Hello, I’m Roxanne and I’m the Child Welfare Coordinator at Little Hearts. My job is to look after the children’s welfare, monitor their studies, and mentor them. I’ve been in this role for about two years and I can truly say I love this job. This is because it’s not only the kids who learn from me, but I also learn from them.
At Little Hearts we’re more like a family than just an organisation. Our children have come from real hardship, abandoned at a young age, so this means it’s very important they have a good environment to get the love and support they need.
A lot of the kids have escaped a background of poverty and sometimes physical abuse. With this in mind, it takes a lot of time and hard work to bring them back to a state of psychological well-being, where they can trust the world again. Even so, I’ve seen how much progress the kids are making, and this is really heartwarming.
A good education
There are so many things that Little Hearts gives the children to improve their lives but I think one of the most important is providing a really good education. The kind of education they get is better than you’d expect in state-run schools here in Cambodia.
This doesn’t just mean hours and hours where the teacher reads from a book, but a mixture of project work and creative activities to challenge them. That’s what they really love and how they learn best. It gives them lots of interaction, to develop new skills.
Sometimes we just trying out new things to see whether they like them or not. We play games, take art classes, read books, watch news in English, play team sports and much more. All of this helps the children develop their character and discover what they love doing most. This is really valuable, as it means we give them more attention compared to state schools.
The Little Hearts style of education also makes it fun for everyone, including the teachers and mentors, while helping the kids discover their passions. We enjoy the big range of classes like arts and crafts, computers, maths, literature and languages to name a few.
Through hard times and the good
It’s true that the job of CWC is challenging at times. For example, it’s been really difficult during the COVID-19 period when the government closed state schools. For so many children to be stuck in the same place for 24 hours a day hasn’t been easy. Hopefully the restrictions will be lifted soon.
But even during these difficult times, Tony our director always leads the way with his positive energy and ability to solve any problem that comes our way. It’s this kind of leadership that makes Little Hearts so successful and such an amazing place to work.