User:SalengTengneng/sandbox

The Coconut School is a private and non-profit school building project in Cambodia, also known as Rubbish School because most of the school's components are made up of waste. This school helps children who are not educated by the government because they do not have money to pay for school fees or the distance is too far from public schools. This school provides children with access to basic education. It was founded by Ouk Vanday in 2013. There are currently two Coconut schools. The first school is located at Koh Dach, also known as Silk Island, on the Mekong River inside Phnom Penh. The first school ownership was transferred to Sin Sonheng in 2017 to build the second school. The second school was built in 2017 which is located on the top of Kirirom Mountain in the Kampong Speu province. Both schools were built out of recycled material. The students do not required any payment, but they required recyclables to build more facilities in the school. At the beginning they had a budget of $5000 which can only build one classroom. Now that they has expanded into a campus with computer labs, library, coffee shop, playground, clinic, and tour guide department. Considering everything, this school is still in infancy, but they have new projects in the future. The school fund came from selling chickens, toys made from plastic and donation. The Coconut school teach in both English and Khmer. The program includes 4 subjects, English, Math, Computer and Recycling. The school vision is "Learn to think, learn to create". The goal of the school is Saving Children, Saving Planet, Care & Protection.

Mission
Their mission at Coconut School is to help children in their communities to be able to access to education, and technology by attending in free education programs with accessibility to basic healthcare, foods while studying. But there’s a complication, each student must participate in the “Trash to Tuition” program to attend the course, students are required to bring trash from their home and community to school so they can learn to recycle or repurpose it into more valuable things. The school is 90% built from trashes that students collects including library, classrooms, clinics, computer lab, and rubbish coffee.

They aim to provide education, healthcare, shelter, and technology to children in communities through "Trash To Tuition" program.


 * Saving Children - They believe all children have their right to get educated and live in a clean environment.


 * Saving Planet - They provides recycling course for children. The school is 90 percent built from trash, collected by students.


 * Care & Protection - They provides shelter, basic healthcare and hygiene, free education, and free meals while attending at their school campus.

School history
This school idea was conceived after Ouk Vannday traveled to Cambodia and saw the sights full of trash, this made him start up a project in Phnom Penh in 2013. Vanday hopes to live in Cambodia that cares about garbage. where plastic bags and bottles will not be left without a second thought. According to the Ministry of Environment, Cambodia accumulates 3.6 million tons of waste each year. About a mere 11 percent of all that trash is recycled. These are the everyday stories that inspired Vannday to startup a project, Coconut School, with support and donations from several volunteer teachers for children who cannot afford regular school fees at school.

A native of Battambang, 32 years old Vanday want to improve education with his skill for creativity and innovation. In 2013, the first Coconut School was built at Koh Dach. He saw how kids at Koh Dach travels to the nearest school, he sacrifice his time, energy, financial resources, to build classrooms and school furniture after. He collects beer bottles, plastic and other recycled materials. and turn them into something useful for the children who want to learn in Koh Dach. Students do not have any payment, not even teachers’ fee, but they do need to bring recycled materials to Vanday and help he keep the school intact and organized. In 2013, Vannday quit his job and start his school building project. At first, His purpose is to give the opportunity to learn computer skills and English to the children in the village. But Vanday is deeply concerned about the amount of waste produced and discarded in Phnom Penh every day. So he began to collect and build them in his school. He use waste to build the school because they are everywhere, and cheap but more importantly, he want to teach children's about recycling, so they can help the environment. Vanday believes that young people need learned about the environment to help clean Cambodia. They also need to experience sustainable activities so they can feel that they are making an impact.

Eighty percent of the waste used to build schools comes from the students themselves. Because they pay their monthly tuition in the trash, unlike other kids. Coconut School offers recycling courses to children. In addition to English and computer skills and they also learned how to recycle and create useful new things out of the trash that gave Vannday the ability to think and take advantage the most of waste. His school has been so successful that he has already begun to build another one that will also have its own computer room and a place for the children to stay, all of which would be made out of trash.

The first school is located at Koh Dach, also known as Silk Island, on the Mekong River inside Phnom Penh Cambodia and was open in 2013 caused by when Vannday visited Koh Dach, he saw a lot of children running around without clothes, and then he knew that there is no organization or church in their village so he started to think that would be good to have a school for children in this village because many children on the island not study to the government local schools. Vanday promoted his project on social media platforms to gather more support and making the school more sustainable. He informed people about his project and the the children who needed better education. With the help of the local children, Ouk Vanday builds the classrooms. Vanday also traveled to the United States of America to meet with the local governments and Cambodian community, getting help for Coconut School in Cambodia and give education to the Kirirom children. His school was so successful that he started building another one. After transferring the Coconut School at Koh Dach to Sin Sonheng in 2017, Vanday had to build another Coconut School at Kirirom Mountain.

The second school is located on the top of Kirirom Mountain in the Kampong Speu province and was open in 2017 for the establishment of the second school from Ouk Vannday saw the children at the mountain have to spend hours walk down the hills, just so they can get to the school and have education. This school is built from rubbish and helped many poor children by providing free English language and basic computer.

His concept: He don’t want any benefit. He want to see more Coconut Schools in Cambodia.

As for the origin of the name Coconut school from for the first lesson he doesn’t have any tables, chairs, and other study materials for students so he had an idea that takes advantage of the coconut trees that is around the Koh Dach, therefore, the name of the school became Coconut School.

School building
The school fence is made from recyclables and the Cambodia flag is made from plastic bottle caps. This school includes two main buildings. First is the English classroom and second is the Rubbish House which library and also the computer room, it built with green beer bottles. . The school pillars and roof which must support the weight and keep the classroom dry when it rains not made from garbage but almost everything else, classroom wall made of painted car tires, bamboo and recycled beer bottles , tables are supported by old motorcycle wheels, the seats are coconut tree logs , use cups of coffee to put pencils in and beer bottles to put flowers in and students gave their contribution by creating origamis and colorful figures to put on the ceiling. There are 3 facilities, cafeteria, student's dormitory and football field which goal net made from plastics bottles. There is a building called Plastic Museum which shows arts made from plastic and gains funds for the school. There is a coffee stand called Trash Coffee (Khmer : កាហ្វេសម្រាម) which you can get at a discounted price by donating books to the school, they also not allowed to use plastic cups. Many more buildings and classrooms were planned to be built in this school such as a multipurpose hall, kindergarten classroom, kitchen, toilet, and garden. Most of the trash used in school building come from the student, because they pay school fees with trash. The school's electricity supply is recommended to install solar panels. Emphasize recycling as a way to clean up communities and break the habit of burning garbage which destroys the ozone layer, and reducing garbage buried in landfills which contaminated the water.

Personnel
In the beginning, Coconut School accommodates over 200 children and 5 volunteer teachers.

At present Coconut School personnel work with both local and international volunteers. They have 2 full times teachers, 78 students with 7 to 16 age range, and 2 full times staff taking care of the facilities.