All over bar the unpacking...

Toni is back at home after a whirlwind trip, we'll have a couple of posts coming, to keep people updated.  Most of our projects are up and running, with little work now needed from our side, thanks to the help from our contacts in Cambodia.  What we're mainly over there for is to make sure the projects we fund are running well and make sure the money that's donated is used in the best possible way by touching base with everyone.

Phnom Penh

This year, the clothing we'd had kindly donated was delivered to CHOICE, who support the poorest of the poor on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.  We also made a A$500 donation to the organisation to support the awesome work they do.  CHOICE was started by Ross and a small group of ex-pats.  Ross is an Australian from Geelong.

The clothes are well deserved and were well received. As always it's very confrontational to visit these villages.

Handing over the donation to Vanhy, the Khmer manager of CHOICE. 

Delivering fresh water to the villages (Toni's Mum, Annie)

A makeshift classroom as so many children are now attending classes

We also purchased items made at COLT, another organisation doing a great job in Cambodia.  These we on sell at the local Nymboida Market, so any locals wanting one, make sure you catch up with Toni at the next Market.

Beautiful sarong bag from Colt

We also managed to meet with Seng Somnang, a young man who we are sponsoring through University in Phnom Penh.  He's currently in his first year of Civil Engineering and doing well.

As we had Toni's mother Anne with us, we spent a couple days in Phnom Penh showing her the sites, sounds and yes... smells, of Cambodia's capital city.

These fishermen live on their boats on the edge of the Mekong. 

From Phnom Penh we headed down to Sihanoukville

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Following up from back home

Sok Mong saying thank you

Sok Mong is one of the young adults from Cambodia whom we are helping pay for his costs through Uni

As well as helping with his Uni fees we have donated to help with extra English literacy classes

Food Drops

We have also helped with two more food drops, these are done under the proviso that the children of the families attend the Goodwill Centre

Romdual School

Two generous Nymboida locals, Jen and Richard, who wanted to support the small remote rural school on the Ream Rv have committed to pay the monthly wages of the second teacher.  

We had previously paid for the new school desks and associated teaching paraphernalia but a new teacher was needed.  One of the things is that when educational facilities are available over there, children seem to come out of the wood work hopeful of an education.  So they needed a second teacher and we have funded it. A huge thank you to Jenny and Richard and to the "Friends of Romdual School" for organising it all.  Currently it's $US80 a month, lets hope the exchange rate holds up !

Financials

These are still being kept up to date and you can visit the page here any time, there are also details on the page if you would like to make a contribution.

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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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Food drop and chicken in a pot

Food Parcel Drop

We did another food drop to the very poor on the outskirts of the village the other day. We'll let the photos speaks for themselves.  Some of you who receive this via email may need to come to the blog site to view the photo slideshow. Each month we spend $60 approx to purchase rice, sauces and tinned fish (good source of Niacin, Calcium, Protein and Vitamin D)

Food for us

Speaking of food we had a Khmer friend come over and show us how to cook something local.  The minimalism of the cooking facilities is offset by the ingenuity of using what they do have.  By this I mean they have no ovens etc and as this simplicity appeals we were interested to see how they cooked a chicken.  A pot of course !

Chicken in a pot

He laid some lemon grass at the bottom, put the entire chicken in the pot, some congealed chicken blood, the liquid from a freshly opened coconut (no need to get it out of a can here)

Fresh Coconut - they're full of juice

and in a nod to modernity sprinkled in some chicken stock.  Then put it on a high heat and boiled it for a couple hours. The chicken was superb I must say and interesting to see how it was cooked.

There is such a variety of foods to be tried here in Cambodia. Two that piqued my interest were BBQ frog and BBQ snake, you can get just about anything on a stick here including a snake.

Snake on a stick and BBQ frog

  

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updates

Financial Updates

Well that time of the month sees the financials having been balanced for the end of the month.  Go to the link on the financials page at the top of the blog if you want to review any of it

Update on Mong's Dad (Keo Sok)

Some of you may remember that Mong's Dad fell from the roof and did himself some real damage, his legs did not move etc  Anyway, he is up and about and thanks to the kind donation of Trevor's family, half of the medical bills were paid for and they didn't have to sell their scooter to pay their neighbor back. The scooter is how Mong makes money as a moto driver to help his family and save for university so it would be a real setback if that had happened.

