“Knowing how to help yourself is the key to improving your life.” This is one of the messages ISF primary school students are learning in our Self-Development Course.

Many of ISF’s students feel trapped by poverty, unable to turn their situation around without outside help. ISF gives them this help. However, improving their lives is not just about resources like education, healthcare, and food. It is also about changing their minds, increasing their confidence and making them believe that they have what it takes to change their lives for the better. ISF’s Self-Development Course was developed with this in mind. Our staff uses ideas extracted from books, magazines, newspapers, the internet, and the experience in their own lives to change students’ negative thinking into positive thinking.

We believe that a positive and confident mind makes better decisions, which lead to an improved life.
The course has proven to be a big success and we’re seeing great changes already. Our students themselves are telling us how they have improved relationships with friends and we can see their study results improving. We hope this course and the support they get at ISF will offer them the tools to help them when they feel down or face problems.

Sreytom*, one of the students who joined the course, commented: “After finishing this course I have changed a lot. I have more energy, help my mom with housework, and try to study harder. My results have improved a lot. You know I used to be ranked 20 [in a class of 40 students], but now I’m number 9! I feel like I’m much stronger. I know my goal now; I want to be a fly attendant and to become a fly attendant I have to study hard at Khmer and English. I feel calm now and know I can solve a problem if something happens to me. I will encourage my friends who have not yet joined the course to join it.”
*Names of students under 18 have been changed.