“Why did you open this kind of school?”
I have three reasons.
When I was 15 and a secondary school student, my family was very poor. In those years, some of my friends and classmates studied English but I didn’t, because I had no money to pay for the class fee. I then was told that there was an English class teaching for free. Two days later, I started studying English there. I was very happy.
With my basic English that I had learned from my hometown, I could continue learning another English level in Phnom Penh when I finished my high school. With the knowledge of English, I got a job as a counterpart of JICA in Kompong Spue province a year later. I worked with community in the rural areas of the countryside. I dug ponds, pump wells and built school buildings. I started learning a lot from children. Two years later, I had a job at the hotel in Phnom Penh. I started studying at the university while I was working at the hotel. With my salary I could spend on my study fee for four years.
I then applied for Family Care Cambodia Organization. I was employed by them, and they sent me here in Siem Reap in 2006. When I first came here, I found that the people who worked in the hotels, restaurants and organizations were not the local people. So I thought that I would start an English class for free to teach the children in Siem Reap. In 2009, I could work with some friends in Siem Reap. In 2010, I met Ryusuke by chance at the school that I taught for free. We have been keeping in touch with each other since that day on. In 2013, I met Boly and he told me that he had an English class for free. So we started to discuss the school. We then agree to work together till now.
Em Bunthoeun
ECCS Director