Couple with local ties pushes Cambodia school project

Courtesy Photo MIKE AND NOELLE Magluilo stand in front of one of sights in Cambodia where they are helping to build a school. Noelle Magluilo grew up and attended schools in Laconia says her educational experience was part of what inspired the couple to embrace this project.


By JOHN KOZIOL


Inspired during a recent trip abroad by her educational experiences years earlier as a student in Laconia, Noelle Magluilo and her husband Mike are helping build a school in rural Cambodia.

The daughter of Mary and the late Peter Bourgault, Magluilo graduated from Laconia High School in 1991 and in 1995 obtained her bachelor's degree in Health Management and Policy from the University of New Hampshire.

For the past seven years, she and her husband have lived in London where Magluilo helped hospitals implement and manage software systems and her husband worked for a branch of an American bank.

The coupe traveled extensively and in 2008, they planned a trip to Asia. A neighbor of theirs in the Battersea neighborhood of London who was Thai suggested they visit his homeland but advised that if at all possible, they should also make a side journey to Cambodia.

That advice has transformed Magluilo's life and as she and her husband get ready to resettle in the U.S., Magluilo has devoted herself full time to a project she and Mike have named "Classrooms for Cambodia."

Working through an "on-the-ground" charity called American Assistance for Cambodia (AAfC), Classrooms for Cambodia is working to raise $19,000, which will be matched by the Asian Development Fund and the World Bank to cover the full $50,000 construction cost of a school for 140 students.

The Magluilos have raised $4,000 so far and hope to have the balance by the end of the year. They are motivated by two philosophies: teach a many how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime, and with knowledge, comes responsibility.

The former, said Magluilo, she learned in Laconia's public schools and her husband acquired through his own experiences in higher education. Mike Magluilo earned a scholarship to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he obtained his degree and had inculcated in him the values of hard work, team play and charity, said his wife.

The Magluilos learned the true meaning of the second philosophy following their January trip to Cambodia, when they visited the historic Angkor Wat temple complex but also got a behind-the-scenes look at how many Cambodians live.

"We were humbled to see firsthand the tragedy the country has suffered and the poverty that continues to hamper progress," said Magluilo, referring to the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime that between 1975 -1979 was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 20 percent of the population.

Intellectuals, especially teachers, were killed as the Khmer Rouge attempted to root out all foreign "capitalist" influences and to create a communist, agrarian society.

Thirty years later, Cambodia is still suffering from the policies of the Khmer Rouge, said Magluilo, but thanks to the efforts of the AAFC, 300 schools have been built and with Classrooms for Cambodia, at least one more is in the works.

"Despite all the poverty there, you have never seen people smile so much," Magluilo said of the Cambodian people. "They're very humble, very modest, very hard working and everything they do they do with a smile."

"It was very inspiring to us to be surrounded by these people who just had this great energy about them and I think in many places they don't understand the extent of the poverty themselves but they really just have a beautiful spirit and we were really touched by that. When we came back, we knew we wanted to help somehow and I knew it was within my means to help."

The Magluilos thought about starting their own charity to build schools but in researching the matter further, decided to work with the AAFC after learning that it already had years of experience building schools in Cambodia. The AAFC is also training many Khmer Rouge orphans to be teachers, added Magluilo, whose mother was a teacher in the Alton, Gilford and Plymouth school districts.

"The trip to Cambodia made me even more grateful for the education I had in Laconia. This is a way for me to pay that forward," said Magluilo, who was in Laconia last week and stopped by her alma mater where she made a point to say hello to Gary Liptak, who has taught chemistry and physics at LHS for 25 years.

"This is where a lot of it started for me. It was even more challenging than my university studies. I got a great education and had excellent teachers and in listening to Mr. Liptak it cemented for me the value of the education I received and of wanting other people to have an opportunity like I had."

Liptak remembered Magluilo as "an academic standout" and a "marvelous kid who came off as unafraid of challenges."

"It doesn't surprise me a bit that she ended up doing this sort of work in Cambodia," said Liptak, adding that "as an educator, I'm just thrilled when I see one of our kids do wonderful things in general but specifically great things in education."

When fundraising for Classrooms in Cambodia reaches the $5,000 mark, AAFC will announce exactly where in Cambodia the money will be used to build a new school.

"It's important to me and Mike that the impact of donations is transparent," said Magluilo, and as important to her and her husband is that the students who study there know that the money came from all over the world, including a far away place called Laconia, New Hampshire where an education is a cherished thing.

For more information about Classrooms for Cambodia or to make a tax-deductible contribution to it through American Assistance for Cambodia, visit www.classroomsforcambodia.com or call Noellef and Mike Magluilo at (970) 372-2209.