Welcome to Logan Village Lions Club Cambodia Project.

Back in 2023, Lions Phil & Pedro were holidaying in Siem Reap, where they met and befriended local Tuk Tuk driver Khim Sokheng. He told them about an English teaching volunteer school out in a small village that he supports called Kokbeng Village Volunteer Teacher School. He told them the school teaches English to the poor kids and orphans in the village and could use all the help. Khim is now a honorary Lion...read on.

Upon their return to Australia Lion Pedro sent over some money, with which Khim bought a heap of school supplies, and the reaction from the teacher and students was incredible. Lions 4 Kids Cambodia project was born when, in January 2024 a motion  was passed at a Logan Village Lions Club meeting to support the school and others like it. At this time they had no clue what the school looked like.

They commenced fundraising specifically for the project mainly through social media and in just over 4 months were able to raise AUD 11,500 AUD from 39 separate donors. On June 9, 2024 they were back in Cambodia joined by Lions friend Trevor Crawford and visited the school... they were shocked at the conditions -  it was essentially a lean-to attached to the teachers house. 

Dirt floor, holes in the roof, no fans, no lights, no toilet facilities.

They hatched a plan and set to work.

Its amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it and have some willing help. We also visited nearby Kokbeng Primary School, the local government school. Some of our Lions school students also attend there, though English is not part of the curriculum. 

As with our state schools, they lack some funding, so we set about assisting them where we could, buying the school a new printer and buying a mountain of story books for their library. primary School

Our host Khim took us out to a new settlement called Run Ta Ek, south of Angkor Wat. Over the last few years, up to 30,000 local people have been relocated by the government from around Angkor Wat to this new community. 

It was quite surreal to see this massive development out in the middle of the jungle. Thousands of acres of jungle cleared, massive concrete roads and thousands of housing blocks (30m x 50 m) which were given to the relocated “refugees”, and they are then left to their own devices to build what shelter they can. 

We were introduced to an old friend of Khims’, Mr Sovann, who has worked tirelessly to build a one classroom school on his block at Run Ta Ek. We were quite impressed with what he had achieved so far, but he needed some assistance to keep the development going. 

This school was identified as  our second “Lions”  school in Siem Reap.