Samaritan's Purse is helping an entire community surrounded by unexploded landmines with water wells, sanitation and a school for their children

What is the need?

Cambodia's poorest children literally risk life and limb trying to walk to school through minefields in Poipet, infamous as the country's `Wild West'. They're that desperate to get an education, to escape the crime and poverty that swamps their urban slums.

Poor, unskilled, illiterate and landless Cambodians have been flooding into Poipet from all over the country, hoping to earn an honest living from cross-border trade with Thailand. Instead, they end up as squatters in a hotbed of human trafficking, drug trade and abuse, political violence, crime, alcoholism, domestic violence, bribery and extortion, and violent land disputes. Here, life is cheap.

Among the 11 villages in Poipet is one with nearly 3,000 residents called Toul Prasat. Their story is typical: after authorities forcibly evicted them from their slum communities to make way for wealthy landowners, the villagers were dumped in an area far away from the border where they earn their living. Their new location denies them access to an income and water, and is also heavily mined -- a legacy of Cambodia's violent past, still waging war on innocents today.

With 455 children aged 6 to 12 years, one of Toul Prasat's biggest needs was a new school. All they had for schooling was a 2-room thatched hut, so cramped that most students had to camp on the ground outside to study and many could only attend for half the day, missing out on valuable instruction.

Worse still, many students unable to squeeze into this tiny hut had to seek education elsewhere, walking great distances through fields still infested with hidden landmines, ready to explode, maim and even kill -- at the touch of a human foot.

How have we helped?

Most recently, Samaritan's Purse has constructed a six-room concrete schoolhouse in Toul Prasat.
· Each schoolroom accommodates up to 40 children.
· We've furnished the rooms with blackboards, desks and chairs for teachers and desks with benches for students.
· We've also built 4 latrines nearby for school use.
· The new school has attracted the help of the government, who will provide the teachers.

Samaritan's Purse has been actively helping in this region since March 2005, after 176 families were forcibly removed from their land in Poipet. Five people were killed and three seriously injured when military police opened fire on hundreds of villagers protesting their forced eviction from a disputed plot of land near Poipet's luxurious casino strip. Their houses were burned and destroyed, possessions stolen, and numerous villagers injured and arrested. Samaritan's Purse immediately responded to assess the extent of the situation and provided emergency materials to the community.

In November 2005, we surveyed Toul Prasat villagers and identified their top five priorities as wells, road construction, a school, a health centre and latrines.

So far, Samaritan's Purse has provided 13 wells, a new school, several latrines, and training for 210 people on the health benefits of clean water and good hygiene and how to properly care for the wells.

How it's changing lives:

Providing the school:
· Students who were attending school under harsh conditions now have a school that's much more conducive to learning.
· Students can now attend for the entire day, benefiting from extended instruction, equipping them for better job prospects in the future.
· Most importantly, children will also avoid the dangerous trek to other schools via mined fields.
· Parents have a better, safer, cleaner school environment for their children.
· Finally, this project has increased goodwill with community leaders, opening up possibilities for continued cooperation with future projects.

By providing wells, latrines and training on hygiene the overall health of this community has been greatly improved. Easy access to clean water reduces disease and increases disposable income as wages no longer need to be spent on medicine or clean water.