A visit to the Smiling Gecko Campus
Here is Cambodia's future
Our new Head of Communications was in Cambodia for the first time in his life to visit the Smiling Gecko Campus. He returned highly motivated and brought us this little report.
It’s mid-June. Rainy season. It is hot. Very hot. The Mitsubishi that picks me up has seen better days. At least it has air conditioning and I can relax in the back seat while the driver struggles through the chaotic traffic. The journey from the airport of the capital Phnom Penh first passes huge clothing factories whose architecture is more reminiscent of pig farms and endless ruined buildings, mostly foreign investors who wanted to make a quick buck here. No luck, as run down as everything seems here. Then, closer to the campus, the area becomes more rural. Rice fields can be seen, the simplest houses and poor huts. Garbage is flying everywhere. No question: The people who live here have to fight a harder battle than against the ubiquitous plastic waste.
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Finally we arrive on the campus. As soon as you drive through the gate and the disinfection system, you notice: There is no rubbish lying around here! The first houses that come into sight are made of brick instead of corrugated iron and look well-kept. Friendly people with open faces nod as we drive by. Take a deep breath.
The building on the right must be the accommodation for the employees. Most of the foreign teachers and the trainers in the individual areas live here in simple, functional houses.
The journey continues. On the left is the carpentry shop with its wood storage. The buildings and ponds of the fish farm now extend to the right. People in overalls and straw hats stand on the footbridges that run through the pond: it’s feeding time for the Nile perch, which are fattened here for their own use and for sale!
A little further along from the water towers and greenhouses the Farmhouse Resort is reached. The wonderful hotel complex, is the largest training facility on campus with its fine restaurants and a spectacular spa. A paradisiacal place that at first glance doesn’t really seem to fit into this area. But the opposite is the case. Because the resort is so good, it also brings in the most income. Income that will hopefully soon be sufficient to support itself and that must and will also contribute to the financing of the project in the long term.
And the school? It’s on the other side of the street that bisects the 150-hectare campus. The land was later purchased and, in addition to the school and kindergarten, also houses the solar field, most of the vegetable cultivation areas and the cattle stables and pasture land.
So the school. The core. 15 buildings with currently 18 classrooms and sanitary facilities, including showers. Then there is the impressive school canteen, which is already dimensioned for the final size of the school with around 1,000 children. Next to it is the laundry, and the Health and Dental Clinic, which houses the campus nurses’ room as well as the dentist’s treatment room. A generous donation from the University of Zurich.
It’s meal time and the kids are flocking towards the canteen. Orderly in rank and file and, thanks to their differently colored school uniforms, it is easy to assign to the individual years. It’s civilized. Cheerful but not exuberant. That probably wouldn’t be appropriate either. If you consider that for most of the children the food from the large kitchen is the only thing they get to eat that day. Because at home, off campus, poverty reigns. Bitter, all-determining poverty. That leaves you speechless. But that also drives us at Smiling Gecko. Because we are convinced that with our campus we are creating what this wonderful country deserves most: a future!
