COLT Donation

COLT Donation

We have supported COLT (Dutch based charitable organisation working in Cambodia) with several small projects over the years and we purchase their handmade Sarong Bags

The lovely Ruth, modelling a sarong bag and scarf

to resell at the local markets here in Nymboida.  The two initiatives we support most with all the donations we pass on are health (the now) and education (the future).  The opportunity recently presented itself to make a donation to help them establish a health clinic for some of the very poor at their upcoming new centre.  The aims of the clinic as set out by COLT 

The medical clinic
In the new community centre there will also be space for a medical clinic which we hope to realise in cooperation with the German NGO - Chibodia www.chibodia.org. Since 2011 they have run a mobile health clinic in this area with a well-trained medical team. They are limited in what they can do because they have no permanent, safe place to store medicines and medical supplies. At Colt they will have a permanent clinic so that they will be able to offer more medical care and the people in the area will know where to go if they need medical help and advice. The Colt social worker will work closely with the medical team so that any underlying social problems will receive proper attention. We will also set up an educational programme with workshops and training sessions on subjects related to health care such as hygiene, pregnancy, HIV/aids and social subjects such as domestic violence, drug abuse etc.

Donation confirmation (above)
€345 at the exchange rate on the day ended up as $A493.72

Jumble Sale

Just a small reminder ahead of the impending biannual Jumble Sale.  We rely on goods donated to sell at the sale, our biggest fundraising event.  You can drop goods off at our house or we can collect them from you.  Please contact Toni p: 6649 4263 or e: cookie1616@gmail.com if you want to help with donations.

We will be having the jumble sale in conjunction with the Nymboida Market on 21 June.

Donors

We have several wonderful people who have set up regular donations into the fund raising account. Regular donations allow us to commit to projects that are ongoing.  If we had more regular donations (a few dollars each week or fortnight from several people goes a long way) we would be able to fund more longer term projects in education and health,  our two main priorities.  If you are interested in donating, you can set up a regular funds transfer from your bank account to the fundraising account, details of which are here

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Design and Donations

Donors

We have had several donations recently that have been very welcome. Our mystery donor, who is a local Nymboidian (is that a word ?) who asked to remain anonymous, is sponsoring a student through University in Phnom Penh via COLT. This s a huge commitment and we were stunned by the level of generosity.  We have had a donation of $100 from Trevor's mother, Ann and $50 from Phil & Chantel Wilson.

L to R: Toni, Sok Mong, Sok Mong's mother

Speaking of sponsoring education initiatives, Sok Mong is one of the local youth,  from near the Goodwill Center. We are sponsoring him through uni, with your donations and from fund raising, finished his first year and did well. Second year coming up and we wish him the best of luck.

Of course Jenny D and Richard are keeping their donations flowing to support the teacher being employed at Romdual School. A new teacher starts in the new school term at the end of the "wet season". You can keep up with the happenings at Romdual School on their blog which we maintain for them.

Garage Sale Fund Raiser

Don't forget the fundraiser garage sale is on Sunday 13th October at the Nymboida community Hall and will be combined with the Farmers Market and will be a great day.  The idea is that it's an opportunity for you to get rid of the "stuff" that's cluttering your life and give it to a great cause for us to sell and raise funds.  You can contact me via the contacts page or phone on 6649 4263 if you have "stuff" you want to donate.

Donations

Donations can be made by going to the Donations page at anytime and following the instructions there.  All the money raised goes directly to helping out, airfares accommodation etc on our behalf are all paid for by us and all time is given freely.

New Website Design

Never being happy with the layout and design of the site, I have played once again to try and clean it up and make the site easier to navigate.  We will also role out some social media links when we can get to them. Toni is not as enamoured of the minimalist design as I am.

Those of you that receive this update via email might like to take a look around and tell us what you think. 

