Mrs. Chab Chheng is a 68-year-old grandmother and resident of Sdok Khlouk village located in a remote district of Pursat Province, Cambodia. Mrs. Chheng is widowed, and she suffers from poor health related to complications from malaria contracted when she was a child. She has six adult children, but most of them live away from home. Mrs. Chheng lives next door to her second youngest daughter, Sreyhom, along with Sreyhom’s husband and their three children.

Mrs. Chheng has a special relationship with her grandson, Oddom. Oddom is four years old and the middle child in his family. Most days, Mrs. Chheng takes on the role of Oddom’s primary caregiver while his parents work and take care of his infant sister and his older sister goes to lower secondary school. Oddom’s parents have asked Mrs. Chheng to take care of Oddom during the day. They made this arrangement so that Oddom is able to benefit from attending community preschool, and to allow his parents to focus on generating income and growing food to support the family.

In 2016 Save the Children, with funding support from the Japan Social Development Fund through the World Bank, began implementing the project ‘Early Childhood Care and Development for Floating Villages’ in Pursat Province in 2016. The project aims to create enabling, child-friendly environments where young children can benefit from a holistic approach to improving their education, nutrition, protection, care and development both at home and in specially constructed early childhood care and development resource centres. The project works closely with community-based early childhood care and development facilitators, and trains parents on home-based activities to nurture and support their children’s development.

Mrs. Chheng said she has been regularly taking her grandson to preschool since she started to become involved in the project activities during 2017. She explained, “I started taking my grandson to preschool in May of the last academic year after [the construction of] of new preschool building… I am happier than last year because we have a new building, the teacher is more active and the class is open regularly, and more children have enrolled.”

Mrs. Chheng is very interested in giving Oddom the best start to his educational development, and she understands the long-term benefits early childhood education will provide for Oddom. She explained, “I don’t want my grandchildren to be the same as me. If my grandchildren get a high education, they will find good jobs. I already asked my grandson, Oddom. He said he wants to become a doctor and he will be take care of me; that’s why I try to support his studies as best as I can.”

After waking up in the early morning, Ms. Chheng cooks breakfast. When Oddom wakes up, he walks over to his grandmother’s house and they eat breakfast together. Soon thereafter, she takes Oddom to preschool when class starts at 7:00 am. She always waits at the school for Oddom until his class finishes at 9:00 am. Then, she takes him back home.

Mrs. Chheng operates a small beverage stand from her house, selling energy drinks and fruit juice to passersby. She also owns a small rice field and during the rainy season, she and her daughter plant rice; they sell part of the harvest to earn income. Additionally, she makes and sells Prohok, a fermented fish paste, at her home. Even though she is normally busy with her various enterprises, she still always takes the time to bring her grandson to preschool and practice his lessons with him during the day. 

Her support of the community preschool goes beyond just taking her grandson to school. She has also donated some money to help support the construction of a tile floor for the new preschool building. “We have good collaboration with the preschool support group and teachers… I contributed [some money] to support the ground floor construction and [to buy a] broom,” she said.