Life in the children's village

The children's village offers protection, security and a home for up to 100 children. It was planned by founder Michael Weiss, who was an architect, together with the children and was inaugurated in December 2004.  

 

There are eight family houses, built on stilts, separated into boys and girls, with bedrooms and living rooms, toilets and a wash house. Each of the family houses has a house mother who lives in the house.

 

A central place in the children's village is the ‘Sala’, an open hall protected by a large roof for eating and celebrating together. There are classrooms, a kindergarten, a meditation house, a kitchen with an open wood fire, several workshops with tools for repairing bicycles or mopeds, sewing machines and equipment for learning hairdressing skills. There are also rooms for the local staff, who stay on the site at night, the administration, a guest room and a playground and sports field. There is also plenty of space on the site for growing vegetables and a fish farm.   

 

The children's daily routine is very organised and fixed structures are important, as most of the children were completely left to their own devices before their time in the children's village.  

 

The morning: 

Our village comes to life early in the morning: the children get up at 5 a.m., when the temperatures are still pleasant, and play sport before breakfast. After breakfast together, the children help to tidy up and then organise themselves for the day.  

Some of the children go to school in the morning and some in the afternoon. The children who are taken to school in the afternoon stay in the village in the morning, where they receive additional lessons in English, maths, Khmer and IT and can attend further classes in traditional dance or music. The library can also be visited several times a week, and on some days local monks lead the children in meditation. 

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The children can play football, learn practical knowledge and skills such as cooking, gardening, sewing, repairing bicycles or mopeds and cutting hair.   

 

Lunchtime: Lunch is freshly prepared every day. Home-grown fruit and vegetables as well as fish and poultry from the children's village provide the children with varied and healthy meals.   

After lunch, everyone in the village enjoys a break before the children who were in the village in the morning prepare to go to school. The children who were at school in the morning enjoy the same programme in the afternoon. 

 

The evening: Around 6 pm, all the pupils are back in the children's village and they eat together. After dinner, everyone retires to their family homes, where the ‘house mothers’ help the children with their homework if necessary.  

  

Twice a week, everyone watches a film together. On Wednesdays, children from the street children's programme play football with the children from the children's village. At the weekends, sporting and/or cultural events take place and there is enough time for free play and quiet time.