I have just finished my week of running two Writing Through Cambodia workshops for two different high schools supported by Caring for Cambodia. These were two very different schools forty-five minutes away from each other, on completely opposite sides of the Siem Reap region. One school has teachers trained by CFC in a new beautiful building with an very engaged student body. The other school’s students are just as engaged, but their school is very much a rural public school, which means half days, learning by rote, and a very formal and hierarchical structure. But despite their surroundings, neither group had done anything like this before, and neither group believed they could ever write creatively in English, nor even think in the way I was asking them to think. But of course, they could, and they did.
The week ended in two magazines, two celebrations, and a great deal of emotion on both our parts. Hugs, many photos, some tears. I am almost as proud of them as they are of themselves — and rightly so. Here is an example for you:

      Education Change

           by the Aranh Class

Corruption changes the country

Technology, education

change us.

It’s good.

It improves our country.

It makes us feel

beautiful, happy, joyful,

delighted, peaceful.

Time changes life.

Growing, age

change us.

it’s not good.

it makes us better and worse.

it makes us feel

sad, unhappy, worried,

normal, excited, surprised, more experienced.

I love my family, not enough.

I love my country, until I die.

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