Mong's Dad  (Keo Sok) on his crutch

It was mentioned that this was an indication about how the plethora of OH&S rules help people in the West but this is not quite true.

OHS catastrophe waiting to happen  

I know two people from Townsville, Australia (my old home town) that fell off the roof of their house while doing work up there. It's more a reflection of a terrible health system here.  Here, Mongs father was put onto the back of a scooter and sandwiched between passenger and driver, driven over a bumpy road and taken to the nearby clinic while unconscious, (no hospital here in Sihanoukville) they stabilised him and then a private taxi was hired by the family and he was transported to Phnomn Penh for five hours in the back of that taxi... in Australia an Ambulance would have been called and transported to the nearest hospital... but enough of that, the great thing is he is getting better every day !

Another wedding

Mongs elder Sister invited Toni to her wedding, the new kitchen was put to good use to prepare the celebratory feast .

Wedding feast preparations

Ducks being killed and prepared !

Theft update

As per the last blog post all our camera gear and computers have been stolen, so we will only be able to post very sporadically when we can get access to loaner equipment. None of the equipment has been recovered and it is very doubtful it ever will and yes we were drugged, apparently the modus operandi is they send in a small child to hold a cloth with a knockout chemical under you nose, you breath it in, knock you out and they then go about robbing you, stuff was scattered everywhere, which was why we had no idea how we could not have been woken up.  The tell tale sign being the horrendous headache the next day we both suffered, to all those out there that though my snoring must have been the reason ! 

I had just got the okay from an art Gallery back in NSW to do a portrait exhibition when I returned back to Australia and I had everything organised to start the shoot here, so not being able to do that is very disappointing as well.

Interestingly, I was trying to justify the theft as "they are really poor so I can kind if understand it" to a Khmer friend.  He said "I am very poor and I never steal, they are bastards !"  I guess he was right... and yes he is very poor, we have been to his house, it is not much better than our chicken house at home.  

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ahead of the game and updates

Toilets

Some of you may remember some months ago where we used $50 donated by Jenny from Nymboida to install a toilet at a Cambodian villagers house.

The toilet that Jenny's donation built

Some may laugh but the lack of toilet facilities over here is a real problem.  A news report indicated as many as 10,000,000 Cambodians have no access to a toilet and this probably contributed to the recent EV-71 disease outbreak that resulted in the deaths of some 70 children across Cambodia a few months ago.  So serious is the issue, it seems Bill and Melida Gates (everyone will probably Bill Gates of Microsoft fame, he retired some years ago to use his fortune, joined with Warren Buffett's, to do humanitarian work) feel similarly to us and have just announced they are investing some $11 Million into the initiative of adding toilets to communities in the region. They are also  investing in trying to design a better toilet for use in the developing world.  So well done to them and well done to you guys for similarly helping, albeit in a much smaller way.

Now, where is my pirated copy of Windows 8 <grin>

Romdual School Desks

The desks have been finished and transported out to the school, we hope to get a photo of them in-situ.  No one remembered to take a photo of them being transported.  Thanks to your donations, the kids don't have to sit on the floor and we have given them part of the cost of a teachers wage for a year, when they have recruited a teacher. (Monthly salary $70, of which we have committed to $10 x 12 months = $120)

Steung Hav School Cover

The construction of the school cover is well underway.  We were sent some photos recently.

Steung Hav shelter foundations

Steung Hav shelter

You guys paid for this, somewhere for the kids to play during the monsoon season, out of the mud.

Site update

A minor modification to the links section has been made, with the update leading to other interesting organisations doing good work locally, ones we're involved with closely.  For those not in the know, the links are on the RHS near the top.  

Go to the top right section of the blog to find this information

I have taken a sample screen shot to indicate the changes.

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That was then, this is now

That was then 

Every now and again Cambodia's recent history slaps you in the face as a reminder as to why their country is like it is.  No, not the ongoing unexploded ordnance left over from the US led Australian backed Vietnam War exploding, still killing and disabling farmers and children to this day but the even more odious history of the Khmer Rouge.  While the ongoing, seemingly farcical Khmer Rough trials are happening, events like the continual unearthing of Killing Fields are a not so subtle reminder of recent history.

