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Thank you hostelworld for our tuk tuk!

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We must say one more big thank you to the humansofnewyork readers who unexpectedly rallied around our crowdfunding campaign to help raise money for our new school. Our current situation is that we have an URGENT need to re-locate our school due to the lease not being renewed and we must find a new home by June 29th. We thank everyone with the deepest of gratitude for helping us to raise $2,826 - nearly 50% of our $6,000 goal. An example of the internet at it’s best!

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Thank You

We would like to acknowledge a very generous $2,000 (USD) donation that we received today from Chris Gale and Noel Boland and their wonderful donors at the Cambodian Charity Fund. We have a wide range of needs at present and we'll be applying this generous donation towards school equipment, community projects - building a community garden, assisting the local Ohm Phnom Toach primary school with some of their urgent needs and helping a few of our student's families by providing job opportunities through our new social enterprise. Just to name a few... We are truly grateful for this generous donation, though we still have more fundraising to do and could use additional support from our Sala Monkey friends. Please let us know if you would like to help.

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Our NEW academic schedule for 2014-2015 based on the National UK YR 1 - Key stage 1 Curriculum. We will have a morning schedule for grades 1-3 and an afternoon schedule for grades 4-6.

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First Day of School

Today was the first "official" day back to school for all of the primary students living in or near our village. Including 60 of our own students here at Sala Monkey.

The tiny state primary school has 5 classrooms, though only 4 are in semi-acceptable and safe condition for use - requiring the students to attend school on a rotating schedule. For example: Grades K-3 attend in the morning and grades 4-6 attend in the afternoon and the other portion of their day is spent here at Sala Monkey.

"I'm very proud to say that this marks the first year since I arrived in Cambodia and started teaching in the village, that all of our 60+ students are now enrolled in state school!"

This is a great accomplishment considering the battles that we constantly face with the families either not having the money to send the children to public school or a few of the children who simply do not wish to attend school any further because of the lack of support they receive

Anyone who's been following us on social media can tell you that my number one goal for the past 2 years has been 100% enrollment at state school and we are very proud of our students and their families for making it happen.

Additionally, It could not have been possible without the support of our generous sponsors who helped to outfit the students with the required uniforms, new shoes, book bags and equipping them with school supplies.

Miss Tracy

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Back to School Shopping!

Back to School shopping with 6 of our students. Total purchase: 6 uniform tops, 3 skirts, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of pants and 4 backpacks. We still have several other students to purchase uniforms for - these six students are from the first family that we will be helping. Siblings and cousins who all attend Sala Monkey.

The uniforms are for Cambodian public school and without our help in purchasing the school uniforms along with notebooks, backpacks, school supplies and snack money they would not be able to afford to attend school.

We would like to thank all of our sponsors who've donated in order to make it possible to send the kids to school. Your donations truly make a difference.

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We haven't officially launched our new social enterprise campaign for our Taco Tuk Tuk project yet and we've already exceeded our initial goal! Thanks to some really wonderful backers including Hostelworld.com who funded the entire project. The official launch will be held on November 6th when we have several partners who will be holding events and parties to benefit Sala Monkey Primary School. All donations over our initial goal will go directly to Sala Monkey for the operation and equipment needs of the school. More specifically... to purchase new desks, an LCD screen (for our Skype in The Classroom and use of The Khan Academy for mathematics and science) and two new desktop computers (we already have the new monitors) for the computing portion of our curriculum. Although we are building a social enterprise business it will realistically take a bit of time for to us to become self-sustainable in funding the school. If you're in Cambodia next week, please consider attending one of the events. If not, please consider sharing our update with friends and family or making a donation. Thank you for your support of Sala Monkey Primary School - Kep, Cambodia! https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/tuk-tuk-taco-for-sala-monkey-school-mad-monkey/x/8276368

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We are launching our tuk-tuk taco project on November 5th with the generous support of our friends at The Mad Monkey Hostels Cambodia.

Join us by hosting a fundraising event, sharing our project or making a donation. Our taco tuk-tuk project will give us the opportunity to create a social enterprise that will generate sustainable income in order to internally fund a significant portion of our operating budget and the funding needed to build our new school and learning center. It will also provide much needed employment opportunities for some of the mothers of our students.

