Quality Education

PRIORITY #2 – Improving Access to Quality Education (especially for girls and women)

Education is key to escaping poverty. Enrolment rates, length of enrolment and access to education for all, especially girls are all areas where we focus our effort and resources.

Coupled with increasing and sustaining enrolment, is a focus on ensuring access to nutrition – for energy and brain development.

And coupled with a focus on enrolment and nutrition, is supporting students to access school materials – we support students from lower socio-economic groups with essential school supplies and materials, school bags and school uniforms. We also supply bicycles to reduce the time taken to walk to and from school, which also supports better attendance.

Our programs, such as Rice Scholarships, have an attendance measure as a pre-requisite for the program.

Click here for more on our Rice Scholarships program.

For many years we have distributed reusable feminine hygiene kits made by Days For Girls Yarra Valley Chapter, and we are really proud of this partnership. Over the course of the partnership, more than 1100 sanitary hygiene kits were donated to high school students, new mums, and working women in rural areas of Cambodia.

In January 2022, due to increased demand for these essential products along with challenges in getting the kits to Cambodia, we developed a new program called “Srey Period Packs.” These packs contain washable pads, underwear, and soap – all in a discreet fabric bag.

In the future, our goal is to have the women from our SEW FARE – Social Enterprise make these in Cambodia. Not only will these kits prevent girls and women from missing school and work due to a lack of period products, but they will also create sustainable employment for the women of SEW FARE.

In addition, we support schools and kindergartens with classroom facilities such as installing electricity, ceiling fans, whiteboards, IT equipment and library books.

OFAAT Director, Tori Jackson is the lead for this Priority Area and can be contacted on tori@onefamilyatatime.org.au to discuss any ideas or offers of support.

Importance of Play

Children are naturally curious, right from birth, they are watching and feeling, listening, and exploring. Play is a powerful and important activity. It positively influences children’s social, physical, emotional, and cognitive development.

The best learning happens when children play, and we know that it is important to let children play every day. Children will find many things to play with inside and outside the home, whether it is playing dress ups, building with blocks, singing songs, telling stories, playing with containers or having fun outside with sand and water – play can and should be built into everyday routines and activities. Play-based learning environments encourage talking, reading, thinking, and writing.

In our work in Cambodia we focus heavily on improving access to quality education. We work closely with our outstanding partners in Cambodia, in particular, school, and health centres. We focus our efforts to align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals SDGs.

Some of the ways One Family At A Time supports play-based learning in Cambodia include:

inclusion of high quality, early childhood baby / infant toys in our First 1000 Days packs;
setting up and maintaining a play corner at the local health centres where we work (we find these toys need replenishing often and children take the toys home with them, which makes us very happy!);
providing age-appropriate educational toys and sporting equipment to families;
providing games, puzzles, toys and sporting equipment to schools and kindergartens in the villages where we work;
setting up and contributing to libraries at school and kindergartens in the villages where we work;
building playgrounds at the schools and kindergartens;
making sure that we don’t promote gender inequality by reinforcing gender stereotypes. We don’t give “girls toys” and “boys toys”. We just give toys;
over the years we have taken hundreds and hundreds of knitted teddies and these are a huge hit! They’re made with love and are light to take with us!

For more information on play see www.levelplayground.org.au

If you have good quality, preloved, lightly used toys such as blocks (e.g. Lego), small baby toys, sporting equipment such as balls and skipping ropes and wooden puzzles, that you’d like to donate, we’d love to hear from you!

English Classes
Aspire – Supporting Girls Through Education has been running successfully for several years with a group of 20 students (15 girls and 5 boys) receiving a range of comprehensive supports.

English classes are a key feature as it is well understood that having English language will greatly increase employment opportunities in the future, for these students. One Family At A Time employs a qualified English teach who is Cambodian.

Click here for more information on Quality Education as a Sustainable Development Goal:

Click here for more information on Gender Equality as a Sustainable Development Goal

Click here for more information on Reduced Inequalities as a Sustainable Development Goal