girl Go Back to School project aims to keep rural based teenage girls in school for as long as possible. It does this by providing a girls’ only class in a local provincial high school. CC also builds relationships with the parents of each girl to help them understand and appreciate the benefits of their daughters staying at school until Year 12. REECH makes this project possible by financing the salary of the teacher who heads up the class of junior high school girls.

The REECH financed teacher works with the project’s ten girls. In a country where many teachers have classes of up to 40+ students, a pupil/teacher ratio of 10:1 is virtually unheard of in the Cambodian school system. This small class ensures problems understanding content can be identified quickly and early. As it’s a girls-only class the students feel comfortable asking questions they may not ask should boys be in their class. Given the small class there is a quite unique relationship between teacher and students. She encourages and supports each girl. As the girls are part of a REECH supported project they benefit in other ways too. All the girls receive packs of period products through REECH’s Dignity Project. Over time, it’s hoped each student will be gifted with a laptop provided through REECH’s Laptop Lifeline program.

Already one student has graduated from this program and she’s now attending university in Phnom Pehn. Cambodian Care continues to provide her with support as she transitions from her rural village to the bustle of such a big city.

SIEM REAP

New Hope of Children

On the outskirts of Siem Reap, home to the World Heritage Ankor Wat precinct, is the tiny village of Roka where longstanding REECH contact, Prosh Seam lives. About twelve years ago, Mr Prosh decided to do something very practical about the very poor standards of schooling at his local village school.

He started tutoring school kids in the living room of his tiny home. In a blink, word spread and more kids started coming to his classes. He quickly filled all three rooms of his little house with students keen to learn. Within a year, he somehow managed to scrape together some money, rented a few rooms and hung up a couple of whiteboards. The kids kept coming and quickly filled this space as well. Long story short and today he runs a four classroom school with over 200 day students as well as evening computer and English language classes for 200 young adults.

Somewhere along the way Mr Prosh made contact with REECH Cambodia. We quickly appreciated his strong commitment to the kids in his village as well as his vision to improve his country’s education system. Over time, REECH has provided Mr Prosh and his school with sewing machines and fabric, first aid supplies, classroom desks and chairs as well as school stationery supplies and library books. Each year, money is provided to purchase bikes so those kids living some distance from the school can access classes safely. The school’s teachers attend REECH’s teacher training workshops and workshop staff have visited his school and spent time with his teachers on-site. It’s safe to say Mr Prosh has embraced many facets of REECH’s support.

Mr Prosh’s school is such a grassroots initiative run pretty much on his enthusiasm and commitment. He has a strong Facebook presence and uses this platform to raise money for teachers’ salaries and essential supplies.

SIEM REAP

Peam Village Foundation School

Most ambitious Cambodian students and parents know the importance of learning English. This is especially true in a city like Siem Reap which receives hundreds of thousands of international tourists every year to visit the famous Ankor Wat temples. English is essential for any young adult wanting to work in the city’s hospitality or tourist industries.

For those kids living in the small villages on the outer fringes of Siem Reap, accessing quality English language classes is not always easy despite the need. To meet this need, a Singaporean based Foundation has established an English language school about twenty kilometres from Siem Reap in the village of Peam. While initial funding and some ongoing financial support for the school comes from Singapore, the school depends upon additional support from other sources.

REECH fills in many of the school’s funding gaps to ensure both teachers and students have the essentials. REECH, for example, funds a breakfast program to ensure those kids from disadvantaged backgrounds don’t start the school day hungry.  Female students are provided with period products through REECH’s Dignity Project to ensure they can be in class every day of every month and thanks to REECH’s Laptop Lifeline project, laptops have begun to be provided to the school. Funds raised through REECH’s Big Bike Giveaway program enable the school to gift a bike to those kids living a distance from the school so they can get to classes safely and of course, school staff attend the REECH teacher training workshops.

You can learn more about the school on their Facebook page:

PHNOM PENH

Glow Early Learning Centre

Glow Early Learning Centre: nestled in a back street, away from the chaos that is Phnom Penh traffic is Glow, a recently opened early learning centre that is one of its kind in Cambodia. The Centre has taken best practice concepts and ideas from some of the leading early learning centres in Australia and put them into practice in Cambodia. The Centre is play based and child directed which is in stark contrast to just about every other preschool in the country.

The centre’s setting is tranquil and calm. It’s also bi-lingual with a strong emphasis on introducing English language into the lives of the little ones who attend.

Early in 2025, a REECH volunteer teacher had a chance conversation with a representative from Multilit (Australia’s gold standard reading/literacy program). She shared with him the challenges of education in Cambodia; he shared with her his thoughts on introducing Multilit into the Asia region where it is currently not available or used.

The upshot of that chat was a donation from Multilit to REECH of their PreLit program which is designed for preschoolers. Given these programs cost thousands of dollars, this is an incredibly generous donation. REECH had no hesitation in choosing Glow as the recipient of this donation. Glow staff will receive training online in late 2025 and the program will be introduced to the centre’s preschoolers in early 2026. This phonics-based program will provide a strong foundation for the Glow preschoolers as they learn to read. This is such an amazing gift to both REECH and Glow.

Given its strong commitment to education REECH is very excited to be a part of introducing this excellent evidence-based reading program into Cambodia.

IN THE PROVINCES

Royal Seeds International School

Takeo is a large provincial town about two hours’ drive south of Phnom Penh. It’s here that a couple from the Nagaland region of India, Ango and Asui, have set up a Montessori school, Royal Seeds International School.

REECH has a longstanding relationship with Asui and Ango as they’ve been involved in the Cambodian education space for quite some time. Asui contacted REECH during the early stages of establishing their new school seeking financial support. REECH has been providing that support ever since the school opened. In addition, both Asui, as school director, and some of her staff have attended the REECH teacher training workshops and Asui is a regular at the SoulSpace retreats.

Cambodia has made significant progress in recovering from the devastation of its education system during the rule of the Khmer Rouge. However much of that progress has been in Phnom Penh rather than the rural provinces. Recognising the huge need for quality education in the rural areas, REECH is committed to working with schools committed to best practice standards and located in key rural cities. Royal Seeds ticks those boxes.