Short description of situation of children and the project purpose / goal

Before the COVID pandemic, Khmer Association for Development (KAD) accepted more than 400 children to stay in its Children Development Center that provides them with all most needed services such as education, health care, transport means, food, school materials, school uniforms, warm care and protection from various issues. Seeing that the transport means was a compulsory part of the project in improving the community children welfare, Khmer Association for Development applied for funds both from Schmitz Foundation and Mirja-Sachs-Foundation to purchase a minibus in order to refine an access to the most needed services as above-said. Why is the transport means deemed to be essential part in advancing the operation of the project? The project is directed at low-income families whose members mostly work for garment factories necessitating full day work from early morning to late afternoon, so they have no time to care for their children. That’s why they have to entrust their children to the Centre. According to the work experience of Khmer Association for Development for years in this area, community children face a lot of life issues, for instance, insufficient care, loss of education opportunity, absence of health care, traffic accident, pond drown, sexual rape, child labour, etc. Since the project was initiated, all these problems have been solved through its activities done with the great achievement of its objectives and goal.

Completed activities up to the reporting time                                                                                                                                       

To purchase the minibus:

• The project management team went to Vehicle Garage No.168 in Phnom Penh to buy a minibus with 25 seats, brand Hyundai County, series 2008, made in South Korea. Then it was sent to the Department of Transportation for technical check and license plate. The vehicle was driven to KAD Child Care Center in Kampong Speu province after it had been purchased, all legal documents had been given and then they could be used to transport the children to and fro.

To transport the children from their villages to the KAD Center:

• There were three drivers and two caregivers who were employed to drive the children to and fro. In early morning, they went to villages to collect the children from their houses to the KAD Centre, and in the afternoon at 4:00 P.M. they were sent back from KAD Centre to their villages. Normally, it took for about 2 hours to finish their transportation work and the distance from KAD Centre to the furthest village was about 15km. The transportation covered more than 30 villages in Samraong Tong district, and about 100 children used this minibus in which about 50 children were loaded each time.

To maintain the vehicles regularly

• Normally the dirt roads in rural areas of Cambodia are full of potholes and bumpy that makes all kinds of vehicles break down very often, so regular maintenance is inevitable. The drivers were responsible for vehicle maintenance. They sent their vehicles to auto shops for repair as soon as they broke down to avoid the loss of school hours or delay of child transportation. They were also required to wash their vehicles once a week.

Outcomes of the project:

• The number of children who wanted to learn increased due to sufficient transport means.
• The dispute among children in the vehicles to scramble for seats was thoroughly stopped.
• The children were able to go to the Centre for their education on time, and the problem with the lack of space in the vehicle was resolved.
• This transport means offered a great chance to more community children to get access to education.

• The children’s parents did not need to spend money to buy transport means to send their children to the Centre, and they saved much time to do other work.
• The children’s parents were able to earn additional income that helped improve their living condition.

Effects of the project on the beneficiaries and communities:

The communities and beneficiaries had confidence in the services provided by the Khmer Association for Development (KAD). They strongly supported the project as well as the organization through their participation and contribution to keep it sustainable. They prefer putting their children in the Centre to sending them to the public schools. As evidenced, during the COVID pandemic, their children were not sent to the state-run school which were reopened. They were willing to wait for the reopening of KAD’s Child Care Centre.