Happy Chandara School

Agents of Sustainable Development

To help them grow into responsible citizens, students at the Happy Chandara campus are introduced from an early age to the challenges of climate change. The Opening to the World (OSM) department offers ecological awareness courses: documentary screenings on climate disruption, visits to plastic recycling plants, and waste collection campaigns…

Some students take their involvement further by joining permaculture workshops (nursery, mushroom growing), paper recycling projects, organic soap making or composting sessions. These initiatives turn the Happy Chandara campus into a genuine living laboratory for sustainable development.

An Agroecological Farm at the Heart of the Campus

In 2016, the Happy Chandara campus created its permaculture center to raise awareness among its students — and also their parents, many of whom are small-scale farmers — about sustainable agriculture. With its 13,000 m² of cultivation areas, it has now become a true agroecological farm, combining practical learning and food production, with nearly 30 tons of organic fruits and vegetables harvested each year.

The students actively take part in sowing, planting, and harvesting, discovering the principles of sustainable agriculture. The harvests directly contribute to the 2,000 meals prepared every day in the three campus cafeterias, moving the school closer to food self-sufficiency and promoting responsible farming practices.

A Fully Greened Campus

Particularly affected by the climate crisis, Cambodia experiences increasingly extreme heatwaves, and public schools are sometimes forced to close. Since 2022, a greening program across the entire campus (climbing plants along the walkways, canopies over the schoolyards…) has reduced classroom temperatures by 4°C, allowing classes to continue even during periods of intense heat.

Some Key Figures

— 13,000 m² of cultivation areas on the campus agroecological farm.
— 30 tons of organic fruits and vegetables harvested each year.
— 2,000 meals prepared every day across the three school cafeterias.