About School
Small Art School (SAS) is a self-financed art school, founded by a Japanese art teacher – Tomoko Kasahara, with the aim to provide free art education to Cambodian children, especially for those children who have the will to learn but lack the opportunities to do so.
With the goal of helping children, Tomoko and her colleagues aim to provide free and quality education, primarily to children who have the will to learn but lack the opportunities. We promote our students’ creative expression while allowing them to cherish joyful learning experiences as they grow. We are very proud of our students who have deepened and broadened their knowledge and creative abilities through Small Art School’s programs and activities.
About Founder:
Tomoko Kasahara
With a Master’s Degree in Art from Tokyo Educational University, she started her career in 1976, as an art teacher at a public high school in Tokyo. She had been an art teacher in Japan for 31 years. It was her dream to build up free art school ”Small Art School” since she was a high school student. Upon looking for a location, she visited India, Nepal, and finally decided to build the school in Siem Reap, Cambodia in 2007. At first, she started teaching art at an orphanage center and also taught the neighborhood children. She provides all art supplies and education for free. To follow her dream to provide free art education to underprivileged children, she and her team decided to create the ”Khmer Kids Art Gallery” to help raise funds for the school.
About Activity
[Art class]
Our target students for art education activities are Cambodian children. In addition to classes for nearby children at schools, at the request of domestic and international support groups and NGOs, we currently teach at two community centers, two nursing homes, five public elementary schools, one international NGO, (Approximately 400 people) provide more than 200 art lessons annually. (As of February 2020)
[Japanese class]
A tourist destination with the world archaeological site Angkor Wat, foreign language skills will open up opportunities for future work in Siem Reap.
For this reason, we provide free Japanese lessons four times a week from Monday to Thursday for nearby children.
