Together with a friar, he gave thoughts two years ago to what was missing in the extremely poor communities. It is a lot, also including education and a future perspectives. “I am myself coming from a poor family. As a child I could not attend school, because I had to look after the cows and to work in the rice fields. It was not until my parents sent me to the monastery of a Buddhist temple, that I have gotten an education”, he explains – laughing, plucking and arranging his orange robe. There, at the monastery site of Wat Nokor, close to the provincial town of Kampong Cham, he is still living today.

Education became his subject. It was for that reason that he founded BSDA, Buddhism and Society Development Association. The beginnings have been toilsome. The two monks were searching comrades-in-arms amongst their friars and also voluntary helpers. They went around the skew-whiff barracks of the slum’s inhabitants, dinning the importance of education into their ears. “Convincing is here very difficult, because he who is daily fighting for survival, is thinking only about today, not about the future”, explains Vandong Thorn, full of understanding.

But he remained pertinacious and negotiated with the local school until he was given the permission to utilize it’s facilities after 5 p.m., when the routine school-activities have finished. They started with a handful of those willing to learn. Today, they are teaching over 1000 children and young adults, in the evening, after even the children have completed a hard days work. They cannot attend the public schools, because during the day, they have to beg or collect aluminum or get hold of something to eat. They have no time for normal school – and no money. Officially, attending schools in Cambodia is free of charge, but because the salary of a teacher is nothing like enough, teachers are asking for money from the students. “Five Euros per student is unaffordable here for the most”, says the monk regretfully. The classes of the monks last only for two hours, they are however provided for free.

Even considering that the number of the poor has diminished in recent years, 35 percent of the Cambodians still have to live on less than one Euro per day. Not even half of the children is completing elementary school.

For many of the children eager to learn, the monk’s school is just too far away, therefore the school, called “mobile school” is coming to them. Tarpaulins are planted on the floor and a blackboard is put up. Already half an hour before the teacher starts with the lessons, the first ones eager for knowledge are sitting and waiting. Not only children, but also adults are taking advantage of the four mobile schools of the monks, through which education is also brought to the most remote spots.

Vandong Thorn, only 26 year old, is very popular in his district of Kampong Cham, at the Mekong river and much demanded. Many brides and grooms only want to get married by him. Also, in the case of funerals, he is presence often desired, likewise at ceremonies of ancestral veneration or at house-blessings. His advice, his Buddhist knowledge, his wisdom already at young age, all that is causing a full diary. He is getting some money for these services, a part of which he has to give to his temple, the rest is for him. From that money he has bought four computers, used the monks now to give computer training courses. “Without computer knowledge, there is are very bad job prospects in Cambodia”, means Thorn. “Computer training is expensive, but with us, students only have to pay for the cost of electricity”. Already at six o’clock in the morning, the first ones willing to learn, are sitting at the meanwhile 20 computers. The tireless work of the monks shows first success; ten graduates of their courses have managed to get hold of a job.

Not only the conveyance of knowledge is important to the inventive monk, but also tradition, music and traditional dancing are his passion, although this is not suitable for a monk in his position. Dancing is a taboo subject for him, but not for children. Therefore, Sokhom Pin, a 50 year old dancing instructor, is teaching every evening the Apsaras, the traditional Cambodian dances. Up to 200 children are coming to the only welcome change for miles around. The dancing instructor is a godsend for BSDA. His children have left the house, his marriage was not at it’s best anymore. Therefore he felt drawn to the monastery. Pin is no monk, he doesn’t want to become one, but he is offering his knowledge for board and lodging. He has discovered true talents amongst the dance-enthusiastic children – and Thorn, the energetic monk, could arrange for a dancing-scholarship for one of the girls.

Actually, the days schedule of the monks is full without BSDA; Vandong gets up between 4 and 5 in the morning, prays, meditates and has breakfast, studies the scriptures and goes to school himself. This year he will graduate from high school. He studies until 5 p.m. –if no wedding or funeral is interfering- thereafter he goes into his small office or into the communities to find out what’s bothering. As from 7. p.m. there are meetings, the office work or the never ending search for sponsors waiting for him. He is seldom getting more than four, five hours of sleep. “That is sufficient, if I can mediate well”, he means and adds with a laugh: “Only when I am occupying my mind with a mathematical problem, the meditation doesn’t work.

A totally different problem has been eased by BSDA. The parish of Vandong Thorn’s temple also includes some fishermen, who have lived in scrubby cottages at the riverside of the Mekong. The land belongs to the city and as it had been sold, the fishermen were forced to leave. They have been relocated to the inland, far away from the river, which had been their source of income. The 40 families do not possess farmland which they could cultivate. There is no social net in Cambodia and despair was growing. The monks thought it over to find out what was possible. Mushrooms have been the solution, the former fishermen can grow mushrooms. Mushrooms do not need much space and are much liked to be eaten in Cambodia. A ray of hope and full of thankfulness, the fisherman fell on their knees into the sand before the monk.

Vandong Thorn is not only director of BSDA, he is also responsible for the novices, the young monks. He is very well aware of their worries. “I know how difficult it is at the beginning at the monastery. I always have thought my parents do not love me, because they have brought me here. I was very homesick – and constantly hungry”. Monks are only allowed to eat from sunrise until 12.00 noontime. The novices have to walk long distances in the morning to beg for their food. They walk from house to house, wait and give their blessings to the donators in exchange.

It has been a long time ago that Thorn had to march himself. Meanwhile, he has become a Pikho, an experienced monk, who is having his wishes: He wants to have more money, to help the drug-addicts in the village. And he dreams about his own website on the Internet, to make BSDA become more well-known. Furthermore, he wants to built a cottage, in which the children can dance, also when it is raining, even in front of an audience. The cottage would cost approximately 6000 Euro, still a dream for him, but “also dreams can be fulfilled”, he says and laughs his contagious laugh.

Iris Lemanczyk, Stuttgart, Germany, November 2007
http://www.irislemanczyk.de

(The full German original version is available in the German section of our website through the link at the starting page).