Education Development

Education is at the center of what BFT does.  In the years since the Khmer Rouge Cambodia was left with a severe lack of teachers and intellectuals, making illiteracy amongst Cambodia’s youth a real problem; a problem that persists today.  The children who are least likely to be able to pursue a basic education are those living in rural communities, and it is those communities that BFT specifically targets. The education program includes:

• Construction or renovation of school buildings
• Hiring and training of teachers
• Providing bicycles for children to get to school
• Promotion of early child education
• Adult literacy programs

Health and Nutrition

BFT provides a comprehensive program for health and nutrition in the villages, including:

• Regular medical clinics, focussing especially on pregnant women, mothers and young children
• Monitoring children’s growth, based on Body Mass Index (BMI) Training in hygiene, sanitation and health care education, in cooperation with local and overseas medical teams.
• Provision of a safe and secure water supply, especially to cover dry season.
• School demonstration garden to produce vegetables and promote the establishment of similar garden throughout the community
• Nutritious food feeding program, especially for infants and school children

Water and Sanitation

Within the area of Health and Nutrition, a major focus of BFT’s activities within the villages relates to the provision of proper sanitation and a safe and secure supply of water. The lack of these basic services is a major cause of sickness, stunted growth and infant and early childhood mortality.

Many of the villages share the following characteristics:

• In the wet season, water is mostly obtained from nearby ponds or rivers or the ditches along the roads by their houses and is often badly contaminated.
• In the dry season, even these sources of water dry up and families may need to walk long distances to obtain wateror even move to another village where water is available.
• Most families use simple pit toilets, close to their houses, further leading to contamination of surface water supplies. Community education on the importance of hygiene is lacking.
• Diets are generally poor with very low availability of fruits and vegetables, leading to poor nutrition, especially with smaller children

Water and sanitation projects can address some of the major issues within the villages:

• For infants and young children, the provision of clean water and sanitation provides an improved chance of survival to adulthood and reduced chances of significant physical and health deficits in future life.
• For girls and young women, the provision of secure and private toilet facilities, especially at schools, significantly increases the chance that they will stay at school after puberty.
• For women, a secure nearby water supply significantly reduces the time-consuming task, which most often falls to them, of fetching water.

Capacity Building and Livelihood Improvement

Rural Cambodian families with many children often need those children to help work on the farm or in a family business, making it difficult for them to support education for their children beyond primary school.  BFT’s capacity building program aims at supporting these families through microfinance and training. The program includes:

• Training in skill areas including pig, chicken, goat or fish farming, tailoring and sewing, basket weaving etc
• Assistance in establishing a business, such as formation of a “farmer club”
• Provision of microfinance, paid back over several years
• Assistance with distribution and sale of products.

Peace Building

In the wake of having a fifth of the population of the country killed and families across the country torn apart, domestic violence and alcoholism have joined the legacy of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.  And like the lack of education, these problems are magnified in the rural villages where access to any kind of services are gravely lacking. To address these problems, BFT has developed a “Peace Building teams of counsellors, which include the highly respected Buddhist monks. The Peace Building program operates through both communal meetings as well as family by family counseling sessions and includes:

• Counseling for families living in crisis
• Support for family integration and adoption
• Community Peace Building Networks: which encourage the local communities to take responsibility and contribute to the decision-making process, with the aim to reduce family crisis and domestic violence.

Child Support and Learning Center

The Child Support and Learning Center is located at BFT Center in Siem Reap. Center in Siem Reap. Even before BFT was founded, Sedtha Long would teach English classes here; the only place in Siem Reap where children could go to learn free of charge.  Today, Sedtha and BFT still use the same house in Siem Reap to provide classes to children as well as take in those who have nowhere else to go. The programs include:

• After school classes in English and computers.
• Traditional dance and other skills
• Sport for team building