A newly unearth Killing Field in Siem Reap (picture from Phnom Penh Post)

Visiting such sites is extraordinarily emotive for anyone with any empathy for humanity

1 of 1000's of skull at Choung Ek Killing Field

(we did last year, more photos here) even for those of us not involved, I can only image the emotions of those actually finding the remains of relatives.

This is now

Of course the result of all of the above is the society observed today, on a "GDP per Capita" basis. Cambodia is near the bottom in terms of the wealth of it's citizens when compared to other nations. Not that many nations have not helped. Billions of dollars of Aid had been poured in, often misdirected with misdirected oversight by large bureaucracies and the ineptness this invariably brings (not a slight on anyone in particular, it's simply an unfortunate side effect of the implementation of large projects anywhere, by anyone).  The result ? A grinding poverty for many.

While we are forever mindful of the Chinese proverb about "teach a man to fish..." it's not so easy when directly confronted with incredible grinding poverty to ignore the plight of ones fellow human being.  Where, while trying to teach them to fish, which we do here every day by helping here and here for example, they struggle to eat in the interim.  With that in mind we organised another parcel of food, 

with the proviso the children of the families we help keep attending school etc, this temporarily keeps pressure off the family, hopefully keeping the children at school and not having to be put to work to help feed the family.

It's been a hard week, but not so much different from every other week.  To lighten the load a little, we could of course always refer to the immortal George Carlin-

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day

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Phnom Penh and Donations

Donations Update

Thank you to Dave and Nadine Bromhill for there recent donation as well as Chantel for mailing items to us here in Cambodia for use by the local Khmer kids.  Also a thank you to Ann Smith, Trevor's Mum for her wonderful donation along with a mystery donor for her insistence in helping out Mong's family after his fathers recent medical issues.  Of course we can't forget our regular donors Richard and Bernadette. It may seem like we carry on about this but honestly, this whole thing only works with you guys helping out, the money goes a long way over here and is really appreciated.

Even if you think you can't help, $5 or $10 can make a huge difference, especially if there are many people making similar donation amounts.  

Moving Along

Sometimes the poverty slaps you in the face, most of the time you harden yourself and ignore it. Those of you having travelled to developing countries will have some understanding but living with it is a whole different paradigm.  This little fellow

approached, as is often the case, with ribs poking out while we were eating dinner at a cheap hole in the wall cafe begging to be fed.  Feeding them is bad as it encourages them to be away from their homes (mind you one has to wonder at the quality of the home life is this is a better option), so here I am a comparatively fat, sweaty pale westerner ('barang' is the local colloquial term for all foreigners), how could a human do anything else except give him my meal... which he proceeded to ravage.  I am not saying this is anything special, it's very common and Cambodia is still a country where people actually die from starvation. I just happened to have my camera with me that night.

Phnom Penh

During the recent closure of all schools in Cambodia due to an EV-71 virus outbreak and the subsequent deaths of some 60 small children, we managed a quick trip to Phnom Penh for a couple of days.  We caught up with a young artist from Sihnaoukville whom we have befriended, Chow Maily.

Mailey and two of his entries, to his right 

He was part of  an exhibit of young Cambodian artists being shown at one of the local small galleries and advised us he had just won a full scholarship to Phnom Penh to study architect.  He will have a bright future if he can stick to it and not be distracted. We can only wish him all the best for the future.

We also took a walk down to the Mekong Rv in the early morning.  Phnom Penh lies on the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap Rivers (the river coming down from Angkor Wat)

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more updates

Stueng Hav

Toni went out to Stueng Hav with Thet, from M'lop Tapang (a very large Sihanoukville based charity that do extraordinarily good work with Children) to check how things were going. We have committed to helping fund a covered area for children to use at the main school.  The school and teachers at Stueng Hav are financed by the kind donations of a charitable group from Germany, "Future for Steng Hau" (Zukunft fuer Steng Hau e.V.) as with everyone they struggle with funds and do the best they can.

Construction has started on the extensions funded by "Future for Steng Hau" (Zukunft fuer Steng Hau e.V.) which include a new library/computer room.

"Future for Steng Hau" (Zukunft fuer Steng Hau e.V.)  run a spoke and hub type model, with many smaller classes often under houses and behind small shops in other parts of the village.  The facilites where the classes are run outside the centre are of course very basic.

