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The World of Difference Cambodia programme shows the difference education can make to the lives of young people in a developing country.

Aims:

• introduce some of the recent history of Cambodia, the impact of the Khmer Rouge, and the way governments can control people by stifling education and intellectual freedom
• present education as an important part of development work ­ and highlight how girls often miss out on schooling
• raise questions about who can be a global citizen and what such citizenship means
• explore how inter-connected we are with communities in different parts of the world
• open up discussion of our responsibilities as consumers to those workers in countries supplying us with goods and services

Synopsis:

Six sixth form students from Berkhamsted Collegiate School go to Cambodia to find out about education in the country and how their World of Difference will improve the prospects of 15 teenage girls.

They arrive in Phnom Penh and are struck by the vibrant street life and the exotic beauty of the place and the people. But Cambodia has a terrible recent history ­ the systematic repression of education and the intellectual class by the Khmer Rouge in an attempt to return the country to an agrarian economy. The students visit the Museum of Genocide and Killing Fields to find out more about these events.

Visiting these memorials helps the students to understand the importance of education to the people of Cambodia. The repression of the Khmer Rouge regime and the following years of war killed many people and stifled economic and social development. Cambodia effectively ’lost’ a generation and no family is untouched.

The students then travel to Kampong Chhang to meet the girls who will benefit from their project. The girls come from families with low incomes and, without the project, they would certainly have to leave school to find work. The project pays their school fees so they can finish their secondary education. It has also paid for the building of dormitories as many of the girls live in remote rural areas and could not make the long journey to school each day. To build a picture of education in the area, the group also visit a pre-school that has been given some funding for building improvements so that it can stay open all through the rainy season.

Curious to discover what opportunities are open to young women without an education, the students travel to meet some women who had to leave school early to work to support their families. Many have been forced to take low-paid work in garment factories, or as sex workers.

Finally the students visit the schoolgirls’ families to find out what they want for their children’s future.

Curriculum Relevance:

CITIZENSHIP

The programme will help pupils to think critically about their responsibilities as global citizens. The programmes include issues with a political, spiritual, moral, social and cultural dimension.

Students will get an insight into the rights, responsibilities and duties of citizens and the role of the voluntary sector. They will have an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of different ways of bringing about change at different levels of society.

Knowledge and understanding about becoming informed citizens
Pupils will learn about:

• the opportunities for individuals and voluntary groups to bring about social change locally, nationally, in Europe and internationally
• the importance of a free press, and the media's role in society, in providing information and affecting opinion
• the wider issues and challenges of global interdependence and responsibility

Developing skills of participation and responsible action
After watching these programmes, pupils will have the opportunity to:

• use their imagination to consider other people's experiences and be able to think about, express, explain and critically evaluate views that are not their own
• reflect on the process of participating

Background Information:

The education project in Cambodia is giving 15 young girls the chance to continue their schooling.

Education is critical in developing countries, giving children a chance to take control of their future and escape the cycle of continuing poverty. At the moment there are 115 million children around the world who don't even have access to basic primary education; 65 million of them are girls. The education of girls is vitally connected to issues of health and family, as well as a fundamental individual right.

The project is run by an organisation called PNKA - Phnom Neang Kanrey Association - which was set up by a group of teachers in 1994. They encourage girls to go to school, and at the same time work to change parents' attitudes to girls' education. PNKA has been working closely with Oxfam to help girls who drop out of school to go back and continue their education.

In the year 2000, governments across the world promised to get all children into schools by 2015. Cambodia has made much progress, but there is still more to be done - especially as students continue to drop out of school.

