On 2 August 2013, an official ceremony took place in Cambodia, in the village of Roluos, in the presence of more than 300 students and hundreds of parents, teachers and local civil and religious authorities, for the groundbreaking ceremony of a new building of 5 classrooms, a library and the renovation of existing buildings, for the benefit of disadvantaged children of Roluos Primary School, part of the world-famous Angkor UNESCO World Heritage Site in the province of Siem Reap.
This project, supported by the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Youth Foundation (FASEJ), in partnership with the Swiss watch manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen, is managed by the Franco-Cambodian association SIPAR, a non-governmental organisation that has contributed for 20 years to the fight against illiteracy and to developing school and public reading in Cambodia. This programme has been enriched for the past 10 years by a branch publishing books in Khmer, among which figures The Little Prince.
This project is a continuation of several philanthropic activities in Cambodia led by the SIPAR over a period of several years, and supported by the FASEJ and IWC Schaffhausen, for the development of education of young underprivileged Cambodians, for example the creation of libraries, the publishing and diffusion of books in Khmer, supplying reading materials to remote areas and the development of mobile libraries (bibliobus).
