Speeches
Ambassador Rodley's Remarks at the Re-Opening of Kampot High School
Kampot Prah Reach Samphea High School, Kampot Province
July 02, 2009
Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, school directors, teachers and students of Pra Reach Samphea High School. Thank you for the invitation to be here with all of you today. We at the Embassy are thrilled to have played a role in the reconstruction of this school. I know a lot of hard work and coordination went into making this day possible and I would like to specifically thank the local building contractor RDCC and all the Cambodians who took part in the renovation.
As you may already know, the Pra Reach Samphea High School was originally built by the U.S. through USAID in the early 1950’s. The fact that we are here today, almost sixty years later, points the depth and longevity of our involvement with Cambodia and our dedication to helping the Royal Government improve the education system, both in terms of human capacity and infrastructure.
Through projects like this we are helping to provide a space for young students in Kampot to learn and play, and for their teachers to focus more on instruction than on worries about the environment in which they work.
This school is just part of our educational support and assistance to Cambodia. We are rebuilding and renovating similar schools around the country through our humanitarian assistance program. Through USAID we are also working to improve the quality and availability of education in rural parts of the country and we also provide scholarships to some of the best and brightest students to study in the United States.
So I would encourage the students in Kampot to enjoy the new building behind me, but also to study hard in it and to remember that they are the future of this country. We at the Embassy are happy to help through programs such as the one that has renovated this school today, but it is the younger generation that will be relied upon to shape what Cambodia will be in the coming years.
