About Pichey Rangsey
The Pichey Rangsey Primary School is located in the rural village of Pouk Ressey, about 25 km north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on the east bank of the Mekong River. The school will accommodate up to 900 primary-age students in three buildings, each with five classrooms. The school is well utilized, with two separate teaching sessions each day, Monday to Saturday. At the beginning of each month the students swap “shifts”. Enrollments total 768 with a roughly equal number of boys and girls. The children of Pichey Rangsey are generally from families living in rural poverty, subsistence farmers, fishermen, or shop keepers.
Unusual for a village school in Cambodia, Pichey Rangsey is of brick and terracotta roof construction with much prized tiled floors. The classrooms are spacious, with high ceilings and natural lighting; there is a library and toilets with flushing water. Roadside walls and classic Khmer gateway ensure the grounds are safe for the children’s games. All of this is in stark contrast to the school it replaced.
The History of Pichey Rangsey
The original village primary school lay within the grounds of the local Buddhist Temple. It had been built shortly after the Pol Pot Regime using war-time scrap timber that still showed bullet and shrapnel damage; the dirt floors were either dusty or muddy, depending on weather, and the building was unsafe and beyond repair. This changed through the efforts of Denzil Sprague, a one-time farmer, lawyer and commercial pilot, who had arrived in Cambodia in 2002 to establish a regional airline. When the business was forced to close because of the SARS pandemic, Denzil purchased a brick factory near Pouk Ressey. Denzil was approached by the monks of the village pagoda and the school council for help in building a new school. Funded by selling some investments, Denzil commenced building in January 2008, and by June 2009 all three buildings had been completed and occupied. Denzil continues to work for the interests of the students of Pichey Rangsey but he is no longer able to provide ongoing financial support, a role now taken up by Friends of Pichey Rangsey.
Pichey Rangsey, an oasis of hope and opportunity.
If you would like to support the children of Pichey Rangsey Primary School, please contact: