It has taken eight years of hard work and determination, but the founder of ABCs and Rice in the city of Siem Reap in Cambodia is finally seeing the fruits of her labours.
Not that the hugs, giggles and smiles from the children to whom Sudburian Tammy Durand Pomroy teaches English every day isn't payment enough. However, thanks to ABCs and Rice, a number of children in the village are becoming chefs, business managers and doctors.
“This is the first really big year we are seeing the fruits of our labours,” Durand Pomroy said, via a phone interview from Cambodia. “We have two kids who have graduated from vocational training. One is a chef, and the other is a hotel manager. We have two kids in medical school, one in their first year, and the second in their second year.
"We have kids training for chef school right now, and another training in a double major of English literature and international development with the intent of becoming a translator.”
Last September, Durand Pomroy set up ABCs and Rice's first kindergarten class. Two months ago, she set up two new beginner classes and invited another 40 children between the ages of eight and 14 who had never been to school a day in their life.
“It's just really cool, because every day is full of smiles and giggles and a love of learning,” she said.
Getting to this point has been a long and arduous journey, she said.
Holiday transformed
It all started with a vacation. At the time, Durand Pomroy was working in logistics with ProNorth Transportation. She had planned a vacation that included a tour of Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
In Cambodia, she was supposed to spend three days touring temples. Instead, she spent three days playing with children of the village. When those three days were up, she said she couldn't get back on the tour bus, and spent the remainder of her vacation there.
“There was an ad in the hotel we were staying in, where we could volunteer for an afternoon,” she said. “That turned into a full day, which turned into two days, then three days, and then I just dropped out of the tour group the day the bus left.”
It was a life-changing experience, and the catalyst for what would eventually become ABCs and Rice. When she got home to Sudbury, she decided she needed to get back to Cambodia and make more of a difference in the lives of the children there.
“By the time I got to my mother's house, I asked her if I could stay there, quit my job and raise money, because I felt I needed to go and do something right away,” she said.
A school is born
She said she parked herself in front of every grocery store that would allow her to stay, and showed people pictures of the children she had helped. She also threw a party in Capreol to raise funds, then biked from Capreol to Sudbury, stopping at pretty much every coffee shop seeking donations.
“I promised everyone that, even though I didn't know what I was going to do with their money at that time, it was going to be put to good use, and that I would keep them posted,” she said.
She managed to raise about $3,000, but she needed more, so she sold everything she had on Kijii.
“I got on a plane with the intention of staying here for three months,” she said.
She spent the three months volunteering at a school and orphanage, where she established a breakfast club for kids to eat and to send rice home for their families to eat. She helped buy a cow for a local village close to Siem Reap, and she built a gate and established a child protection policy at the first school at which she was volunteering.
When she was about to leave, she was approached by a woman in Siem Reap who told her she had done so much for children in other communities, but not Siem Reap. The woman offered her land, and it was a deal Duran Pomroy couldn't pass up. With less than $300 left from the money she had raised, she was able to build a bamboo hut on that land, and ABCs and Rice was born.
“By the end of that first week, we had too many children to fit in that one hut,” she said.
Rice is the paycheck
It's called ABCs and Rice, because one of the first problems Durand Pomroy experienced was the children stopped coming.
“I was heartbroken, because I didn't know if I had been doing something wrong,” she said. “I was told the children couldn't afford to come to school, even though it was free. What I learned was the families depended on their children to work. When they were at school being kids, learning and having fun, they weren't helping to support their families. So we decided we would make going to school their job. Rice is the family paycheck.”
It was thanks to generous people who were visiting the village that Durand Pomroy was able to make it affordable for children to attend her school. It started off with a very small amount of rice, but now each kid goes home eight kilos of rice.
“It's a proud day for them,” she said. “It's their pay day for learning. We have cute little backpacks made out of rice sacks, and each backpack is filled with rice they take home to their family.”
Every student of ABCs and Rice, as well as their siblings who are too young to attend school, receive breakfast each day. They all now receive dental and health care, as well.
“Students were missing school because their parents were dying from silly things people should never die from,” she said. “One student's mother died from kidney stones, and it was a simple $300 operation. So we started supporting families with medical expenses, and if we couldn't afford it, we would raise the funds.”
She also quickly realized that, while it was great these kids were being taught the English language, if they wanted to go on to higher education like university, they needed a government school diploma.
“Now we have 220 kids who go to government school half the day, then ABCs and Rice for half the day,” she said. "They eat breakfast and lunch, they go to the dentist, they go to the doctors, they play soccer — they now have a really well-rounded childhood.”
Her husband, whom she met in the community, provides a free soccer clinic to any child wishing to play the game. Together, they have adopted three children of their own. Durand Pomroy also maintains a part-time job to supplement funding for ABCs and Rice.
People pitch in
She said she owes much of her success to the kind-hearted people who have come to ABCs and Rice to volunteer their time. Almost from the very beginning, people have been contacting Durand Pomroy from all over the world offering to help. Her first volunteers were two girls from the UK visiting Malaysia, who said they had heard about what Durand Pomroy was doing, and offered to come and help out.
“I think everyone has an innate desire to do something good, but they just don't know how or where they can do that good,” she said.
“We're in a tourist community, and we meet a lot of people passing through who are inspired by what we're doing, and they come and help. We've had teachers come to volunteer to build curriculum, and a nutritionist who came with us to design a food program that offered nutritious meals on a budget. We've even had people come and help us establish a farm that supports our food program.”
She said Sudburians have been supportive of her efforts, even though it's half a world away. She's excited to get back for the April 6 fundraiser.
“I land in Toronto on March 29, then it's straight to Ottawa where I'll present at a few schools,” she said. “Then I fly to Sudbury on April 1. I'll get a bit of time with family. It's hard being away from everyone for this long.”
She said there are still a lot of people who don't know what ABCs and Rice is or where it is, and, of course, there are a lot of people who believe charity starts at home.
“I just think everybody should do something to make the world a better place, and for me, it was these children. Seeing what they were going through broke my heart, and helping them mended it.”
Organizers of the fundraiser are still looking for sponsors and donations for the silent auction. If anyone is interested in donating or purchasing a table for the evening, tickets are available by calling Lindsey Kilgour at 705-626-8081, Sharon Terada at 705-507-5346 or Jennifer Durand at 705-822-4002. For more information, email [email protected] or [email protected].
