Solidarity : Happy Chandara: Tina Kieffer's School Among the World's Top 50

Founded over twenty years ago by Tina Kieffer, Happy Chandara school has just been distinguished among the fifty best schools in the world. An achievement. And the start of a new battle. Former editor-in-chief of Marie-Claire, Tina Kieffer left everything to found the Happy Chandara school in Cambodia. Twenty years later, the Varkey Foundation ranks it among the fifty best schools in the world. Portrait of a woman who is still amazed to have made it.

Tina Kieffer @CG

There are life bifurcations that we don't really choose. We stumble upon them, and there's no going back. For Tina Kieffer, this bifurcation has a face: that of a four-year-old girl, glimpsed in a Phnom Penh orphanage in the mid-2000s. She was then editor-in-chief of Marie-Claire. She didn't yet know she would leave everything behind.

Twenty years later, Happy Chandara school—which she founded in 2005 with the NGO Toutes à l'école—has just been selected among the fifty best schools in the world by the Varkey Foundation's Global Schools Prize, in the Health and Well-being category. An international recognition that celebrates an approach designed from the start as holistic: education, nutrition, mental health, social protection, equality.

INTERVIEW — TINA KIEFFER, FOUNDER OF HAPPY CHANDARA

THE GENESIS — A MEETING THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING

"I had come here on a trip, still a journalist, and I met a little girl who was not doing well at all in an orphanage. It shook me deeply. I told myself I had to get this little girl out of there. And when I brought her to France, I thought it would still be good to go further—not just save one child. I saw the condition of little girls at the time: child prostitution, lots of little beggars. I went home with the idea of founding a school."

THE CONTEXT — A COUNTRY RISING TO ITS FEET

"We know very well that the Khmer Rouge killed almost all the intellectuals, doctors, teachers. Around 2005-2006, in public schools, there were sometimes sixty kids per class with teachers who really struggled. Founding a school made sense. Even more so for girls, because in public schools there are mainly boys—the girls stay home."

THE FIRST DAY — A PLAYGROUND AS REVELATION

"The first emotion was perhaps the second recess. At first, they were completely frozen, anxious—they were coming from their slum. And very quickly, they became little girls like any others. They learned to jump rope, they laughed, they acted silly. That's when I realized we would not only give them an education, but also a lot of happiness."

TODAY — RESULTS THAT EXCEED HOPES

"They amaze me, they really amaze me. I thought there would be dropouts at the end of ninth grade, but no. They say: we don't want to stop, we want to get our baccalaureate. Their moms can't read or write. So I didn't expect that. It's not just education, it's also upbringing, health—we have a holistic approach."

THE VISION — TRAINING WOMEN WHO WILL MOVE THE COUNTRY FORWARD

"The idea is that they become educated women and therefore free, but also that they contribute to the country's reconstruction. Many of them are heading toward environmental protection—we have thirty in agriculture college, oriented toward organic like we do here. It takes a lot of work: supporting them, sending them to the right schools, guiding them toward useful careers."

"In a little over a year, I found the land, had the building constructed—it was a project I committed to 1,000%.", Tina Kieffer.

What the Varkey Foundation distinguished is precisely this refusal to separate academics from the rest. Happy Chandara is a school, but also a medico-social center with a doctor, dentist, psychologists, nurses, and midwife.

It's an agroecological farm producing more than twenty-five tons of organic fruits and vegetables per year, and more than two thousand healthy meals every day. It's a program to build houses for families devastated by monsoons—fifty houses built to date.

Primary school children @CG

Numbers that speak for themselves: 1,700 students enrolled, one hundred new ones each year, a 100% success rate on national end-of-middle and high school exams without exception since the school's creation. Fifty-three alumnae are now pursuing higher education in STEM fields.

1,700 students enrolled, from nursery to first job

100% success rate on national exams every year

25 t of organic fruits and vegetables produced per year on campus

Sunny Varkey, founder of the Foundation, personally sent his congratulations to the team: Happy Chandara's approach powerfully demonstrates how schools play a determining role in equipping young people with the knowledge, skills, and values they will need in a rapidly changing world.

Selection in the top 50 is just one step. The announcement of the ten finalists—each rewarded with $50,000—is imminent. And at the end, for the Grand Prix winning school: $500,000 to amplify its impact. Funds that, if Happy Chandara accesses them, would immediately be directed toward three priority projects.

Tina Kieffer, for her part, keeps her feet on the ground—and her eyes wide open on the country that adopted her as much as she adopted it. In the interview given to Cambodge Mag, she confided what first seduced her here: the population of poor neighborhoods, extremely smiling, living in precarious conditions without ever begging.

@CG

This observation, seemingly trivial, actually says a lot about Happy Chandara's philosophy: education is not a promise of wealth, it's a promise of dignity. And freedom.

"I am a happy founder and president," she says simply. "They make me happy and give it back to me a hundredfold. Frankly, they amaze me."

🏅 The Global Schools Prize in numbers

Created in 2025 by the Varkey Foundation, the prize evaluates thousands of institutions around the world. Ten finalists will each receive $50,000. The Grand Prix winning school will receive $500,000 to amplify its impact. The jury is co-chaired by the UNESCO Deputy Director-General and former Ofsted officials.

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