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The Don Bosco schools, 150 years in 130 countries

The Don Bosco schools ¹ are celebrating the 150th anniversary of their foundation this year. Don Bosco branches are spread over 130 countries. These schools belong to a Catholic religious organization known as Salesians of Don Bosco. The phrase has already become  familiar in the Khmer language as Sala Don Bosco, but it is also present in many languages where the Salesians have settled to support the education of poor children and youth.

In Cambodia the Salesians began their educative works of charity in the refugee camps of Thailand. In 1989 the Thai government allowed the United Nations to conduct technical education for Cambodian youth at the refugee camps through the Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugee. That organization delegated the task to the Jesuits from India and they, in  turn, contacted the Salesians in Bangkok. The Salesians opened six technical centers in four refugee camps in 1989 : 2, 8, Sok Sann and B. About 3,000 boys attended these centers over a two year period.

The war ended and the refugee camps passed into history. The Cambodians, who knew Don Bosco in those centers, did not forget the daily rules of a technical school that was teaching to them how to work for better opportunities but also how to cope with daily life. In 1993 Don Bosco opened the first technical school in what is today the growing district of Phnom Penh Thmey, then a rice field near to Pochengton Airport. Today, Don Bosco has schools in Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, Kep, Battambang and Poipet and the Children’s Fund, an extensive program to support poor children back to school in several provinces.