Education program

The education program of the PURE! Dream Centre aims to add to the personal and cognitive development of underprivileged children in the Kandek commune. By offering English classes, creative and hygiene workshops, sports, computer classes and living values classes children acquire a range of skills.

English classes

The objective of the English classes is to guide the students of the PURE! Dream Centre to the intermediate level of the English language. This will enable them to engage in day-to-day conversations, increasing their future chances on the labour market or benefitting them when running a small business.

Extra curricular activities

Extra curricular activities such as creative workshops, sports and games are organized by the volunteers of PURE! in order to stimulate the general development of the children. These activities are very important for children and help them to learn a lot of skills. Children learn to cooperate, what it’s like to lose and how you can deal with your feelings at moments like that.

Living values

Children in Cambodia are often affected by violence, social problems and a lack of respect for each other and the world around them. Many believe that an emphasis on teaching about values can play an important role in turning these alarming issues around.

The living values programme is a teaching philosophy that helps children explore and develop twelve key personal and social values: cooperation, freedom, happiness, honesty, humility, love, peace, respect, responsibility, simplicity, tolerance and unity. With use of different activities students are motivated to think about themselves, others and the world around them. These activities are designed to empower the children as well as to elicit potential, creativity and inner gifts. It helps children to develop personal, social, emotional and cooperative skills. Activities focus on self-esteem building, positive social communication, critical thinking, and artistic and dramatic expression. The living values classes are taught by the social worker of PURE!.

Social support

For the education program to be truly effective PURE! recognizes the need for social support to the children. As mentioned before the children of the PURE! Dream Centre are often affected by violence, alcoholism, abuse and other social problems. Cambodia is a country where people learned the hard way that keeping quiet and not talking is surviving. This makes that people are still not used to talk about their problems today and that children are raised to behave the same.

PURE! provides social support to the children of the PURE! Dream Centre at school and at home. The living values classes, taught by the social worker op PURE!, provide an important opportunity to talk with the children about the problems they face and provide an effective means of processing bad experiences and initiating change. All the information obtained about the children is documented in personal files of the children, which contain detailed information about their background, medical conditions, development and prevailing social en behavioural problems.

As mentioned it is also important to monitor the situation that these children face at home. Through regular home visits, the home environment of the children is constantly watched and recorded. Problems or issues that prevail are discussed during these visits with the parents of the child and a solution is sought together.