Click the link below to go to the new look site
help-cambodia.blogspot.com

Helping

Recently reading the somber tale of Christopher Hitchens death from cancer.  Iin that book, "Mortality",  he made mention of a quote by an esteemed early American educator, Horace Mann that resonated with both of us

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity - Horace Mann

We took that to mean,  do something good for humanity before you pass, so thank you to all the donors who have done exactly that.

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A new donor and more

New Donor

A new regular donor has come on board to specifically sponsor a project we have identified with COLT. That is sponsoring the education of a student who wants to attend University. We will keep everyone updated on how this progresses. We have also recently organised another local who was keen to work directly with CHOICE in Cambodia, we helped facilitate his contacting them and was able to reassure him that CHOICE were reputable and did great work with those in need in Cambodia. This was one of the reasons we stayed for nearly a year in Cambodia, it allowed us to work with and identify great organisations and rather then reinventing the wheel, our goal is to find worthwhile organisations and help them with projects that fit with our goals. These donors have requested they remain anonymous but one is from Coutts Crossing and the other from Nymboida. Not to forget our two other regular (every fortnight) donors from Nymboida. 

Finances 

With our work expanding it was becoming more difficult to keep track of funding by using simple spreadsheets. We have "bitten the bullet" and have decided to move over to a more comprehensive Bookkeeping package for financial year 2013. We will publish quarterly financial information reports in the spirit of openness as this progresses. The Finances page is still there with all the information freely available. 

Donations 

We have many ongoing projects we are supporting, would love to start new projects as well as looking to build up funds for dispersal when next we visit next so we'd love to see donations continue to roll in. If you wish to set up a regular small donation, please go to the Donations pages and all the information on our bank account is there. Small regular donations make a major difference to their lives.

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Garage Sale Coming up

Garage Sale

While we haven't set a date yet, it would be great for people to start casting an eye over stuff in the back of the cupboard or tucked away in the garage and if they don't really need it, please consider donating it to the Annual Fundraising Garage Sale.  Long time followers might remember the last one, which was a great success.  If your memory, like mine, is getting a little vague, you can check out the one we had in 2011 here

We have had a few people donate stuff already, many thanks to them the veranda is looking a little cluttered.

Garage Sale Donation on veranda

we want it to look a LOT cluttered !  You can contact me by using the form on the contact page of this site here or you can phone me on (02) 6649 4263

Ongoing Projects

Goodwill

We have several ongoing projects that we keep raising funds for. One of these is coordinated by the staff at the Goodwill Center. We pay for supplies for families who have been identified as high risk. They cannot afford to send their children to school as they need their kids to work to help the family earn a living. The small amount we give them helps enormously.  A huge thanks to Jen and the staff at the Goodwill Center for keeping this going.

Both of these girls attend the center.

We have also committed to paying the annual salary for the English Teacher at Goodwill Center and based on how successful this has been, we will have no hesitation in paying again next year.

Romdual School

We also pay for the second teacher at Romdual School, this is an ongoing commitment, mostly funded completely by two local Nymboidians.

We have a myriad of other smaller ongoing projects we also need funds for.  We would love to give more support but to do that, we obviously need more funds !   All of the funds go directly to projects in Cambodia with none being used for administration costs which has been identified as a concern of those donating.

Direct Support

We also act as intermediaries with locals who wish to work directly with various organisations we have supported in the past.  Recently a local decided to help CHOICE out by donating directly.  If this is something you might like to do, please don't hesitate to contact me to so I can introduce to some of the organisations doing wonderful work in Cambodia.

The organisations we support directly are CHOICE and COLT both in Phnom Penh. The Goodwill Center, Romdual School and  in and on the outskirts of Sihanoukville respectively and the wonderful work Sabine is doing with her organisation Zukunftstenghau at Steung Hav

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In Phnom Penh

Unfortunately as readers will be aware our camera gear was all stolen so we' ll do our best to paint a picture with our prose.

