The Journey So Far

Denise and John Burton successfully ran their own sheep and cattle farming business for over thirty years. With our family grown up and with skills in other areas like teaching children with special needs, soil and water conservation and community projects, we made a decision to find ways to use our skills in growing communities with a different culture in the developing world.

In Cambodia we found a country still reeling from the unthinkable devastation of the Pol Pot era 35 years before. Here the entire education system still struggles to rebuild from those few years of human, infrastructural and cultural annihilation. For example, of 20,000 teachers initially only 2,000 survived the senseless slaughter.

Everywhere we went there was a real need for outside help to bring basic education, especially to poor rural village children.

We initially formed Kiwis 4 Cambodian Kids (K4CK) in 2012 to support a 170-student village school, run by a local NGO in the countryside of northwest Cambodia, near the world famous Angkor Wat temples outside Siem Reap.

Our focus has moved on and we now support education through the Community Learning Center concept. We aim to bring world leading technology, internet access and innovative learning methods to our Cambodian community. We want outcomes which create a strong learning community leading to better livelihoods and a growing, independent community.

The Trustees

DENISE BURTON – Teacher of children with special needs, farmer.
JOHN BURTON – Biological farmer, soil resource conservator, professional rural photographer, community project manager.

And their three lovely daughters:

TAMMIE GRANT – Web/graphic designer, professional photographer.
AIMEE BURTON – Business solutions consultant.
KIMBERLEY BURTON – MSc in Industrial Psychology.  Working in human resources with NZ Government.