School-ette under a local house

Painful Truth

Toni was also able to meet with a woman, who has a life threatening stomach problem of some sort (twisted intestine perhaps). She is unable to afford the $4000 surgery needed to save her life, an Operation, that can't be done in Cambodia and needs her to fly to Vietnam. 

Living her last days on a bamboo matt on a concrete floor

She has two children, she is left to live out her life on a bamboo matt, on the concrete floor of the local Wat.  We donated $50 for materials to fix the roof of a building closer to the toilets as she has to be carried there daily by an older woman, who helps the monks care for the lady. Toni gave $20, a small amount of money to buy food, water to live on until she dies in the very near future, what to do, such is life in Cambodia.  We also gave $30 to the Monks to help with expenses in looking after the two children. 

Donation to Monk for child support

Longer term we hope the kids will be moved to Sihanoukville, under the auspices of M'Lop Tapang.  Thank you to the donors back in Aus. for allowing us to help.

English Teacher at Goodwill Center

Our recent 12 month commitment ($32pm x 12mths = $384) to help partially fund a new English teacher in conjunction with HtCC has borne fruit   The classes have started and are well attended.  The Khmer teacher is paid $50 per month for teaching part time, 5 days a week.  He had worked at the Center (yes they use the American spelling of Centre!) before and left to complete his Bachelor of Education.  

The kids love him and the classes are going well. 

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Koh Rong

Koh Rong Island, off Sihanoukville

Just in case you guys think it's a  hard life for us over here, we managed to get away and camp at nearby Koh Rong Island for a couple days.

Toni swimming on a beach at Koh Rong.

View Larger Map

Hammocks, tins of baked beans, apples and cup-a-soups... we're packed.  We seemed to strike it very lucky with the weather, it rained the morning we left but then stopped until we were back in Sihanoukville, were it started to rain again !

Hennesy Hammocks set up on the beach

Fighting the smoke to check if the waters boiling

Sunset !

The Island currently has a couple local Khmer villages, 

Village Shacks

Local Island girl.

that until now have been subsistence and a few "eco" bungalows 

Treehouse Bungalows

that are typically from $5 to $20 a night.  I use "eco" in inverted commas because they unfortunately all seem to run off generators.  The locals have been able to earn money building the bungalows for the tourists and set up small shops selling drinks and snacks to the backpapers that invade.

We had been there before and wanted to go back before it's developed into a mega resort, with de riguer Casino and Golf Course, the sort of place that suits someone looking for a different experience to us.  If we ever get back it will be changed, the bulldozers have just started.

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Stueng Hav and English Classes

Stueng Hav

Some time ago we were invited out to a fishing village at Stueng Hav (pronounced "Stung How"). You may remember the blog post about it, if not you can look back here.  One of the reasons to go, at the time was to look at what they were doing in terms of schooling for children.  They run a small two room centre, with disparate teaching under houses in the wider community, where it is too difficult for the kids to get to the centre itself.  One of the things you realise, if you stay for any period of time is, the wet season is just that, wet.  There is a complete lack of facilities for the kids to do anything outside when it rains.  It's either inside, or play in the mud outside which, while fun occasionally (what kid does not like playing in the mud?)  is not particularly practical when they must come back inside to continue schooling.

We were approached at the time by Sabine, from the German Charity "Future for Steng Hau" (Zukunft fuer Steng Hau e.V.) She asked if we would be interested in helping use some of the funds raised to construct a shelter on a raised slab to give the kids somewhere outdoors to play during the wet.  Initially we were a little reluctant (we only have limited finds of course)  but after experiencing the constant rain here we realised it made sense. We should have just listened to her long experience in the first place !  So we have committed USD$500 to an estimated cost of USD$1200 for the covers construction.  

Thet, one of the administrators from the M'lop Tapang charitable organisation is helping with the admin work and liaising with the local Khmer workers. I will make sure I visit to see the construction taking place.  The work also provides jobs for local Khmer construction workers in the village so that helps a little as well. Unfortunately steel is expensive (the steel probably come as Iron Ore from West Aus. to Cambodia via a steel mill in China. Everyone saying the price of Iron Ore is good may want to come here and see where it to equates compared to expensive steel) and the place has lots of termites, so wood would (always wanted to use that in a sentence !) not last.  We'll keep you updated as this project progresses.

