There is nothing like the experience of travelling for 40 hours, arriving at my hotel in Cambodia and getting greeted by smiling students, many whom I’ve known for five years or more. It’s always an emotional meeting, similar to seeing distant relatives you actually want to visit every year. We take lots of photos and videos, exchange the traditional Khmer greeting or the sampeah and occasionally I get a western style hug. These are the hard-working scholarship students of The Savong Foundation Cambodia and I make a yearly trip to see them, see how they are doing and pay their school fees for another year. It’s always a busy two weeks but these students are worth the time, the effort and the expense.
The Savong Foundation Cambodia is now in its 13th year, and we have very dedicated and generous supporters to thank for that. Our philosophy has always been to support a small number of exceptional but financially underprivileged students and focus on paying for tuition and sometimes living expenses if they can’t live at home or with relatives. We encourage our students to pursue professional careers which will not only benefit them but also benefit their families and inspire others around them to do the same. All the years of hard work have paid off and we now have students studying medicine, nursing, pharmacy, engineering, architecture, finance, hospitality and tourism and business management. We’ve had successful graduates in law, accounting, teaching, marketing and global affairs. Without assistance, these students would spend a lifetime working in the fields or markets with no help of a better life.
I still remember the first day I met Sokpha. She was terribly shy, and her English wasn’t very good. She didn’t smile and when we took our photo together, she stood awkwardly next to me. She came from a small village near the Vietnam border (that’s a long, long way from Siem Reap). This was in 2017 and her father is a farmer who made $60/month. Her grades were excellent however and despite the lack of communication, I felt like she had ambition and a scholarship from us was a way to transform her future. A couple of days later, we gave her the exciting news that we had accepted her application and we put her in a private school in Siem Reap to give her the best education we could get. She had a tough time in high school but persevered and passed her Grade 12 government exam. We were very happy when she decided to move to the big lights of Phnom Penh which is a huge step from her village where she grew up. She studied linguistics for two years and then decided to take the medical entrance exam. This isn’t an easy exam, but she passed that and is now studying to be a midwife at The Health Science Institute of RCAF in Phnom Penh. This is truly a remarkable accomplishment coming from such a poor background. Now every time I see her, she is smiling, her English is much better and she beams with confidence. Future looks bright indeed.
Rathana has a similar background. Her parents are vendors in a night market earning roughly $300/month in Siem Reap. When we took her on as a scholarship student in high school, her dream was to study in Phnom Penh and become a pharmacist. There was no way that her family could support this dream when the requirements for study didn’t allow for a part-time job and the yearly tuition is $1400, not including living expenses in Phnom Penh which can be roughly $200/month. Her grades were consistently at the top of her class, and it was no surprise that she passed the entrance exam and is now studying pharmacy at the Health Science Institute of RCAF. Currently, we are helping to pay her monthly living expenses (the balance is paid for by the parents) and we have given her a full tuition scholarship. Pharmacy is five years of study so she has a long road ahead, but we will do everything possible to see her through till graduation.
I often joke that the most difficult part of running The Savong Foundation Cambodia is flying in economy for a 17-hour flight. And that only gets me from San Francisco to Singapore. There are two other flights, before and after this big flight, to get me to my destination. Truthfully, the most difficult part, as with most nonprofits, is the money to keep everything going. As a veterinarian in my daily life, I think it would have been easier to raise money for starving dogs than to raise money for scholarship students in a country that many people couldn’t find on a map. Thankfully, we have had the generosity of iHerb.com which has stood by and supported our students for many years. Most of our money comes from either monthly donations or one-off donations from the public. For those supporters who are interested, we pair them up with a student so they can follow the student’s progress and keep in touch. In return, the student makes a thank you video once or twice a year and of course, studies as hard as possible. Perhaps the most surprising part of the foundation is that education in Cambodia does not come cheap. High school tuition (including school supplies which we provide) comes in at roughly $100/month for the more senior grades and university tuition at a professional school can be $1200 to $1600/year which doesn’t include the $200/month for living expenses which we sometimes provide. We are always looking for more sustainable ways to finance the foundation (and having graduating students support our current students is part of that plan) but in the meantime, we are always looking for donations to fund our scholarship program. It doesn’t matter if it’s $20 or $2000, you can be assured that it will be put to good use with very minimal overhead fees and since we are a 501(c)(3) in the United States, your donations will be tax deductible. And of course, if you would like to sponsor a specific student, that can certainly be arranged too. Please check out our website www.savongfoundation.org for various ways to donate and I thank you in advance.
The Savong Foundation Cambodia will continue its mission to improve lives in 2025. On this last trip, we only selected one additional student, Vannak, and will focus on our current roster of students as more of our high school students enter (expensive) university programs. I would like to thank our only staff member, Rathana, who manages to keep in touch with the students both in Siem Reap and in Phnom Penh and make sure that I pay all the tuitions on time. He also keeps me busy during my two weeks in Cambodia but of course, there is always time to sneak away and see a remote temple of two. It’s a cliché to say but we couldn’t do this work without YOU. We hope that you visit Cambodia if you haven’t already and if you have, you know what they mean when they call it the Kingdom of Wonder. It’s a remarkable place filled with people who appreciate the help that we give them. There will be a time when the foundation will be a completely Khmer organization but for the time being, I’m very proud of what we have accomplished and look forward to where we are headed.
Orkun!
Phil Caldwell
CEO The Savong Foundation Cambodia