Background

Our aim is to provide care, education and vocational training to Cambodian orphans and the needy children of rural Cambodia and at the same time to build a network of support for impoverished children and families. Unlike traditional orphanages, BOVA’s services also support families to provide for their children in their homes, such as obtaining food and medical care. When we have the necessary funding we plan to purchase a plot of land so that we can move the orphanage and develop an expanded facility in the village of Samraong Khnong, an approximately 20 minute drive from Battambang city. Samraong Khnong was selected for several reasons: It is an impoverished rural village with a high proportion of orphans and poor children with no apparent guardians. As with most of rural Cambodia, few services reach Samraong Khnong. The majority of families generate income through subsidence vegetable farming. Medical care is almost non-existent. The village has a primary school and lower secondary school, although relatively few students are enrolled. An Upper Secondary School (high school) is located approximately five miles away but no children in the village attend. Children not enrolled in a BOVA program can come to our facility if in need and we will refer them to visiting foreign physicians daily to receive treatment for malnutrition, poor hygiene, dysentery, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other potentially lethal diseases, at no cost to the families. BOVA plans to support both children of the orphanage and poor children and poor families of the village of Samraong Khnong and other villages through four major programs: 1. Orphanage Program: Currently BOVA organizes foster homes for the orphaned children of the village. BOVA’s aim is to raise enough funds to buy land and to build their own orphanage so that in the nearby future an expanded and upgraded orphanage facility can offer shelter to more than 80 orphaned and abandoned children. 2. Supplementary School: A supplementary school will provide 7 additional hours of school per day with classes in English for different groups of students, according to the level of their knowledge. The school will be open to orphans and poor children in the village at no charge. At the moment we don’t provide meals in school yet, but when we have the necessary funding the school will also serve as a feeding center through the provision of school meals. 3. Vocational Center: A Vocational Center will provide skill training for older students to enable them to be economically self-sufficient when they leave the program. Options for self-support are especially important for girls, who have few economic perspectives and may be forced by economic necessity or by their families into marriage or prostitution. It is also our aim to link the vocational center to a variety of micro-businesses that will support BOVA programs and provide transitional support and jobs for students when they leave. 4. Health and Education Incentive Program: Modelled on the very successful Opportunities program in Battambang, small incentive payments will be offered for children attending school and receiving regular medical and dental care. Incentives for attending school will increase as children’s ages increase to encourage completion of school at higher grades. Amounts will be higher for girls to correspond with the disproportionate numbers of girls who do not continue past early primary grades. Since many children in the village do not have guardians, and many others are loosely cared for by relatives, BOVA will work to develop a model which will most realistically support families in the village in obtaining education and health care for their children. One possible model would be an account in the child’s name, with BOVA serving as banker.

Mission

Unlike traditional orphanages, BOVA’s services also support families to provide for their children in their homes, such as obtaining food and medical care. By doing this we hope to provide the children, which are Cambodia’s future, with the necessary skills to thrive in today’s fast-changing and complex society and as such to contribute to the further development of human resources in Cambodia. We believe that through proper care and education we can give the children the start in life that they really deserve and improve their quality of life.

Vision

Our aim is to provide care, education and vocational training to Cambodian orphans and the needy children of rural Cambodia and at the same time to build a network of support for impoverished children and families.

Goal

- Improving education by sending children to public school and by providing school supplies for the whole year. - High quality care for abandoned and orphaned children - Training: Our programs are designed to enable our students to become productive citizens. We take in orphans with little or no future and want to give them a chance of a better life. We know that a good education will broaden their horizons and move them into mainstream society and out of poverty