One man builds hope in Cambodia

Cambodia’s Rotary Elementary School of Mongkol Borei, founded by Foster City’s Hans Eide, has grown from 50 students in 2004 to to 249 students today. The school plans to extend to nine grades and is now approved to qualify graduates for higher education. (Photo courtesy of Hans Eide)

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
By Keith Kreitman
The San Mateo Daily Journal (California, USA)

In the sad past, the U.S. government reached across the oceans to Cambodia to deliver carpet bombings in pursuit of elements of the North Vietnam army in this neutral country.

Then this tiny land was further ravaged by the political insanity and “killing fields” of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, taking the lives of millions more.

Today, private U.S. citizens and organizations are able to reach across the same seas to deliver “hope” instead of bombs. This can especially be directed for the children of the overlooked poor, who in this land of poverty are still, perhaps incredibly, a friendly, smiling people.

What can one private American of good will do?

There is Hans Eide of Foster City, now a member of the Rotary Club of Foster City.

During a tourist visit and later as the leader of a San Mateo Rotary Club’s 500 wheelchair delivery to Cambodia, he discovered the children of the very poor are even being deprived of participation in Cambodia’s compulsory educational system.

So, why not start a school for the very poor children in Cambodia?

The irony is, the cost of one single destructive American bomb could have built and funded a whole new school like this, but that was then and this is now.

Eide worked his way from his birth land Norway to San Francisco on a freighter for a life of better opportunity. After serving two years in the U.S. army, he found those better opportunities until he was able retire.

And that is what motives Hans Eide today.

“I have been very lucky in my life, and this school give me an opportunity to give something back to the less fortunate,” Eide said.

And as a private American, he has found ways to do it. He has borrowed school rooms free, saw to the hiring of teachers at a better salary than the national school system and at a cost of only $250 a year for each student, including free transportation and lunch — often their best meal of the day — he is helping poor children in Cambodia to a shot at what every deprived American child has come to expect, an avenue out of poverty.

Imagine! Only $250 a year, the cost of an American night on the town or a pair of fancy jogging togs for our kids can buy these children a future in a modern world where only an education can open most doors.

Should we be concerned about the children of Cambodia, half-a-world away from our shores?

In fact, should we be concerned about the impoverished children of all lands?

Of course, all, but we can’t help all, or even any, unless some machinery is set up to do so.

And that is when Americans traditionally respond with compassion and “know how” and Hans Eide is helping to pave a road for the children of the Cambodia’s poor by founding the Rotary Elementary School of Mongkol Borei.

After starting in April of 2004 with only 50 students, confirmed by home visits as being from the “poorest of the poor,” the school has grown to 249, and for these poor, a miracle. The school is planning to extend to nine grades and is now approved to qualify graduates for higher education and several of these students didn’t even begin their education until their early teens.

How is this being funded? Hans Eide has shown what one motivated American can do to deliver hope.

He has engaged support from friends, individual Rotarians, a number of Rotary Clubs and matching grants from Rotary International. He has even received donated equipment from Rotary chapters in other countries. A Rotary district from Japan sent over a 100 refurbished bikes. A matching grant funded by the Rotary Club of Solvang has purchased a truck converted to a bus for transporting 60 students to and from school each day.

So the school and “hope” are still growing.

For those who wish to help expand this hope, contributions may be sent to: Hans Eide, 720 Promontory Point, Foster City, 94404. Checks should be made out to “Foster City Rotary Foundation.”