A Discussion with Sister Lakana, Director, Mother Mazzarello House, Battambang, Cambodia

With: Lakana Berkley Center Profile

May 24, 2013

Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, undergraduate Annie Dale interviewed Sister Lakana, director of the Mother Mazzarello House, in summer 2013. In this interview Sister Lakana discusses the house’s various programs, significant challenges her role presents, and Cambodia’s development issues.
Can you tell me what your position is? What is your job description?    

I am director of this center. The main work that we do here is literacy and sewing education for the poor girls. They are very poor, very poor. We help them and help the problem of trafficking because girls get trafficked to Thailand. We have been here for ten years already. In the beginning, we could not imagine this. The first girl we took, her mother was sending her to Thailand. She was selling her daughter, so we bought her for fifty dollars. Then she came to our house so that we could teach her. The very poor people here live just outside of the city, and a lot of the girls never go to school. They don't know how to write or read. A lot of the girls will be sold, so we came and met with the head of the village. We asked that all of them ask the young girls, “What would you like? We can help you.” They asked to study, so we now offer this school.    

So you said you do literacy and sewing. When students come to school here, how old are they?    

We take ages 15 to 24.    

Have they all dropped out of school already?    

Yes, they dropped out. Some of them finish the school here, but they may have passed grades already without actually learning. Last year we had grade 12, and they did not know how to write and read.    

So how do they pass their grades? Do they have to pay?    

No, they just did not have good teachers. Nobody wants to go into the poor villages to be a teacher, so they send bad teachers there. The government doesn't care.    

So if they are very poor, do they still have to pay for classes?    

Well, if you go to a school, you do not have to pay, but to have extra classes, you need to pay for that. If you don't come to the extra classes, you don't pass. You have to come to extra class and have to pay, so many children in the village don't have money. We have another program called Adoption. Here we help seventy children to pay for the extra classes.    

So adoption just means that you are supporting them in school?    

Yes, from when they are small until they have finished grade 12.    

Even when they are very young, do they still have to pay for extra classes?    

Yes, but less. But if they do not pay, we can support them. We buy the necessities for them four times a year. These include personal needs—cooking, sugar, milk, things that help the children. Anything for the children.    

So if the children are going to school, you still need to support the family.    

Yes, but our focus is to give them education and information about education. If we give them information, it helps them to be a good person and to look to the future.    

Are the families of these children supportive? Do they want their kids to go to school or to stay home?    

It depends on the case. Some really collaborate with us. Others are difficult because they don't see the importance of studying. Especially this year—many people run away and go to Thailand. That is a big problem. They run before they finish school because the family doesn't have anything. They don't have a way to tell us, either. They just run. If they ask, they know we will say no, so they run. We had seventy, now we have sixty—ten of them ran to Thailand. They don't say anything. The family does not see the importance of this. It is difficult.    

So what do you do to help them believe in the importance of education?    

We have to show them what it is about. We tell them, “You cannot think of right now. You have to think of the future. You need to try to get an education—it matters for everything.” We tell them what they should know, what they should learn. If someone really needs help, we give her more than the budget that we have. If one runs, then we give the rest of her money to another student.    

What is the benefit of going to Thailand?    

In Thailand, they can get a job. There they can work. They can get up to $10 a day, which is a big difference. Here you cannot get more than $5. $5 is the maximum. But there you can get $10. There is a big difference.    

In Thailand, do they welcome these immigrants or do they resent them?    

Yes, they want them to come. Now, the young people in Thailand have all finished university, so the workers are paid less, and nobody wants to work anymore. They need workers. They also have a large number of immigrants from Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. In Thailand, the workers are now all from these countries.    

And you are from Thailand? So why is Thailand so far advanced? You said that most of the children go to university in Thailand. So why is it so different here in Cambodia?    

Yes, because it is a difference in economy. Here, it is underdeveloped. They are very poor, and there is a big difference in the economies. We say that Cambodia is twenty years behind Thailand. Before Pol Pot, Cambodia was tied with Thailand. Now, it is twenty years behind. This is a big difference. I believe the problem of Cambodia is that the youth education system is too basic. If you have the knowledge, all the technology will come in. Someone who graduates from university here cannot compare with the Thai. It is very different. The Cambodians lack the basics. You go to university, but the knowledge is very different. They do not compare. They also don't know the language. I see this as a weakness.

What we now have in our program is what the government has asked us to open in the past ten years. Now, since 1992, we have had a center that is for young girls. We also started at the same time as the kindergarten, so we saw the importance of the younger children, too. We saw the importance of that program. There is a very big difference in the government kindergarten. The government came to us, and we determined the best way to promote the kindergarten. After that, in 2000, we started elementary education. We don't take the children from outside; we take our children from when they are small. Each year, step-by-step, we open new classes for the children. We go many years. We are now building the high school and placed the first stone last month.    

All girls or boys and girls?    

Mixed. The difference that I see since starting is that the Khmer people are intelligent. They are intelligent even though the system is not good, so you give them the best education you can. Many of the children should be in grade five when they come to us, but they take the exam and have to go to grade two. It is a big difference.    

So who gets to come to the school?    

We give priority to the poor and also to the girls more than the boys.    

So does the government give you any money?      

No, we receive no money from the government. I ask for all of the funds from outside, and the teachers are all volunteer students. So even though the students are all poor, we still make them pay something so that they are not destroyed. They feel good if they pay. They just pay about 500 riel for the materials. That is just one or two percent of the pay. We make sure nothing is free. We need to educate people, and to give people things for free is not good for them. They have to pay some—it gives them purpose. In kindergarten and elementary school, it depends on the family. We interview the family and go to see their situation. We ask them how much they can pay us, and we take it case-by-case. Each person pays something different—$1, $2, $3, or $5. They come to understand the value of the education. We have to help the poor, but they need to help themselves. We need to educate them and help them. We also need to educate the community about our vision and our mission. The community comes to know and appreciate the education now. We also build a relationship with the families of our students.    

So you now have from kindergarten to grade twelve?    

Yes, we teach them all, all of this with no help from the government. It is hard.    

Can you tell me about the sewing program? How did that start?

We started the program in Phnom Penh. I am a sewing teacher, so we taught them sewing. That is what I do. When I came, we started this program for the girls that come off the street. One girl just lost her father with Pol Pot and her mother went crazy because of the situation, so she just walked on the road, was homeless, was alone. She was one of the first girls we kept in our house. After that, we started with ten more in one room, and we taught them how to sew. These girls are now teachers here. Because we don't get help from the government, we need to train our own teachers. Our first teacher for the kindergarten was a girl from the sewing program.    

After the girls are finished with two years in the sewing program, what do they do? Do they get jobs?    

Yes, they get jobs. We take some of them to become teachers here, or can go get a job somewhere else. Some will work in our shop here. Even if they can’t get a job, we have given them an education. At least they can go back to their village and be a housewife. They have this skill.    

Do any continue to university?    

No, they just do training and get a job.    

And all of the girls that do the sewing live here. So why did they come to live here?    

Because it is too far from their house. Also, we would that they stay here because they also learn how to clean and cook and how to be a good person. They create so much activity when they are here. We have a program in the morning and in the evening when we go to sleep. We have a good morning talk and a night talk. We also have talks about the value of education. They receive an education three times a day. All of them have time for cleaning where we teach them how to prepare the house. They take turns cooking. They do everything here, and they learn more than they can at home. They receive more of an education.
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