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Category: School and Kindergarten

Smiling Gecko Educational Campus

OUR CHILDREN SANG THEIR WAY INTO THE HEARTS OF FOOTBALL FANS​

In July, our school choir had the great honour of performing at the Cambodian Football League finals at Phnom Penh’s National Stadium.
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Accompanied by the two Cambodian musicians and enthusiastic Smiling Gecko fans Kesorrr and Roxy, our young artists aged 11 to 17 gave their all to delight the audience with their singing talent.
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For our children, performances like this provide a welcome change from their daily lives, which are full of hardship. At the same time, they provide important motivation to continue working hard at school. Perhaps one day they will escape poverty and earn enough money to afford a ticket to a football match themselves.
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The most important thing for us as an organisation about events like this is the publicity. It is the best publicity for us when a small school from the provinces is given preference over established private schools from the capital. And it is even better when Deputy Prime Minister, Hun Many, is among the dignitaries present. He was very impressed by our choir and congratulated our children personally. What an honour!
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Smiling Gecko Educational Campus

WE CAN FINALLY TEACH IN THE NEW SCHOOL BUILDING!​

Anyone who has built as much as we have over the last ten years develops a certain routine, even when it comes to the unexpected. Still the construction of our new school building has been, and continues to be, a true test of endurance, even for us.
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First, the ground was was so soft after what seemed like endless rainfall, that civil engineering work could not begin for months. To provide sufficient stability for the construction, we had to drive a total of 218 reinforced concrete beams, each eight-metres-long, into the ground – despite the limited availability of heavy equipment in Cambodia. Our architects subsequently revised the brick layout for the exterior walls and extended the roof overhangs by 150 centimetres on both the inside and outside, as the originally planned construction method was not sufficiently waterproof to withstand the increasingly frequent heavy winds during the rainy season. These challenges are clear consequences of climate change that we are likely to encounter more often and for longer periods in the years ahead.
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We are therefore delighted that we were able to open the first phase of the new school building in time for the start of the academic year in August. The first six classrooms are complete, as are offices for teachers, sanitary facilities, and a school canteen with a capacity for up to 250 people.
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Further classrooms and all specialist rooms, such as the science laboratory, the new computer laboratory and the library extension, are still under construction. The same applies to the auditorium, art and pottery studios, various storage rooms, and a smaller kitchen where meals will be prepared for children and teachers.
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Another construction project is the extensive greening of the area around the school building. Over the next few years, more than 60 large trees, 250 medium-sized trees and over 1,000 shrubs will be planted here. This will also help to protect the building from the weather. As you can imagine, this is a significant financial undertaking.

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Smiling Gecko Educational Campus

THOSE WHO CAN READ HAVE A CLEAR ADVANTAGE​

Admittedly, the headline of this report may sound a little informal, but it is 100% accurate. That’s why, alongside teaching IT skills in the past semester, we also launched an extensive program to assess the reading development of our children.

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The program, called DRA3, covers all age groups from kindergarten to 8th grade. Our foreign teachers work with each child individually to observe, record, and assess their reading habits and comprehension. The goal is to determine the students’ instructional and intervention levels, so that the teaching staff can later tailor lessons to the individual needs of the children.

DRA3 also serves as the foundation for the (digital) reading program RAZ Plus, which we’ve also launched in the past few months to gradually improve the children’s reading proficiency.

RAZ Plus offers over 3,000 books and texts at various difficulty levels in different formats (printable, projectable, online, and mobile). These resources are tailored to different reading levels and interests, so each student can find material they enjoy reading.

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The program includes lesson plans, activities, and even quizzes that teachers can use for differentiated instruction. In addition, the children have access to a personalized library with books and passages of varying difficulty levels. Using an iPad, they can independently practice reading, and their progress is tracked through data-driven reports.

The program is flexible and accessible to our children, regardless of their learning environment.

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School and Kindergarten

HURRA: DIE NEUEN SIND DA!

Some of them still look a bit skeptical, but we are sure: in a very short time, our almost one hundred new school children will be happy to be at the Smiling Gecko Campus every day, where, depending on their age, they will either go to pre-school or directly to kindergarten will go.
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We are very happy to have welcomed so many new children this year. After the Corona-related school enrollment stop, we still must catch up with the number of children in order to maintain school operations from preschool to middle school without interruption.
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Speaking of middle school: This summer we were able to move the first fifty boys and girls into the 7th grade. It’s unbelievable how quickly time flies.

