A picture of our current students and some of our graduates with my wife Ruth Gastle, Co-Chair of CLEW, on December 13th, 2014 at the official opening of CLEW’s new dorm in Phnom Penh.
International Micro-charities usually begin with a chance meeting and this is how CLEW began. The question is recognizing the need and opportunity when it presents itself and making the decision to make the commitment to help.
Cambodian Legal Education for Women (CLEW) arose out of a project that I was doing for the Ministry of Commerce in Phnom Penh. In December, 2007, Bennett Gastle committed at a Christmas party to begin supporting female students from the provinces. In August 2008, Ruth and I met Marnie Ryan, the head of the English law program at the Royal University for Law and Economics (RULE). Marnie told us that she was supporting a number of female students from the provinces but had no funding, apart from some contributions from her friends. USAID had turned her down. She arranged for us to meet the students and within an hour we were introduced to six students and it was the program that we had envisioned come to life.
The first day of what was to become CLEW, September 4th, 2008
After speaking to Elizabeth (my law partner), we sponsored a student immediately, two by the end of the day, four by the time we left and five by the time we got home. The cost was about $1,200.00 USD per student each year. We increased the number of students in 2009 to I think about ten students.
The breakthrough occurred in November 2009 when I finally convinced Elizabeth to travel to Cambodia. I told her that if she went to Cambodia she would never look at the world the same way ever again. She met the students in Cambodia and they made quite an impression on her as they do on anyone who meets them. The following March she decided that we would set up a registered charity and take over funding the entire program. She was back in Cambodia in April, 2010 making the arrangements.
CLEW has been a tremendous success. Currently, we have had 52 students in our program, with 26 graduates, 24 students currently in the program and two students who have dropped out. We pay for their tuition, books, English lessons, their room and board, a living allowance, computer access and healthcare. We are now paying about $1,700 USD per student per year.
Our students are from poor families from the provinces of Cambodia who otherwise would not be able to afford an education. Initially, they were identified by USAID and U.S. Peace Corps workers. Plan Cambodia now identifies students for us along with KAPE (Kampuchean Action for Primary Education), a domestic charity that supports girls in high school and provides some of them with scholarships to attend provincial universities.
The change we see in our students is remarkable, from the shy young girls that start the program to the bright, confident women that graduate from our program. Our graduates are working in a variety of jobs from working at the Council of Ministers (Cambodia’s Federal Cabinet), a women’s resource center, in advising on land claims registration, and Manulife, among others. The students generally are in the top 25% of their classes, and they do well on government examinations when competing for government positions. Our students also become role models in their communities, encouraging parents to keep their daughters in high school and to find ways to send them to post-secondary studies.
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In November, 2014, we leased a new dorm that is light years better than where the students were living before. From communal rooms where a large number of students slept and worked and studied, there are now bedrooms with no more than four students per room and separate library, classroom and dining areas. They also have a roof-top patio that provides a great place for them to relax with a nice breeze.
CLEW students touring the new dorm for the first time, November 2014
It has not been all smooth sailing. We have encountered many bumps on the road. But we are in this project for the long term, with the dorm providing stability for CLEW for the next eight years. Personally, I can’t wait until we have 100 graduates.
In future posts, I will review with you the various lessons that we have learned along the way. I hope that our experiences will inspire you if on your next trip to the third world you find a project that badly needs your help. Let this blog be part of your roadmap to establishing an international micro-charity like CLEW.
Chuck G.