Welcome to the Future Light Orphanage, the home of more than 287 orphans in Cambodia.  We call ourselves the Future Light Orphanage because the children who live here are learning the skills necessary to lift themselves out of poverty towards a brighter future. We want to equip these children with the skills needed to become the future leaders of Cambodia. 

FLO is situated 10 kilometers from Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, in a poor area lacking water and electricity. Yet they are learning to become computer literate. The children attend English, computer and fine arts classes, and are taught how to access the Internet and communicate via email, thereby gradually opening their eyes to the complexities of the outside world. Classes like these, which others in more developed countries take for granted, are still part of the newest technology to FLO's children. We aim to enable them to leapfrog to the level of children in New York, Paris or London and close the digital divide.

If it can be done here, it can be done in any other poor, remote village in the world. Schools enable children to have greater opportunities than once thought possible by bringing them into the digital age. At little cost other than the generous donation of equipment from several manufacturers and construction of a computer classroom funded by Mr. Toshu Fukami, the chairman of World Mate in Japan, the orphanage's Computer Learning Center was completed in November 1998.

Since then, many of FLO's own bright young kids have passed their knowledge on to other children in rural schools all over Cambodia. They have lined up to transfer for six month stints teaching other children at such village schools, equipped with computers powered by solar panels. (See www.cambodiaschools.com and www.villageleap.com).  

Please write us at flo@camnet.com.kh.

We hope this example will inspire children in the poorest, most remote locales in the world to join us in learning to use computers to increase their knowledge and opportunities, and most of all, to create new friendships.

Keo Phannarin,
Computer Instructor at
The Future Light Orphanage