Official campaign launch is November 5th!

Indiegogo: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/tuk-tuk-taco-for-sala-monkey-school-mad-monkey/x/8276368#_=_

Find out more... http://madmonkeyhostels.com/current/

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We had a special visit this past Sunday from some great friends.

(Top Photo)

Our new friend Jim is a world traveler, former sculptor for Walt Disney theme parks and humanitarian doing great work helping the Burmese people. Thanks to our friend Sothy for bringing him for a visit. Even though school was out on Sunday, some of the students dropped by to meet with our visitors.

(Bottom Photo)

Our friend, Her Excellency (HE), Sothy Tep is a native Cambodian who fled Cambodia with her family during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, re-located to America where she was raised and educated and eventually became a teacher in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Chicago. Just a few short years ago, she and her husband gave up their Western lifestyle when HE Sothy was elected as a member of Cambodian Parliament. 

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All girls math class today. If I had to say who the more attentive students are between our boys and girls, I would definitely tell you it’s the girls.

I'm pleased to see that so many of our young ladies are engaged with their studies. On one hand it shows progress. On the other hand…young girls living in rural Cambodia still fight the stereotype that a girls primary role at any age is to look after the family by way of domestic duties and childcare.

For example, we have a 6th grade (male) student who’s reading English at a very high level. His older sister (also a good student) is burdened with the majority of the domestic responsibilities with little time for additional study. She has not advanced to level that she is capable of yet, though we continue to work on it. The family still sees the young boy as the family member with the best chance for earning money to support the family.

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This is Liab. You might recognize her as the current cover girl for our Facebook page. She has made tremendous progress during the past few months and I was happy to receive a report from Teacher Lim that she's improved in both her Khmer language and mathematics studies. Liab is quite shy in the classroom and we must still ask her to speak at an audible level so we can hear her, but she has gained considerable confidence. Yesterday, I was very impressed to see her newly acquired math skills. Keep up the great work ohn. You make us very proud!

"Mistakes Are Proof That You Are Trying" ...and Succeeding! She misunderstood the assignment that she was working on here but with a one time clarification, she was able to self-correct her mistakes and complete the assignment with 100% accuracy! Trust me when I say that would not have been possible just a few short months ago.

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Pre-k student Klee drew a car sideways today. Klee is an amazingly gifted child. Of course all children have a gift, but Klee has an extraordinary mind. He also memorized the entire English alphabet in two days. Needless to say, we're excited to see what the future has in store for him.

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Preschool student Na using scissors for the first time. Focused and determined to get it right. Oh, and the furry guy...he's our new friend here at Sala Monkey.

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We had an awesome design brainstorming session with the BUILDING TRUST team today!

Although we have a pretty big (funding) goal to achieve in order to make our dreams of building a new school happen, we know it will happen! There's only 16 days left in our Indiegogo campaign and regardless of the campaigns success, we will continue seeking corporate and private partners in order to make our dream of building the new school a reality!

We are possible!

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I'm happy to announce that we'll begin a new curriculum here at Sala Monkey Primary School starting in the month of November. Our K-2 students will begin following the UK National Primary Curriculum (UKNC) for both early stage learning and Key Stage 1 (KS1) for Year 1 students (ages 5-7). The UKNC is a vigorous curriculum and will allow our students to access a well structured and easily assessed range of key subjects. The students will participate in an "engaged pedagogy" allowing them to take the lead role in their own learning. Additionally, we will utilize a portion of the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) which encourages an active learning environment as well. The IPC is a unique curriculum by way of its use of themes to encourage creative thinking and hands on application. http://www.greatlearning.com/ipc/the-ipc/units-of-work The new curriculum will be limited to grades K-2, due to our limited resources and funding. Once we are fully funded and in a position to open the new school and learning center, we will be in a position to offer the curriculum at all levels. *Note: We will make a few minor adjustments to the curriculum. The geography learning segment will have a local focus specific to Cambodia and the religious education will be omitted.

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More photos from the Sala Monkey Rural Library Project design session with the young ladies of the architecture firm of "Mao, Mall and Pin." *Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it and wouldn’t that be something? An all female owned architecture firm in Cambodia. Dream Big!

If you would like to help sponsor a rural library, please visit http://salamonkeyschool.tumblr.com/library