All 18 children and the two members of our staff who caught Covid-19 in October 2021 are safely back in Kinderhilfe Kambodscha's village. Thankfully they had received vaccinations beforehand and hence everyone experienced only mild symptoms.
There are only a few children in our village that could not be inoculated against Covid-19, because they are too young. All eligible children, as well as all adults, have received at least one shot of the vaccination.
Despite such progress being reported from all across Cambodia, for most children school life has not yet returned back to normal. In our village everyone not attending Grade 9 or 12, can attend school only for two days per week in person, and they study online for the other four days (- yes, our children have a six day school week!).
Making sure that 100 children can attend school online is a major task for our team in the village, as you can imagine!
The vaccination rate in Cambodia however is increasing and almost every citizen who is eligible has received at least one dose of a vaccine at this point. We hence hope that we can expect a return to more schooling on campus from January 2022 onwards.
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Cambodia announced plans to open its borders for tourists in the near future. Fully vaccinated tourists will be able to enter without quarantine once they test negative for the virus. Unvaccinated travelers will need to quarantine for 14 days before they are allowed to roam freely in the country.
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GOOD RESULTS AT THE FINAL EXAMS
Almost the entire school year happened in an online format for our children and we were thrilled to learn that all seven of our Year 9 graduates finished school with excellent results. Most classes in Cambodia are made up of 50 students and one of our students finished with highest results in her class. Not far behind were two of our children who landed in second place in their respective classes. The four remaining graduates finished at the top of their respective classes in place three, four and nine.
We would like to congratulate all seven children on their amazing results and thank the team in Cambodia for their assistance and perseverance during this unusual school year.
Two of our teenagers are currently preparing for the Year 12 Exams that will take place at the end of December 2021. We are thinking of them and hope they can achieve equally amazing results as their younger counterparts.
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VOCATIONAL TRAINING
Good news reaches us also from the students finishing their vocational training in 2021. Six teenagers have successfully passed their exams and have found permanent positions outside of our village in the areas of Hospitality, Accounting and Administration.
Full time employment for fresh graduates
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We are excited for every student that manages to pass the entrance exams to the vocational training programs or university after Grade 9 or 12. More and more of our former children manage to turn things around for themselves, once more proving our concept of targeted developmental help.
Cambodia expected to open borders for tourism
​Since the start of the pandemic it was not possible for members or our board members of our NGO to cross borders into Cambodia. We received news from the Cambodian Government that make us hopeful that border restrictions will be loosened in the near future. Fully vaccinated travelers are expected to enter without quarantine, whilst unvaccinated travelers have to spend 14 days in quarantine.