We are currently in Phnom Penh, out networking with two wonderful groups doing some amazing work.  COLT,  who are working with Orphaned Children in urban Phnom Penh and CHOICE doing an equally great job with the poorest of the poor on the rural fringes of Phnom Penh.  Long term blog followers may remember that both these great organizations had been visited before.

We have also spent time at the Russian Market, so named as the market Russian ex-pats visited back in time when they were the quasi colonial power in the '80s. This market (or Phsar in Khmer) is a little different to the main market (Phsar Thmey) in Phnom Penh, full of food stuffs & tourist t-shirts but has some exquisite crafts & art work from local Cambodian artisans as well as the more ubiquitous food stuffs, t-shirts & bootlegged movies & software.

COLT

COLT work with orphans from Phnom Penh, unfortunately many orphanages in Cambodia have an unsavory reputation and are simply there as a money making concern,  complete with "rent-an-orphan", where unsuspecting barang (Khmer word for western foreigners) are milked for donations.  One of the great things about being on the ground is being able to do some due diligence on organisations and we are happy to say from everything we've seen, both these organisations are the real deal.

Photo of poster on the back of the door at the toilet of our guesthouse (taken with phone camera)

COLT have a large solar install underway, so I was keen to see that. The money raised for the project was from generous donors, mostly from Holland. Part of that is having electric scooters (or moto's as they're called locally) that can be charged from the solar system. When the install is complete it will provide them with an energy self sufficiency  that will be empowering and provide free power to the school and orphanage. We gave them a donation of $100 toward the Hand in Hand project.

CHOICE

It's hard to find the superlatives that describe the wonderful work these guys do.  They provide essential needs for five villages one hour from Phnom Penh. If you can picture the poorest & dispossessed who live under pieces of tin and old tarpaulins, no fresh water. These are the people they help with the simplest of necessities.  Choice provide fresh water every day, food drops once a week and clothing once a month. We purchased some rice, tinned fish for 200 people and gave them a small donation of $50.

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sponsorship and serendipity and COLT

Serendipity is  both a beach in Sihanoukville and a strange alignment of coincidences that saw me meet up with a couple from Canada that have been sponsoring families in Cambodia for a number of years.  They were staying at the same guest-house we were and I started chatting to them one night, Patsy and Johnny are a great couple that have been doing wonderful work in Cambodia for many years.

I had told her of the generous donations from our small community around Nymboida and what we were attempting to do.  She asked if we would consider helping a lady who was a friend of her's, with a small $100 donation. The donation will put her youngest child through school for a year, as well as buy her school uniform, books and a bag to carry them.  The lady worked as a small business person, six days a week, to support her three children and grandmother.   She did beach manicures and pedicures, that is she walked the tourist beaches of Sihanoukville, touting for business from tourists. This is the back-story behind being asked a dozen times a day if you want a manicure. You work, you rely on the generosity of family and friends or you starve... simple as that.

From L to R: mother, daughter, grandmother and two sons.

The grandmother also looked after the children while she was at work.  I loved the fact Tee worked hard to support her family but to support herself, three children and a grandmother on her small wage was a huge ask, so I decided to help out.

From L to R: Myself, Tee, and Patsy (from Canada)
on Serendipity Bach

So thank you to all the people of or local community, THIS is what you guys did.

Advertising

I have been busy networking (some may call it drinking at the Pub) and a few of the ex-pat business owners commented they would like a flyer to put up in their business to let people know about what we are doing.  We tried it initially on our American friends at the "Maybe Later" Bar and Restaurant.  Will wasn't offended by us purloining an American icon and having fun with it, so we have used it everywhere else as well.

Also a huge thanks to the Coolabah Hotel and how wonderfully helpful Douglas and William ( a different Will) have been there.

We are off to Phom Penh for a couple days to visit an amazingly well run Orphanage called COLT, that does an awesome job and I want to see if we can maybe help out with what they are doing.

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