We are excited to share that we are now able to help educate our students all the way through middle school! For the past year, we have been working with our long-time partner, Global ADE, toward combining forces and bringing Global ADE and Stephen Mazujian Middle School (SMMS) under Spitler School Foundation management. Many Spitler School graduates attend SMMS, and we are so happy we can now stay with our students a few more years in their education and watch them grow.
  
We welcome all of you who supported Global ADE Founder, Kenny King, and Global ADE, and we hope that you will continue your generous support of SMMS and Global ADE’s mission through the Spitler School Foundation. Please, feel free to contact us directly with any questions or thoughts on this merger. We would love to share with you all about it. If you want your donation to be designated to SMMS, you can write a note indicating so through the Donate button on our donation page. 

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COVID-19 and Cambodia

Of course, we are concerned for all of our staff and students in Cambodia. The government ordered all schools closed a few weeks ago, and as early as January 27, our staff was distributing masks and training our students on preventative measures. We are hoping that the early measures will be effective in protecting our staff and students.

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Thank You For Your Support

Thank you, everyone, for the generous financial support you provided at the end of 2019. We sincerely appreciate your ongoing support as we continue to educate our elementary school students at Spitler School and begin supporting the students and staff at Stephen Mazujian Middle School. 

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To our many friends and donors, we hope that you are weathering this health crisis along with all the disruptions it is causing in our lives. Please stay safe and take care of each other.

For our final 2019 newsletter, we asked a former student, Malin, to share her story of how your donations have changed her life. While the Spitler School Foundation has always focused on funding education, your donations gave us the rare opportunity to go beyond the classroom in changing Malin’s life.

For background, Malin was a precocious little girl whose family lived directly behind Spitler School. She began kindergarten soon after the school was established. One of our donors noticed in a photograph that Malin had a problem with one of her eyes, and the donor gave us recommendations as to how we might help. Because of your donations, we were able to arrange for Malin to see an optometrist who diagnosed her with divergent strabismus, sometimes known as “lazy eye.” With proper treatment and the use of special eye patches Malin’s eye was corrected, and she excelled as a student at Spitler School.

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She continued her education through the 10th grade, but due to her family’s financial situation, she needed to start working. We hope that Malin will be able to continue her education in the future.

We invite you to read Malin’s own words of thanks for what she has been able to accomplish because of your generous donations to the Spitler School Foundation.

How has getting education at the Spitler School changed your life or the life of your family?
My life has changed from negative to positive since I was educated right by Spitler School. It has taught me general knowledge to live in the society positively. I profoundly thank Spitler School Foundation that has always been supporting my education. The foundation has supported both finances and supplies. My study life was wonderful as I’ve got enough studying supplies including books, pens, pencils, rulers, erasers, and a bicycle when I graduated.

I was born with divergent strabismus eye. I felt like I was born different. However, Spitler started to give me a hope and dream. I had to put an eye-patch on my eye for several years as a treatment process and a good progress sign had started to shine. My divergent strabismus eye started going back as other normal people’s eyes. I couldn’t believe SSF could possibly help to fix it and it’s always been in my mind.

Because my family was struggling with finance, I have to force myself to start working to earn some wages for my family. I’m now working as barista in a restaurant at National Museum which I could earn $120 wages per month.

Therefore, my education ended by the end of grade 10. I would love to pursue my study if possible.

If you did not get an education, what do you think you would be doing right now instead?
Without education I would end up being illiterate, no job and have no idea how big is the outside world. I would never be able to use my little knowledge of English to communicate with the customers where I’m working.