LAVALLA SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WITH PHYSICAL DISABILITIES, TAKMAO, KANDAL PROVINCE

This is a project for children and young people with physical disabilities. They range in age from 11 to 18 or 19 and are from very poor families. Because of their disability and their poverty they have not been able to attend their local elementary school or, perhaps they have started at school but have not been able to continue. Transportation and access to schools - being able to move about, use facilities - always pose problems for people with a physical handicap.

LaValla is designed for them. Children and young people with disabilities can move about the school easily and freely. Its educational program aims to have them complete the six elementary grades in three, no more than four years and to give them the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills beyond the defined curriculum. People with disabilities face difficulties finding suitable employment: whatever LaValla can do to facilitate that, or to encourage greater self reliance, is done.

On completion of their elementary grades LaValla's students are encouraged to proceed to the government high school nearest their home and the LaValla staff does all it can to assist its ex-students to do that and to stay at school.

The project began in 1998 in Phnom Penh. For two years the school was run in a rented house. In 2000 the development of the site at Takmao too place and LaValla relocated in October of that year.

LaValla is a residential and day program. At present more than fifty of the students live on site. The other thirty are transported to and from Phnom Penh each day. Most of the boarding students come from the countryside.

LaValla has a staff of twenty one all but two of whom are Khmer. There are seven teachers, four cooks, three drivers, administration, supervisory and cleaning staff. Two Australian Marist Brothers have been living on site and directing the program since its beginnings.

This project is committed to the cause of the handicapped. Consequently, wherever possible and appropriate people with disabilities are employed as staff. Presently half of the staff have some form of physical disability.

This program was initiated by the Marist Brothers of the Australian province of Sydney. Originally a French foundation, the Marist Brothers spread from the south of France in 1817, to become an international teaching congregation working in more than sixty five countries. The Brothers have been in Australia since 1872. Their work centred mainly on schools but has broadened to include universities, disadvantaged youth and families with problems. The Sydney Province has contributed significantly to education in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The project in Cambodia is the first such establishment in Asia.

LaValla collaborates with the local Church and with other agencies working for the handicapped. It has had a particularly close working relationship with the Maryknoll community, Jesuit Services, other Catholic NGO's and the major rehabilitation centers.

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