Carpentry School

The German Embassy in Phnom Penh approved a proposal from Geraldine to build a Carpentry School and they also funded the necessary machinery.

The Armadale-Neerigen Brook Rotary Club in Australia generously provided the necessary tools for 10 students and the school was a hive of industry with Sunrise boys and boys from poor villages outside making tables and chairs for our own use and for sale. This training will be so useful when we are looking for jobs for our boys who are not interested in computing or white-collar jobs when they graduate from Sunrise.

But over the years, attendance has not been so high from the village boys as they are needed to work on the farms most of the time and often do not get to even attend school, let alone come to learn carpentry.

However, the school is now kept very busy making furniture for us – beds, tables chairs — even a pigeon house for two pet pigeons was built by one of our boys who left and wanted to give us this as a 'memory'.