Natascha and Debbie Yogachandra with the Chief of Village in front of the Learning Center

Hope is Life Foundation collaborates with Cambodian Organization for Research and Development (CORDE) to build learning centers in remote areas of Cambodia to help children, families and society transform through literacy and empowerment, moral development and health programs. Early 2009, a new center was opened by Natascha Yogachandra. These Centers invite the children, youth and adult population to deepen their literacy ability and increase their power to express themselves and take social action to improve their standard of living.

A Farmer donated this piece of land to build the center

Natascha Yogachandra officially opened the Learning Center

Although the Kingdom of Cambodia is rich in natural resources, decades of war and internal conflict have left it one of the world’s poorest countries. The legacy of strife includes social and economic scars. During Khmer Rouge’s rule, it was estimated nearly two million Cambodians died of starvation, torture or execution. Two million Cambodians represented approximately 30 percent of the Cambodian population during that time. Many millions of land mines were sowed throughout the countryside, where millions of them still lie, hidden and unexploded.
Today, of Cambodia’s estimated 14 million people; nearly 42 percent live on less than US. 50 cents a day. Another 30 percent of the population is earning only marginally more than that. Infant, child, and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in Asia. Low spending on education perpetuates poverty, as children of poor families are forced to drop out of school making it harder for them to access opportunities as adults. Those who cannot afford the minimal educational fees, such as the 10,000 to 20,000 children living on the streets of Phnom Penh, do not go to school.
Two thirds of the country’s 1.6 million rural households face seasonal food shortages each year. Rice alone accounts for as much as 30 percent of household expenditures. Rural people are constantly looking for work or other income-generating activities, which are mainly temporary and poorly paid. Cambodia’s poorest people are isolated. They live in remote villages, far from basic social services and facilities. Many have to travel more than 3 miles (5 km) to reach a health clinic, and still others live more than 3 miles from the nearest road.

 Natascha gave a talk to the parents of the children in the village

Exterior of the Learning Center 

Responding to the devastation of Cambodia after years of war, CORDE has been working in Cambodia for many years with the mission to facilitate the transformation of communities through the education of individuals. It has been a challenge to bring poor Cambodians back from such a tragic upheaval of their nation and the complete disintegration of the family as an institution where love and trust died under brutal oppression, and a whole generation grew up with no understanding of what it means to have a loving family. According to CORDE, the only way is social transformation through education - to rebuild the foundation of families and community relations on which a nation can be built. The only way to build up education in the country is to help people learn to do it and sustain it themselves.