English Classes at Goodwill Centre

One of the projects that has been driven by the local community was a desire for more English Classes.

Night time English Classes - Goodwill Center

Currently we run night time classes that are well attended by the teenagers and adults from the village but there is a genuine need for extra evening classes for the younger children who receive only minimal English in public school.  A quick word of  mouth check saw 25 eager pupils wanting to attend, which is about all we can handle.  The level of enthusiasm to attend decent schooling is astounding, and often in complete contrast to experiences in Aus.

We approached the HtCC Board, who majority fund the centre. They are struggling a little financially, with the devaluation of the British Pound against the USD (the defacto currency over here), coupled with the recent doubling in rent for the Center and could only commit $18 a month to the $50 needed for the teachers salary.  We decided that it was such a worthwhile project we would make up the difference, committing to a years worth of funding.  We had already found a teacher, someone who had taught at the centre previously but left to complete his Bachelor of  Ed. so the students and teachers are familiar with him and all spoke highly of him.  His wage from us will be $50 per month (part time $18 from HtCC and $32 from our donors).  If we can we will extend the project further, if funds are available. 

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updates

Goodwill Centre

Toni has been working at the Centre for a couple months now and the other day she went for a walk through the village that surrounds the Centre to talk to a grandmother who is looking after four children whose parents have died.  This is a photo of them in front of their "house", I say house but it's actually one room of a shack, (the room on the other side houses another family) the room is about the size of the bathroom at our cottage in Nymboida Five people live there.

 That's their "room" behind the Grandmother

They share one room of this house with another family on the left, each room has it's own veranda.  All five of them sleep in the same small room

This gives you a small glimpse into one families life in urban Sihanoukville, we will have more on them at a later date.

Donations

A huge thank you to the staff of the Nymboida Coaching Station for generously donating their tips to helping the Cambodian Children, I have asked them to take a photo of all the staff so we can post it here.

Mong's Family Reno update !

If  you remember we chipped in $US135 to help this family after the kitchen started to collapse.  The concrete floor has been laid, the neighbours all helped out.

New Kitchen - Inside

You can see the huge difference between it and the original.

Old Kitchen - Inside (before it started to collapse)

According to tradition, not one but two Buddhist Monks have to come and bless the new kitchen before it can be used.  We'll be there to record it and show you what happens.

On a related note, Mong's Dad is still in hospital in Phom Penh, after falling off the roof,  racking up a hospital bill that is more than their yearly wage.  We hope he can return home soon.

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In the Newspaper

Newspaper Article

Terry from the Daily Examiner Newspaper back in Grafton was kind enough to send us an article that was published back on 16 May... Here's a copy of the article

Toni, striking a pose on the Otres Beach road "bridge"

Thanks for that Terry.  Unfortunately the web address for the blog is wrong, a "-" too many when the article was formatted, never mind.  We'd only just heard about it, though we do keep in touch with the happenings back home by going to their website regularly.

Donations

Thanks to those who have set-up automatic regular donations through their bank accounts, Richard, Greg and Bernadette, it is VERY gratefully accepted.  Thanks also to Chantal Wilson who donated $50 this week. We don't have much to report back as the projects we have committed to are an ongoing process. They are: desks for the Rumdual School (awaiting the okay from the General who owns the land the school is on if he wants to allow the expansion), and the building extension to the school at Stueng Hav.

Also a huge thanks to Trevor's sister Andrea who once again mailed over a huge box of toys and art supplies (Trevor has taken a short term loan over one of the Frisbees she sent !) .  Just one note of caution, the postage to get something over here from Australia is  very, very expensive and it might make sense to give the money directly to the donations fund and we'll spend it over here. That saves having it go into the postal services coffers and we have to pay a bribe to actually collect our mail but that's another story !

Bayon

For anyone interested, the two faces looking in from either side of the blog, are photos we took at the iconic Temple of Bayon.  While Bayon is not in the same league as the awesome Angkor Wat, they are none the less stunning in their own right. There are a multitude of these massive faces surveying the forest and plains of the Angkor archaeological park.  This, from Wikipedia is an understatement, 

The Bayon's most distinctive feature is the multitude of serene and massive stone faces on the many towers which jut out from the upper terrace and cluster around its central peak

they are breathtakingly impressive

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Our Street and good news / bad news

Our Street

To give you a glimpse of urban Cambodia, we thought we would show you what our street looks like.  It's an eclectic mix of Khmer and western houses, some quite well off but most incredibly poor.

