Drive to School

Report from Charlie Rumsby, Spring 2021 Award Recipient

Image: Courtesy Charlie Rumsby.

Cambodia, a predominantly Buddhist society, is currently the 9th fastest growing Christian country per capita in the world.[1] The growth of Christianity is what inspired me to understand the motivations of the Christian missionaries from Southeast Asia and the impact of their mission work.

Drive to School is a short film that documents the motivations of young Christian missionaries Charles and Ai who are striving to bring education and hope to Cambodia’s stateless children. Moved by witnessing the vulnerability to prostitution these children face to make ends meet, they attempt to offer alternative routes to learning and employment. Not without challenges along the way.

Utilising the digital enabled me to:

  1. allow for the research to be promoted on non-traditional platforms
  2. advance the reach of the research to non-academic audiences through film screenings
  3. remove the language barriers / paywall barriers that an academic written output creates

raise awareness of the issue of exclusion from universal provision of education as ratified by the Convention of the Rights of the Child

[1] Philip Coggan, ‘The Rapid Growth of Christianity in Cambodia’ [2016] Herald Malaysia Online.

Dr Charlie Rumsby is a Lecturer in Childhood and Youth based at Sussex University, and a visiting research fellow at the Anthropology Department at the LSE.