"Think I better dance now !"

Fund Raising Dance

Andrew from Smile Productions in Coffs Harbour has donated his organisation to put on a Kids Disco at the Coutts Crossing Hall this Saturday, 18 April.  Andrew does a great job and the kids will have an awesome time !

We have a free bus organised from Nymboida to take any local kids to Coutts Crossing.  The bus leaves from the Nymboida bus stop at 5:30pm and returns at 8:30pm

Costs are $10 a head and include light refreshments 

A huge thank you to local Nymboidan man about town, Bob Warner, for donating his time to drive the bus and to the Nymboida Canoe Centre for allowing us to use their bus.

All funds raised go to helping organisations we support in Cambodia

Booking are essential:
Contact Toni P: 6649 4263 E: cookie1616@gmail.com

  

Flyer

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Art 'n another perspective

Art to inspire creativity

An art session has become one of our regular activities during our yearly visits. The teachers and students really look forward to it. This year we enlisted the help of local Nymboida artist Pamela Denise who donated the materials and expertise. Pamela donated a workshop where Toni learnt the process of making the items and also how to deliver the workshop to the children herself. It turned out to be the best art session we have ever held. We usually hang the art in the centre so that everyone can enjoy them but the children loved their dragonflies so much they all wanted to take them home to show their parents. Why not let them have a little beauty in their homes?

Starting the creative process

Such rich, glorious colours

Ann's Tale

We had tried to organise a group of some of the wonderful people who donate to come to Cambodia with us. Unfortunately for a variety of reasons the small group became a group of one. Then Toni's Mum, Ann was the only one of the group left standing.  We asked her to write a small piece about what she thought...

Just back from an exciting and enlightening trip with Toni and Trev to see their Cambodia. The groups they help support (Goodwill centre, COLT and  CHOICE) are doing fantastic work providing food education and clean water for the poorest families so the children have a chance  to get an education, also helping women to become self sufficient making soap, clothes and bags which can be sold to give them an income. The Khmer we met were very nice, humble people who are making the best of what they have-little as it is. We can't help them all but every thing we do will help.    

Toni and Ann choosing items to sell at our local market

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Sihanoukville

Sihanoukville

The main port and largest coastal town in Cambodia, the town were we lived in 2011. Returning was like a homecoming of sorts.

Exchange Rate

We took A$7000 of donations to Cambodia, A$500 was donated to CHOICE, the rest was converted to US Dollars, with the currently deteriorating exchange rate we received US$4930.  Some of this was used to buy the Sarong Bags from COLT, these will be available for sale at the Nymboida Markets.  The remainder we deposited into the Cambodian account to fund our on-going projects. As mentioned in the last post, we are now unable to take on any more projects amd we're concerned we may struggle to fund the current projects.

Free classes for the village 

That night we sat in on the English and computer classes at the Goodwill Center, both of these classes are funded with your donations.  Buntha is really pleased with the results of the children. The children attend classes based on knowledge not on year level so that classes may have students aged five sitting beside children aged twelve if the older student hasn't had the opportunity to attend school previously. The children have never used a computer before, as it is not in the public school curriculum. Not until University are they given that opportunity and most cannot afford that luxury. Two of the students now have employment in design businesses in town due to these classes.
Sambath teaches the English classes five nights a week. The children are now writing and reading whole sentences in English. It reinforced to us the benefits of our fundraising efforts.  These classes are open to anyone in the surrounding village.

Buntha teaching IT design

Sambath teaching English night classes

Dinner with friends 

Once again we were in the same place at the same time. Four of the past managers of the Goodwill Center and the teachers had a wonderful dinner at the Small Hotel, owned by Henrik who founded the Center. Thank you to Henrik and Mom for looking after us all. It was a fantastic night and great to catch up with everyone in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Happy shiny people

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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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Where does the money go ?

As everyone who follows us knows, we have several projects that are supported by donations, we thought that as we've just returned to Cambodia, we'd do a quick recap some of what we do.

Goodwill Centre

Teachers

Via your donations we currently pay for two teachers at the Goodwill Centre in Sihanoukville.  We'll be meeting with both of them when we are there next week.  They do an incredible job along with all the staff at the Centre.

"Kids to School" Food program 

Some parents keep their children from school and instead have them work to raise money for food.   As long as the kids are being sent to school we give them a food parcel once a month.  The photo's below show some of the people you support with your donations.

CHOICE

Do a wonderful job with some of the most disadvantaged Cambodians on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh.  They're a larger organisation doing an incredible job of education, providing fresh drinking water and job creation opportunities via training. The organisation is overseen by expat volunteers and employ sixteen Khmer staff.

EDUCATION  

We currently have two scholarships we are supporting that has allowed us to fund two University positions.  We met with one of the students last night who is studying Civil Engineering at University in Phnom Penh (First Year) and another student studying English and tourism in Sihanoukville.

Exchange Rate

While the reserve bank of Australia wants the Aus. Dollar to depreciate against the US Dollar, it makes it much harder for us, as Cambodia's economy runs on the US Dollar. This means we have to raise considerably more money to keep funding the projects at the same level.  With this in mind and exchange rate uncertainty going forward, combined with our current donations, we are unable to take any more projects on unless we can increase our donations.  Currently we're down about 25% against the US Dollar.

We'll keep everyone updated as we can while we're here in Cambodia and being back simply reinforces the wonderful work we can do with the generous donations of our friends back in Australia.

Where the money doesn't go.

It doesn't go on us, all of our expenses, including accommodation, airfares, meals etc are all paid directly by us from our own money.  All the money goes to help fund the projects we support.

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