About Us
We hope you'll join our mission.
My husband, Lom, was one of the Killing Field survivors. In November of 1979, he went to the Thai border to buy rice for his starving family. When the Khmer Rouge ran, they burnt all the rice fields and food supplies. Lom stepped on a land mine and his injuries were life threatening. He lay on a mat for two days and was then taken to a Thai hospital and under went several surgeries. He remained there for six months. His sister and nephew, who were with him at the time of his injuries, were taken to a refugee camp where for the six months they did not know what had happened to Lom.
They remained in the camp until 1982 when they were resettled to Boston in the USA. Since returning to Cambodia would mean certain death, they left their homeland. This decision was hardest on Lom’s sister who left three children behind in the village, ages two, seven and ten. She has never had the funds to see them again. They are all married with children of their own.
My name is Judy and I helped to resettle refugees in New England, where Lom and I met. I traveled to Thailand and the refugee camps with an advocacy group in April of l983 and witnessed for myself the horror of war. At that time there was only a little we could accomplish.
After twenty-four years and the end of the Khmer Rouge, Lom and I went back to visit his village in January 2004. We have given great thought to helping these wonderful and innocent people. The Cambodian Rural Education Fund is our way of improving the lives and future of Cambodia’s beautiful children. We hope this will give everyone an opportunity to share a new start with one of the world’s poorest countries. We thank you for your kindness and interest.
Our Mission
The entire objective of the Cambodian Rural Education Fund (CREF) is to provide the necessary supplies, equipment and books to the students. We hope to encourage good teachers with steady and adequate salaries and money for training. Books are a major need. If the school has a library, it is lucky to own one copy of twenty to thirty thin paperback books for all the children.
Most of these children can only attend school through the sixth grade since it costs $16 per year to continue. If they do go on, it is $300 per year at the university. This is an unaffordable and therefore unattainable goal for rural children. The CREF organization will help provide funds which will allow those students to further their education. In this way we can help all since these students would return to their villages with knowledge and skills.
