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.

Read More

more updates

Market Stall

As mentioned previously, Toni sells her excess produce,  grown at our property, and cheese she hand makes herself,  along with an eclectic mix of items at the local Nymboida markets. The profits going as donations. Plenty  of work goes into the stall, making cheese etc.  This week there was a donation of plants to sell, thanks Jennie.  As well as Toni selling some Buddah's from a local crafstman. The money from the Buddah sales goes directly to CHOICE at Franks request.  The rest of the money raised goes to help fund various projects we''re engaged in.  $121 was raised from the sale of the Buddah's and $47 from everything else.  Not too bad at all !

Store at the markets

Garage Sale Update

More donations to the fund raising garage sale have been coming in. We're starting to  get enough now to fix a date, so put 13 October in your calendars to come down and browse the brick-a-brack that will be available at the sale.  All the funds raised go to help fund the various on going projects we are engaged in.  The Garage Sale  will coincide with a market and will be a great morning out.

Read More

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.

Read More

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

Read More

Benefit Dinner - Done !

The benefit dinner was a great success. There were around 70 people there who all enjoyed a wonderful buffet dinner with an amazing range of dishes, all donated by generous locals, Thank you so much. The highlight of the evening was a truly informative presentation by Professor Sharon Sullivan. Sharon has extensive knowledge of Angkor and the history of Cambodia and her talk was very professional and entertaining. It was still being mentioned at the markets the next day.
The entertainment was a great mixture of acapella by the 'Young' boys, folk stylings of John Spencer and Geoff Welham, topped off by another great performance from Phil Wakeling who had everyone dancing.
Thanks to so many wonderful people who helped on the night and everyone who attended the event....we raised $796.90. A special mention to a lovely man, Jim Knight from Kangaroo Creek. Jim had some trouble while driving to the hall and didnt make it but he called me the next day to apologise and donated $40.

Photo's

Read More