We have recently received an update from United World Schools about the re-opening of our partner school in Keo-Ropov village. After a slow initial response, the Cambodian government brought in similar measures to those in other countries to control the spread of the Covid19 including a lockdown which included, from late March, closing all schools. Keo Ropov is a remote village in the jungle which makes it less likely for the disease to spread to the area, but more challenging for the villagers if there was an outbreak as medical facilities are extremely limited.

Similarly to here at RHS, Keo-Ropov school has now been able to re-open, but with restrictions in place. The school is small – one building with 3 main rooms and a covered outdoor space- which makes it hard for social distancing. As you can see in the photos the teachers are trying their best to work with this system (which includes only allowing pedal-bins!) although this means that the children can only come to school for 2 out of every 5 days, on a rotation. You can also see the familiar sight of the children using the newly-installed handwashing stations before being admitted to school. The reports are that the pupils are very pleased to be back and learning again, they love their school and were very sad to have had it taken away from them for so long.

Here at RHS our Cambodia group is working to put together a care package to send to our sister school. We will include our Lockdown Anthology, some RHS facemasks as well as personal letters and artwork to share. If you have any ideas about what else we could send then please do get in touch. We will continue fund-raising for our partner school, which relies entirely upon us for its upkeep, so please do look out for opportunities to support our work later in the term.