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SchOOL And Kindergarten

RECRUITMENT DAYS AT OUR SCHOOL​

The last few days were quite exciting for many families in the communities around the Smiling Gecko Campus: We had our “Recruitment Days”, to find up to 100 new children at the age of 3 for our pre-school and kindergarten.
For the selection process, we first formed small groups of 2 to 3 children, to monitor their interaction with peers of the same age. Then we analysed their cognitive abilities in various exercises. For us, this is another important basis for deciding which children we could take and which unfortunately we could not take.
Quite exciting. For the little ones, but also for the parents, who all really hope to be able to send their children to our school. After all, they know that for the first time there is a real prospect of a better, self-determined life for their offspring.
Unfortunately, we had to disappoint many families again this year because we simply do not have the capacity or better say the financial means. Therefore, we would like to make an appeal at this point. If you would like to support our school: We are very happy about every donation!
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We have made a short video of the Recruitment Days. Enjoy watching it.

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School and Kindergarten

Our school expansion has begun!

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Wonderful things are happening at the Smiling Gecko Campus right now. We have laid the essential groundwork for the construction of the new middle school and the House of Culture and Music! Our Cambodian geometricians have surveyed the land for the construction of the infrastructure and the building land has been prepared. We have even started digging the artificial lake, which is of central importance for the construction project. This is because we need the earth extracted here to raise the areas on which buildings will later stand. At the same time, the lake will regulate the absorption of the immense water masses during the rainy season and of course we will also do fish farming here. So much for today. The next update will be at the laying of the foundation stone!

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SCHOOL And Kindergarten

A JOYFUL DAY FOR OUR KINDERGARTEN AND SCHOOL CHILDREN

Last Wednesday, we surprised our kindergarten and primary school children with lots of fantastic books. The books were donated by the students of Lakeside School Horgen.
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As the pictures show: The books brought immense enthusiasm among our kids. So, a big thank you to all who have made this possible. We greatly appreciate the commitment of the school’s teachers and parents. And we are definitely the biggest fans of the Lakeside children. Thanks to you too. You are awesome!

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School and Kindergarten

A SONG OF HOPE

Our school children could finally step back into the recording studio to record a new song. This time they have chosen “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson. The ballad that, with its appeal to heal the world and make it a better place, provides the answer to what is currently on everyone’s mind. Here in Cambodia, in Ukraine and everywhere where children are suffering.
Sreymey is one of our singers, but more importantly, she is one of the 400 school children we currently have at our Education Campus. In this video, she takes you to her home and you can also accompany her on her daily way to our school.

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School and Kindergarten

“A CONTAINER FULL OF MUSIC” ARRIVES AT SMILING GECKO

In November our “container full of music” filled with lots of pianos, drums, guitars, violins, trumpets and flutes started its journey to Cambodia. Now it has finally reached its destination. The children of our school enthusiastically received the instruments and now the instruments are given a second life, spending great joy to many Cambodian children. To ensure that the instruments do not suffer any damage, they are stored and maintained in specially built, air-conditioned rooms. Through music lessons in special music rooms, the students of the Education Campus thus receive the opportunity of a broad musical education.

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School And Kindergarten

«MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE»

Once again, the students at our Education Campus rehearsed a Christmas song as a way to convey their thank you to you. The rehearsals and recordings of the well-known Christmas song “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens were a welcomed-change for the children from their everyday life impacted by the pandemic, school cancellations and often hunger.

In the current school year, around 400 preschoolers and primary school students from families in the surrounding area are attending our Education Campus. They belong to the poorest of the poor; they come from migrant, peasant, day-labour or textile worker families and often have to live from hand to mouth, especially in these difficult times. It is nice to see how great these children have developed despite the hardships and the talents that lie dormant in them.

The music and video brought smiles to the children’s faces, smiles that were far too rare in the current situation in Cambodia.

We hope that the song will also bring you lots of joy and perhaps even a smile on your face. In this spirit, on behalf of Smiling Gecko and the students at our Education Campus, we would like to sincerely thank all our sponsors and supporters, and wish you a meaningful Christmas and a healthy and happy new 2022.

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Smiling Gecko e.V.
Tuslingerstraße 23
79102 Freiburg
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info@smilinggecko.de

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Every amount counts to give people in rural Cambodia a future.

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