For children in the Ridgewood School District’s Cambodia Rural School Project clubs, the world is no longer such a big place.
LAURA HERZOG/THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Tongrathra Veng proudly showed his diplomas to the club
members. They learned about the many challenges that he faced while
achieving his dream of education.
In George Washington Middle School’s (GW) new media
center, a visiting former refugee of Cambodia’s 1975-79 genocide
recently gave several students a guest lecture.
Reflecting on his own early educational experience,
when he spied on a teacher’s lecture between the wooden panels of a
one-room schoolhouse, Tongrathra Veng told students that their education
was far different from his own and that of many Cambodian children
today.
"You are in school, dressed nice, have friends," said
Veng, who recalled spending 13 years in a 1.5-square-mile Thai refugee
camp "like a jail" without walls. "They are working on the garbage
dump."
He showed photos of some urban children, who, living in
poverty, scavenge for items in the dump to sell for food rather than go
to school.
"Can you imagine?" he asked them. "Can you believe?"
Once too poor himself to afford his grade school’s
tuition, Veng recalled how his saving grace was the teacher who saw him
spying on the lecture. Worried other children might copy him, the
teacher invited him inside to attend class for free. That moment likely
changed his life.
Despite many struggles, Veng eventually repatriated to
Cambodia and went on to earn his undergraduate and master’s degrees in
business administration.
Thanks to those diplomas, which Veng proudly passed
around for the roughly 30 students in grades 6 to 8 to observe, Veng was
able to work to support his family and currently assists a development
organization in Cambodia that advocates for education.
It was a story that meant a lot to the listening
students. They had never been visited by a Cambodian resident, but they
have helped raise money to support the education of Cambodian children.
"I thought it was really cool to be able to hear somebody’s actual story," said eighth grader Elena Esteve.
Experiences like these are encouraging students to look
into non-profit work and find similarities with people halfway around
the world. And, based on students’ statements, what they are learning
also strengthens their belief in the value of education.
Take GW Cambodia Club alumnus Hanl Park. Now a high school junior, Park is president and creator of the Bergen County
Academies’ (BCA) Bergen 4 Cambodia Club. It was Park’s efforts that
encouraged Veng to leave California, where he was temporarily working,
and address both BCA and Ridgewood students. He also spoke at Ridgewood High School last Thursday.
"That is what initially gave me the idea to start
[Bergen 4 Cambodia]," Park said of the GW club, which introduced him to
non-profit work.
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