Basics

The Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children (Khmer Cultural Development Institute) was legalized as a non-governmental humanitarian organization in 1993 and constructed in 1994. Situated about 140 km southwest of the capital Phnom Penh, Kampot Province suffers from drought in the dry season and flooding in the Monsoon season. The rural population live without electricity and drinking water and the percentage of Malaria, Tuberculosis and AIDS is extremely high in the province. There are few international or local NGOs's involved in the development of Kampot, and our programme apart from being one of the first of its kind in Cambodia is unique in this province.

Mahouri music practice

The aim is to care for in a profound manner, young orphaned or abandoned children who have suffered trauma and neglect. To help them, through a programme of loving attention and comprehensive cultural, scholastic and vocational training, to find a positive and healing path into the future.

The Entrance to the Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children - Visitor’s Day

Our school consists of 4 buildings, the first 3 constructed in 1994, the 4th in 2002, with the financial help from the Governments of Japan, Britain and Canada. The buildings are equipped with sleeping facilities, dining hall, kitchen, disabled toilets and shower units, special paths for wheelchairs, classrooms, music and ballet practice rooms, documentation centre and library-toy room. The children also have swings, games and pet animals all in a large tree and flower-filled garden.

Our school was officially and most generously sponsored by Terre Des Hommes Netherlands for many years. We have also been assisted recently by 21st Century Leaders Foundation and in the past, UNESCO, Save the Children Fund Australia, British Embassy Phnom Penh, Mensen In Nood, Kinderspostzegels, Ocean in a Drop, Cordaid Netherlands and OXFAM UK. We currently need financial help for the categories of food, medicine, clothing, local transport, maintenance of school buildings and Cambodian staff salary support.

Opening Ceremony for Dance & Music Building

Our school is run by our staff and our board of directors who are Cambodian. We live in a climate of tolerance, peace and religious respect. The total number of staff at our school is currently 16. The founder and chairperson, who is British, takes no salary.

Catherine Geach (left) and Math Thiyeu (right) mending a child’s mattress

Catherine Geach graduated at the age of 19, as a concert violinist and teacher from the Royal Academy of Music in London. Having compiled a report in Cambodia about the abuses of human rights by Khmer Rouge a year before her graduation, she returned to Cambodia almost immediately after graduating and began teaching violin at the University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh. She set up a project with financial support from the British Embassy to support music students studying traditional Khmer music, she also taught the 'Tro Sau' instrument along with other Cambodian teachers, together teaching Khmer music at a centre for soldiers severely mutilated by the war. Using her experiences, she founded the Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children in 1994, living there from that date onwards.

In 1996, she also began a project in Sarajevo, Bosnia at a local primary school, in coordination with teaching staff there, (including the school psychologist) to assist children suffering from post-traumatic stress, through the use of art, music and dance. She travelled back and forth from Cambodia to Bosnia until the Bosnian project became independent in early 1999.

Mrs. Geach has lived in Cambodia from 1991 (apart from her first visit in 1990) until 2005. Today she lives in Italy with her husband and their son and gives concerts and teaches violin. She makes regular visits to the Kampot Traditional Music School in Cambodia.