AsiaLIFE

Like so many Cambodian’s Muoy You’s life was wrecked by the Khmer Rouge regime, now she is helping to rebuild the country of her birth through a novel approach to education. Words by Johan Smits.

When Muoy You left Kampuchea in 1972 to study for her PhD at the Claremont School n Paris, she thought she’d be back in four years time. “When I left things were bad but not that bad,” she recalls. “However, watching the escalating news of the unrest and the war on TV made me very anxious. Then, in 1975, there was such widespread relief that the Khmer Rouge had seized power, we believed there’d be no more bloodshed, no more corruption. Although we knew Kampuchea was going to be a Communist regime we were ready to accept it and we were ready to come back.”

Along with her Khmer architect husband, Muoy applied for a Khmer Rouge passport in Paris to return to their homeland. While waiting out the lengthy process, to their delight the couple found that she was pregnant. By the time the official documents were ready, Muoy was too far pregnant to fly. She bid an emotional farewell to all her Khmer friends who were returning and vowed to join them later, with her child. She never heard from or saw any of them again. Later, when the brutal regime was finally ousted in 1979, Muoy found out that everyone in her family was dead apart from her sister.

Returning with a Mission

“I had always wanted to come back but I couldn’t because of my children and their education,” she says. “It was my intention before I arrived to help rebuild Cambodia.”  But just a few days after she arrived in 1997 there was a political unrest and all the expats were leaving. The airport was looted and Muoy lost all the materials that had been shipped over for the project. She flew with her children back to safety in France.

Years later, in 2003, Muoy returned to Cambodia. She founded her NGO Seametrey, a children’s school including a nursery, kindergarten and primary school. Muoy believes that the only salvation for Cambodia is through education. “I’m from a poor background but my children have been successful through education,” she says. But it is not just any old education that is needed.

“I didn’t want to start any school,” she says. “I wanted it to be a school of international standard. One where children are rooted in their own culture, but internationally aware.”

Integrated Approach to Education

A teacher by profession, Muoy believes that the children here are too much rooted in rote learning and are not taught how to take initiative. “But that is difficult to change,” she admits. “A certain driving force is needed. That’s why I seek participation from foreign parents.”

At Seametrey, Muoy wants a social and cultural mix of children, providing quality education to students of all backgrounds, Khmer and foreign, rich and poor. “It’s a self-sustainable project,” she says. “Children pay fees according to their parents’ income, ranging from nothing to relatively high fees for rich Khmers or foreigners.” There are currently 52 children at Muoy’s school, ranging from 18 months to 14 years. She has plans to expand the primary school but is lacking sponsors and would like to launch an appeal for this.

Problems with State Education

After having been through so many events, how does Muoy experience her home country? “On the one hand I see a lot of improvement,” she says. “Before there was a lot of hardship, no infrastructure, not much freedom and certainly no openness to the rest of the world at all. Now Cambodia is much more abreast of the world. But there is a moral decline. The gap between rich and poor is huge.”

For her the crying shame is that Khmer children are really bright. It is the approach to teaching and its quality that is a real problem. What is needed is support and direction. “This needs to come from the government and international organisations and NGOs. But they often seem to think that education is building schools whereas that’s only secondary,” she says. “We also need a lot of resources, human and material – children here have no books to read in Khmer, and also the translations are really poor.”

According to Muoy, the school curriculum is not bad, it’s the method of teaching that is weak. “Here there’s too much of a TV oriented society,” she thinks. “TVs are everywhere, even in government buildings and banks, dulling people’s minds and suppressing critical thinking. All the TV programmes do is spreading consumerism, but no education.”

Thirst for Knowledge

When Muoy went to school herself, Cambodia’s state schools were good. She explains how everybody went to the same schools, rich or poor, and that teaching jobs were highly regarded and well paid.  “Teachers had respect and enjoyed financial independence,” she says. “Now state schools are for the poor. We lack support.”

How does she see the future right now? “When I came here in 2003 I was really enthusiastic, but now I feel more and more disheartened and discouraged,” she says, “even despair because I don’t know where we’re going.” However, it’s not all doom and gloom for Muoy. “I notice there is such a thirst to improve oneself, for change and to build a better future, that’s why the country can lift itself up,” she says. “The Khmers are really resilient people. They’re keen, motivated and ready to work hard.”

If you want more information about Seametrey or how you can help, visit the website at: www.seametreycambodia.org