Here are two photo's of a large pond across the road from our apartment,

Father & Son gathering plants from the pond

Wife (mother) in amongst it !

where locals gather edible and medicinal plants for use.  Those of you in Grafton might like to try the same thing in the pond at the front of the Tourist Information Centre near Macdonalds in South Grafton. I bet you would get a few stares !   You can see some of the shacks in the background and on the roofline, the top of the Kampong Som casino, a glitzy neon affair that caters to foreigners as Khmer aren't allowed on the gaming floors of the Casinos in Cambodia, except to work.

Here's two photos out the back window showing our rear neighbours houses

Out the back window of our apartment

Out the back window of our apartment

and this is the neighbour to the south, looking from the street

southern neighbour

and we have vendors go up and down selling things, food included, as well as buying things like tin cans for recycling (we give them ours but most khmer collect and sell them)

This, I think,  is one of the most iconic though, a guy with a bicycle BBQ, selling BBQ pork on a stick. Awesome ingenuity !

BBQ Vendor on a bicycle !
Notice the "tin" to stop the heat melting the rear wheel

Local kids playing in the rain

If you are receiving this by email rather then reading it on the blog, you will have to click this link to watch the video

I'll post some more photo's next time

Kitchen Upgrade

and now for some good news and bad news, which do you want first ?

The good news

The kitchen you guys in Nymboida helped fund (you can read more of that here) has come along nicely !  Some great work has been done and it was close to being completed when....

Kitchen construction well under way

the bad news

the father fell off the roof after a long day, fell across rocks and hit his head, knocking him unconscious.  They took him to the local medical clinic on the back of a scooter (yes, a scooter ) while still unconscious, where he was partly patched up. He initially could not move his arms or urinate but can now do both. The worrying thing is he can't walk.  So the family decided to bundle him into the back of a taxi (yes a taxi !) and head to Phnom Penh, we'll keep you updated.  We decided to pay $65 from the Donations Account to help with the $165 cost of  treatment at the local clinic.

We'll keep  you guys updated.  Poor education and poor access to  health care really are the two basic things a society needs.  They can't move forward with either of those two as lacking as they are.

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TEDx and Desks

TEDx

The best way to ensure the kids of the community centre are engaged by the staff is to make sure the staff themselves are engaged, so we recently took the staff of the Goodwill Center on a staff development day to TEDx in Phnom Penh. The Goodwill Center paid for some of it and your donations helped pay for the rest. While costs are low, for example $9 for a return busfare but that's 1/2 a weeks wage for some locals.

is about spreading ideas, and the localised version allows the same concept to spread out amongst the developing world with TEDx to help them engage their citizens.  There was even some intrigue, with the finale being cancelled due to concerns of the political nature of the content and who it might be offend.  That aside, it was a good event, the staff enjoyed themselves and more importantly listened to both Khmer and foreign speakers on how things could be different, and the importance of education and they got to use networking to ensure ideas could be spread further.

Goodwill Center staff

This was the first time many of them had been to their nations capital, and before the bus arrived to take us all back to Sihanoukville, they managed to to tour their national museum and royal palace to view some of the Khmer history.

Romdual School

General Sok Romdual

Ever since a few local ex-pats got together with a Khmer Army General at Ream River to open a school for the rural kids who lived there, the demand from the locals to send their kids to school has been incredible. They managed to finance the construction of two new classrooms and have asked us to help out with supplying desks, whiteboard and consumables to allow them to employ another teacher for the extra  kids.  We are busily getting quotes to have some desks built, once we know the cost, we will see if the donations  you guys have made can help out.  The school is only there at the General's behest, it's on his land and he helps out personally with lots of the expenses.

Power Outages

The power outages have become worse recently, making it really hard to run evening classes. No lights, no power, no computer classes and the evening English classes are made more difficult.  Surety of electricity is something we in the West mostly take for granted. We are lucky to go a day and not have the power out for many number of hours here.

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