Breakfast report: delicious avocado sandwich and excellent coffee at the D’Ath Garden Cafe on the Catholic Prefecture compound set us up for a morning visiting two centres catering for special needs students.
The first, Paloma Hostel, will be familiar to many who have visited Battambang. Residents here have a range of disabilities both physical and mental, but all are getting on with normal life, study, sports, social activities etc. A very happy and supportive place.
The second centre was Battambang Special Education High School specifically for deaf/blind students, established by the government but with significant input and cooperation from the Catholic Prefecture.
Both these long-standing initiatives are helping enormously to raise public awareness and the necessity of provision for PoD (Persons of Disability) and encourage integrate into mainstream society.
The day ended with a lovely evening at Tep Im Student Center, a residential hostel for university students. A delicious meal cooked by the students (with ice cream – thank you Maria) was followed by an hilarious half hour of group conversation: the students speaking in English definitely bettering the guest of honour labouring in Khmer!
Before the meal, I (Maria was unfortunately indisposed) had the great pleasure of meeting three of our six Vocational Training students: Seng Hoan, Sok Meng and Channy and chat to them about their study and how the Bob Maidment Education Fund is helping them shape their futures.
We hope to be able to follow them via social media as they progress through their 2 year course in Electrical Engineering.
A big thank you to all the Tep Im students for their friendly welcome, their happy faces and for sharing their stories.
PS: Karuna was a great hit .. again!
You can keep up to date with Katie and Maria’s visit to Cambodia right here on this website or on our Facebook page.
