Sharing Computer Technology Knowledge to vulnerable

kids

A group of Taiwanese computer science

students flew from Taiwan to a poorest
Cambodia province Kampong Speu for
spending full four days teaching computer
technology to orphans and other vulnerable
children who receive sponsorship and under
special care through Sao Sary Foundation.

SSF is an organization working to prevent and

respond to violence, exploitation and abuse
against children – including commercial sexual
exploitation, trafficking, child labor and
harmful traditional practices, such as female
genital mutilation/cutting and child marriage.
SSF’s child protection programs also target
children who are uniquely vulnerable to these
abuses; such as when living without parental
care and etc. Violations of the child’s right to
protection take place in every country and are
massive, under-recognized and under-reported
barriers to child survival and development, in
addition to being human rights violations. Children subjected to violence,
exploitation, abuse and neglect are at risk of death, poor physical and mental
health, HIV/AIDS infection, educational problems, displacement, homelessness,
vagrancy and poor parenting skills later in life. Read more at www.ssfcambodia.org

While there are many NGO’s and other aid groups that focus on helping people who have been
victimized by human trafficking and sexual exploitation, SSF is special in the fact that it seeks to
identify children at high risk for being trafficked in the communities where they live, in order to
prevent them from being exploited in the first place. More information about unique values of SSF can
be reached at http://ssfcambodia.org/index.php?page=ssf-unique

Papaya Chen, Marcos Chen and Cipher Kuo are the fourth year students at
Computer Science and Information Engineering of Fu-Jen Catholic University
(www.csie.fju.edu.tw). The training is started from 15-18 February, 2010 aiming at
sharing computer knowledge and skills as well as introducing computer hardware
and its assembling is one of the major topics.

SSF began its Computer Education to vulnerable children in Kampong since early
2008 with several desktop computers that donated by Vichetr Uon, Founder &
Executive Director of SSF and partial financial support from Global Colors and
Riverkids. Even though, so far SSF doesn’t have enough computers, printer, chairs
and desks while this organization has over 60 students are eager learned. Recently
numbers of desktop computer for computer class are increased into six [6] which
are possible to divide three students per computer in a session. The two previous
old computers were broken down one month before we received four sets donation
from a generous Chinese-Malaysian donor, Mr. Kswong.

The mission of SSF’s computer skills training Project can be summed up as, “increasing awareness of
the role of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the Cambodia’s Poorest Communities.” By
giving children from poor rural backgrounds increased access to computers and information
technology, SSF has sought to reduce the discrepancy between the quality of education between rural
and city students.

Lack of computer proficiency is one of the main problems that prevent rural children from being able
to attend college, where computer skills are a must. The fear is that at children from poor rural
backgrounds will fall too far behind to catch up to students with access to higher quality education,
effectively barring them from the chance to ever attend and graduate from college, SSF Director
stressed.

Papaya, Marcos and

Cipher spend four hours
per day to teach two
different classes in the
morning and afternoon to
those SSF beneficiary
students. Morning class is
starting from 7.30AM
while afternoon is from
14PM. They hope by the
end of the four-day long
course, those attendees
will uncover the inside of
the computer plus better understanding of the computer fundamentally.

SSF is looking toward partner with any private donors and other funding partners to
expand its computer class with sizing class, desks, chairs and number of computers
into at least 15 sets. A set of brand name computer could buy at US$550 while
clone or used can be bought from $320 per set. All intended donors or partner can
contact directly to SSF via info@ssfcambodia.org