There is pressure on girls in Cambodia, in particular, to drop out because:

• it costs money to send them to school
• they could go out to work and bring small sums of money into their family
• the girls could alternatively be looking after their younger brothers and sisters so that their parents can work
• the schools are often quite far from the girls' homes so they have to find somewhere to stay

The project addresses these issues by:

• paying the girls' school fees
• working with the parents to show how the girls' long term prospects will be improved through education
• improving a pre-school that cares for the girls' younger siblings
• providing dormitory accommodation, food and living costs for the girls so they can live near the school during the week

Whilst they are in Cambodia the students visit a project run by Womyn's Agenda for Change. The organisation campaigns for, and supports, women who have been forced to take low-paid jobs in garment factories, or as sex workers.

Activities:

Discussion points

• What role can education help to play in a developing country?
• Why is getting an education more of a problem for girls?
• How can a country recover from such traumatic and destructive events as occurred in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge?
• How can women who find themselves forced to work in garment factories or as sex workers change their circumstances? Does it need the involvement of an organisation like Womyn's Agenda for Change? What can they do?
• What responsibility do we have in this country to help ensure all young people have access to a basic education?
• What can we do as consumers to change the circumstances of workers in countries that supply us with cheap goods and services?
• Is there anything we can do to help people who are exploited in low-paid jobs?

Tackling barriers to education

Ask students to find out more about children's lack of access to basic education around the world. There are a number of websites with useful statistics and background information, including Oxfam's at www.oxfam.org.uk

Invite students to focus on a particular country, finding out about the barriers to schooling and what the individual government is doing to tackle the problem. What action are charities and other governments taking to encourage progress there?

Once they have their basic background research, invite students to plan a campaign that will help to tackle the problem. They should consider the different barriers in turn and action that could be realistically taken to address the problems. For example, if lack of teachers is a problem then their first step would not be to run a marketing drive to encourage more parents to send their kids to school. Instead they would be planning a programme of training for teachers, possibly working with a charity to recruit volunteer teachers from overseas. If the problem is lack of school buildings, then their first steps would need to be different. If attitudes and perception are a major issue, they might want to focus on raising public awareness of the value of education, through a variety of different media.

They should also consider the issue of resources ­ what kinds of costs would be involved and how would the country concerned be able to afford to do this work? Would they be able to ask for overseas aid to help them?

Global fashion statements

Ask the students to investigate the contents of their wardrobes and the choice of clothes they buy on the high street to find out where they were made. Do they know which multi-national companies use suppliers in different countries? What are the working conditions in their factories and how does this relate to the prices we pay in the West? Oxfam's recent report 'Trading Away Our Rights' can be found on their special website www.maketradefair.com. The report gives lots of insights into the supply chain and the connections between our actions as consumers and conditions in factories and workplaces overseas.

You could ask students to put together a fashion catalogue that includes either drawings, magazine cuttings, or specially-taken photographs. Each picture should be labelled to include:

• the price of the clothes on the High Street
• the manufacturer of the clothes
• the place where the clothes are made and the wages paid to workers, along with details of their working conditions, and any other background information they can obtain
• the place where the raw materials are made or grown and the wages paid to workers, along with details of their working conditions, and any other background information they can obtain

Links:

This web page contains links to other websites that are not under the control of and are not maintained by Channel 4 Television. Channel 4 Television is not responsible for the content of these sites and does not necessarily endorse the material on them.

Oxfam

Phnom Neang Kanrey Association (PNKA)

Berkhamsted Collegiate School

Lonely Planet Cambodia

Credits:

Gambia
Director: Rosa Rogers
Producer: Karen Gilchrist
Camera: Zac Nicholson
Sound: Steve Anderson
Editor: Conal Percy
Additional Music: Da Fugitivz and Kairo Sounds of the Gambia

Cambodia
Director: Rupert Miles
Producer: Hilary Durman, Nancy Platt
Camera: Alan Duxbury
Sound: Andy Morton
Editor: Glenn Rainton

Bolivia
Director: Adrian Cooper
Producer: Karen Gilchrist
Camera: Anson Hartford
Sound: Rashad Omar
Editor: Conal Percy
Additional Editing: Tamara Maclachlan Series Music: Nick Harvey
Production Secretary: Sue Lampey
Executive Producer: Hilary Durman