Teachers Across Borders

Many of the world’s teachers work in educational environments that lack basic infrastructure and materials, safety, living wages, and teacher training. The mission of Teachers Across Borders, Inc (TAB) is to help teachers raise the general level of educational opportunity through professional development. The need is critical.

TAB is committed to the belief that education is the key to reducing poverty and gender inequality, combating child trafficking, and providing children with more life and career choices.

click on the logo above to transfer to Teachers Across Borders' own web site.

TAB volunteer workshop leaders provide materials and teaching models at their own expense where few exist. Workshop leaders display sound teaching practices as they lead discussions of recent scholarship in content areas and contemporary research on how students learn.

The PEACE Fund is currently supporting the work of TAB in Cambodia. Each program features nine workshops and TAB anticipates 1000 elementary and secondary teachers will participate. Since each Cambodian teacher teaches between 50 and 200 students a day, and the education children acquire lasts a lifetime, investments in good teaching lead to meaningful change. TAB is looking to expand this program into Serbia and Panama.

All personnel work is on a volunteer basis, accomplished by teachers helping teachers. 100% of money donated is spent on TAB Projects.

Teachers Across Borders, Inc. (TAB) is incorporated in Colorado and has 501 (c)(3) status as an educational, non profit corporation.

Teachers Across Borders in Cambodia

This is one of the few organizations of teacher volunteers, which provides large numbers of classroom teachers and administrators with in-service programs. The need is critical.

TAB volunteers work closely with classroom teachers, administrators and with the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS) to develop the topics for two week workshops.

TAB started workshops in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2005. Each year Cambodian educators, including the Senior Minister of Education, have requested additional workshops. Workshops topics range from ESL and educational leadership to primary and secondary language arts, social studies, science and math. In 2008 TAB will provide 38 workshops in 4 cities, reaching approximately 1000 Cambodian teachers, and through these teachers improving education for more than 150,000 Cambodian students at a cost of 2.5 cents per student.

Cambodians are making valiant efforts to rebuild their educational system from bottom to top. Genocide and civil war effectively eliminated educators, universities, and schools. Like the American frontier, teachers in small villages and cities are frequently young people seeking in-service teacher training, professional development, and improved classroom materials as more children are able to go to school and stay in school longer.

TAB supports the work of teachers through teacher education, honorariums, curriculum development, discussion and networking. To prepare the next generation of educators, the curriculum work of workshop participants is disseminated in Khmer and English to other classroom teachers.

New Year present for Teachers Across Borders.

Early in the new year, Annie Christie flew to Denver to present a $10,000 check from The PEACE Fund to Teachers Across Borders. "I was very impressed with the energy and passion of the people I met," said Annie. "What seemed to move them the most was actually seeing at first hand how much it meant to Cambodian teachers to have these learning opportunities."

Deciding on which of the many thousands of good causes we will contribute to is not an easy thing. So when we were short-listing some excellent organizations early this year there was one that stood out for us- Teachers Across Borders. Why?

In the first place, it is an excellent fit with our three primary goals in relation to making a difference to children’s lives: educating, aiding and caring. Secondly, it is carrying on its work in one of the most devastated countries in the world – Cambodia. Thirdly, it is an organization that has demonstrated that it can deliver on its goals and has integrity. Fourthly, it tries to help people to help themselves so that there is a long lasting effect that carries on when TAB is not present. Lastly, it runs in a very lean way with almost all of its efforts coming from volunteers.

Cambodia has been struggling for many years to overcome the horror under Pol Pot which resulted in schools disappearing from everyday life and teachers being murdered. With teachers today being paid so poorly, the challenge to return Cambodia to its pre-Pol Pot levels of literacy are truly daunting.

As mentioned above, The PEACE Fund prefers to lend support to organizations who spend as little as possible on administration. Annie’s discussions with the committee members in Denver revealed that a new chapter of TAB has been formed in Australia and volunteer teachers are coming from as far afield as Sweden, England and Wales to work with their US teaching counterparts.

The PEACE Fund’s donation will fund another workshop for up to 200 young Cambodians who have little in the way of formal teacher training. They will leave the workshops with their own book of teaching plans and other classroom aids. Translators are required for the workshops which makes the teaching by the TAB educators doubly difficult.

Another initiative by TAB is to sponsor a Cambodian student to study in the US for a degree in Library Science. On her return to Cambodia she will be the only fully trained and qualified librarian in Cambodia.

We will be providing regular reports to you on how the donation has been used in Cambodia.

Students working