About Us
Our Client
From Chandara Lor
Angsoeng Photos
About Cambodia
A letter from the Angsoeng Libary
First of all, I would like to present kindly all my best compliments to everyone, both Cambodians and foreigners, who are thinking of our impoverished Cambodia. I hope you're doing well.
My name is Chandara Lor and I have been a journalist at The Cambodia Daily, English-/Khmer-language newspaper since it was founded in 1993, reporting on the National Assembly, politics, democracy, environment, and various other topics.
For years, I have seen most rural villagers and their children go without sufficient reading materials to support their studies, knowledge and their curiosity about the society and world they live in.
As you are aware, not only were many educated Cambodians killed or exiled following the Khmer Rouge's rise to power in 1975, but the nation's physical infrastructure also was destroyed. The country's education is left lagging far behind other Southeast Asian nations. Despite the development projects introduced so far by the government and non-governmental organizations, rural people still do not have much access to adequate information and education as urban people do. Because of people's illiteracy and limited access to information, the human rights of our rural folks are often abused and the right of land ownership is seriously violated.
Therefore, on a volunteer basis, I opened the rural media library in my home province of Takeo in southern Cambodia to help bridge the information gap between rurual and urban Cambodians and to help Cambodians here – young and old – to learn about their country and the world around it.
In particular, this library also wants to help bring Cambodians here and overseas Cambodians closer by learning and sharing adequate information and knowledge to help rehabilitate and reconstruct a war-weakened and deeply divided Cambodian society.
So far, the library has been a huge success. In the first months after the library officially opened on May 4, 2001, approximately 3,000 readers have visited the facilities, taking advantage of the more than 1,000 English/Khmer offerings on display. We've managed to collect newspapers, atlases, reference books, and even a few kids books, and our new "customers" have enjoyed reading in the library's informal setting.
Unfortunately, we're a victim of our own success. The tremendous response from the people of Takeo has showed us just how hungry they are for knowledge, and how much more effort is needed to fulfill the huge demand. The library needs more Khmer books, especially ones
that focus on children or those learning to read for the first time, and our facilities are already overwelmed by the wave of people eager to find out what've happening in this world.
Fortunately, you can help. By contributing to the library, you'll help us acquire more books, so that the people of Southern Cambodia can continue to learn about the world they have been isolated from for more than 30 years. You'll help us hire full-time staff, which will give our volunteers a break, but also allow us to create a circulation department, so that folks can take their books home, perhaps introducing reading to their families and neighbors. You'll help us hire teachers to give English lessons to local folks who are hungry for this important language. Also, you'll help us expand our facilities, so that we can accommodate the people who continue to flock to the Rural Media Library so they can learn about everything from health care in South Africa to Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter.
The people of Takeo thank you as much as I do.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comment. You can reach me at the lion_library@yahoo.com.
Thank you in advance for helping us make a difference to the people of Cambodia.
With best wishes,
Chandara Lor
Founder/President, Rural Media Library