by Andrea Strachan, Elementary School Vice Principal, Lakeside Campus -

On Wednesday, 4 March, CIS students in Grades 3, 5 and 11 were treated to a special presentation led by Tabitha Foundation’s founder, Janne Ritskes. The Tabitha Foundation is a sustainable, non-profit organisation based in Cambodia that helps to raise communities out of poverty. Tabitha provides personal and financial counselling and savings programmes that focus on helping families and communities become self-sufficient. In addition, Tabitha helps build schools and is now working to provide more access to health care. CIS has a long and rich history of supporting Tabitha’s causes. Each year, CIS community raises money for Tabitha and sends teams of CIS students, teachers and families to Cambodia to help with Tabitha’s house-building projects.

This year in Grade 3, students are inquiring into ways in which the distribution of wealth can impact people and access to opportunities. In Grade 5, students are researching effective ways in which leadership affects how communities function. The Grade 11 students that met with Janne will be taking part in one of Tabitha’s house building projects in June. Janne’s presentation provided all three groups of learners with real-life examples of how the distribution of wealth, leadership and action can impact people and places.

Janne began her presentation by talking about the importance of questions. She suggests that people need to ask questions before they design answers or solutions to problems. Some of the questions Janne posed to CIS students included:

“What would it feel like to always be hungry – to never have enough to eat?”

“What would it be like to have only one set of clothes or no clothes at all?”

“What would it feel like to have a home that is not safe – too small for everyone to sleep inside and cannot keep you dry when it rains?”

“What would it be like to never have enough water to drink, or cook, or to take a bath when you want to?”

“What would it feel like to never go to school – to never be able to read or to write – to never know what your name looks like in letters?”

“What would it be like to be sick and have nowhere to go for help?”

In Cambodia, 75% of the population does not know how they will feed themselves each day or where they will find enough water. Their children do not have any clothes or only one set of clothes. Their houses are neither safe nor big enough for the family. Their children have never gone to school and too few people have access to health care. Outreach programmes like Tabitha Foundation is much needed to fulfill basic needs of these people.

Janne shared with our students how the Tabitha Foundation helps the people of Cambodia through a savings programme that leads to changing their lives. She outlined the cycle of savings that Tabitha supports families with, eventually lifting them out of poverty. The savings programme begins with saving 25 cents a week for 10 weeks in order to purchase baby chicks. The programme ends after the family completes a profound transformation, when they could purchase a safe source of water, generate five different sources of income, build a safe house, send all their children to school and become financially and socially self-sufficient. Janne says that it takes 5 – 7 years to raise a community out of poverty. In a nutshell, two of the most important features of Tabitha’s success is that it first helps people to believe they are worth more and then empowers them in taking ownership of their journey out of poverty through savings and decision-making.

At the end of Janne’s presentation, our CIS students asked some excellent questions. Many wanted to know why Cambodia is struggling in ways that are so different to anything we experience in Singapore. Janne highlighted that Cambodia is a country that has experienced 40 years of war, genocide and insecurity. This has led to feelings of despair among the people, loss of infrastructure and normal societal systems.

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Janne’s presentation was thought provocative for all grades: each grade took a different understanding and reasoning home. Grade 3 students listened to useful information that deepens their reflections on how economic distribution impacts access to opportunities, Grade 5 students started to further explore how leadership impacts communities and Grade 11 students were ready for the action to support others in need of our help.