Our Core Work

Tiny Schools

The concept of tiny schools birthed out of a belief that relationships are one of the core foundational elements in education. To effectively love and educate our scholars, we limit our classroom size to a maximum of 15 scholars. 

• Shine Early Learning Center
• Established in 2021
Sen Sok, Phnom Penh

Provincial Schools

Resources and quality education are scarce in Cambodia’s provinces. High quality schools will greatly benefit many communities in the provinces. Each provincial school will look and feel differently based on the context and available resources in the area. However, each one will reflect our core values of loving, learning, leading, and leaving a legacy.

• Eden Early Learning Center 
• Grand opening in August 2024
Kampong Cham

Our School Mission

To equip and empower each and every scholar to love, learn, lead, and leave a legacy toward restoration and transformation of communities in Cambodia, Southeast Asia and around the world through high quality dual language immersion – Science Technology Engineering Arts Mathematics (STEAM) innovational education.

Our School Vision

We see generations of scholars innovate themselves out of poverty as they live in radical ways that reflect our organization’s core values of loving, learning, leading, and leaving a legacy with communities in Cambodia, Southeast Asia and around the world.

Our School Curriculum

We adopt and adapt curriculums from the U.S. through a continuous improvement and innovation process led by Dr. Nikum Pon. In other words, our curriculums will continue to be modified and contextualized that aligns with both the U.S. national Common Core and other States standards in the areas of Science, Technology, Arts, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEAM).

Our Instructional Practice

Depending on the language proficiency of our teachers and staff, we have and will continue to implement a variation of a Dual Language Immersion instructional model in English and Khmer. Our staff receive and will continue on-going training in their respective professional learning communities while being mentored by instructional coaches. Teachers are evaluated through a relational process guided by our value-driven teacher evaluation framework focusing on instructional growth in loving, learning, leading, and leaving a legacy.

Teaching Fellows Program

Program Mission

To equip and empower local Khmer teachers who have a strong desire to teach, develop, and inspire Khmer scholars so that every scholar in every classroom flourish beginning with early childhood education.

The Teaching Fellows is a 2-year hybrid teacher training program. Teaching Fellows are trained in: 

• A child-centered holistic approach to learning through high quality dual language immersion -Science Technology Engineering Arts Mathematics (STEAM) innovative curriculum. 
• English language acquisition toward improving English proficiency through our Off2Class on-line program.
Technical support and coaching throughout the duration of the program.
Formal and informal teaching and English assessments throughout the duration of the program.
All our teaching and curricular materials are aligned with U.S. educational standards.

Teacher Seminars

For Khmer teachers who have a passion to effectively lead and teach in their respective classrooms and schools, these experiential and interactive teacher seminars are offered quarterly. Participants will explore educational tools, resources, and practices to build their capacity to learn, unlearn, and/or relearn the essence and heart of being a highly effective teacher. As a result, participants will be encouraged and challenged to put their learning into action so that they can positively impact their respective school community and the broader community at large. 

At a glance:

•  Over 100 teachers participated in these seminars since we started in Fall of 2022 
•  Four seminars were conducted in Phnom Penh City (twice), Takeo Province, and City of Sihanoukville. 

Sustainable Projects

We purchased a micro-fruit farm in 2022. Durian, considered the king of fruit in Cambodia, is the main type of fruit on the farm. In a few years, these trees will bear much fruit and be ready to harvest and sell in the market providing some revenue back to supporting our schools. It won’t be much at first, but this will be one of many sustainable projects we are working on so we can be self-sustained. Stay tuned…