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

Read More

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

Read More

Goodwill Centre

Goodwill Centre

The centres main purpose is to teach classes in English and Computers as well as Khmer literacy classes, the latter to supplement their State based education (a couple hours a day).

Toni, catching up with the IT teacher, discussing the recent employment success  of one of the students
at a printing house doing design

It also does a great job as a safe place for local children to play and to allow the parents peace of mind while they work especially as formal schooling is only a couple hours a day (either morning or afternoon) and of course the locals have no money for toys etc so the kids have access to puzzles and games etc as well as art and crafts.

One of the projects Toni had implemented when working at the Centre was English classes for the younger children.  We fund these classes with your donations, so she was keen to catch up with the teacher, Sambath, to see how things were going.

Toni talking to the English class

Craft

Nymboida local, Kim Lavery donated a box of crafts to take over. As an added bonus, the high quality craft items aren't available in Cambodia so the kids and the staff were incredibly excited.  A huge thank you to Kim !

Toni doing craft with the kids

Hard at it !

Moi, bee, bay ! (Khmer for 1, 2 3), strike a pose !

Plenty of craft items were left behind, with Toni passing instructions on to the staff showing how they could be used

Soap

The Centre has a set up a small business making soap,  This allows some of the local Mums a chance to earn a small income as well as allowing them time together to socialise and catch up.  We had organised to buy 50 soaps and they had just finished them when we were there.

We have these for sale at the local Nymboida Markets if any one wants one !  All the money from the sale goes back to the donations account.

Soap Ladies working hard

Soaps finished and awaiting packaging

Read More

Clothing Donations

Clothing Donations

We were inspired by our friends in Ireland, Ciaran and Audrey, and asked our local community to donate clothes for us to take to Cambodia.  Logistically it was quite simple. We paid a little more for extra luggage and booked a taxi directly from the Phnom Penh Airport to our accommodation in Sihanoukville, all paid from our own pocket not the donations. We had close to 50kg in clothing from locals in Nymboida and Grafton. We were overwhelmed. Thank you all so much but the biggest thanks come from the kids around the Goodwill Centre in Sihanoukville.

The Goodwill Centre does an awesome job and we were so happy to revisit and keep supporting them. They rolled out the welcome matt and it seemed we had never left

Sign on the Centre's wall !

Working with our friend, Jen, we laid the donated clothes out while the staff were minding the children.

Toni and Centre Manager, Jen

more clothes...

Staff and children swooped in !

L - R: Jen, Kolab and Toni trying clothes on with the kids

Local Mum's in on the action (ex Centre manager Sabine dropped in as well)

The clothes were snapped up in a flash.

We know they were appreciated, thank you to all who helped with their kind donations.

Local kids modelling the donated clothes

Local kids modelling the donated clothes

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

update

C.H.O.I.C.E

Choice are one of the wonderful organisations which we support in Cambodia. Situated in the Capitol, Phnom Penh, they provide fresh drinking water, food, clothing and medical care. After returning to Australia I joined their facebook group and discovered that they are involved in much more than I had previously thought. In recent weeks they:

•  organised transport to public schools for 60 children who live in remote areas and the sewing class made them all school uniforms, a prerequisite for attending public school. 
• Three local village men have received prosthetic limbs 
• 120 children received dental exams and treatments

The dentals treatments were in conjunction with another of our favourite charities, Colt

Sok Morng

We have had word from Jen, the Operations Manager at the Goodwill Center that Sok Morng is really enthusiastic about University. Morng sent an email to thank us all for changing his life. He wants us to listen to a song he says expresses how he feels. 'You raise me up' by Westlife

More food drops

The monthly food drops continue at the Goodwill Centre. Thanks to Jen and Kolab. The two boys in these photos attend the centre and are really happy little fellas despite abject poverty.

Read More

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.

Read More

Still getting stuff done

Food Aid

A huge thanks to Jen from the Goodwill Center for helping continue some of the projects we had set in place in Sihanoukville.  Long time readers may remember we have opened  bank account in Cambodia and put funds in it and given the ATM card to Jen to help with the work.  Last week she was continuing our food project that helps the poorest families survive and send their kids to school.  How does it work ? The parents are so poor that they keep their children at home to help with chores in the small business to help them survive. They need to choose food over education in really extreme cases. We give them the occasional food aid parcel to take the stress off them but only if they allow the kids to attend the Goodwill Center and continue their extra English and Computer classes.

Happy !

Back in Australia

Well, we have been back in Australia for two weeks now. That is taking some getting used to and we are both finding it difficult to adjust in different ways. We plan to catch up with as many locals as we can to say Thank you for their support and give them some thank you gifts. We also plan to keep raising funds to make sure the projects we are involved in can keep going, particularly the support for Romdual School, The Goodwill Center and various small community projects.  Anyone who wants to keep giving, give until it hurts ha ha ! 'cause over there, many do hurt.

For those interested, you can follow our Australian experiences on our small 45 acre property here

Our cottage in the bush, in Australia

You can add subscribe by adding your email address in the area that looks like this

part way down on the right hand side of the blog.

Read More

School Supplies and Finances

School Supplies

One of the projects we have been working towards for a few weeks is getting more of the poorest children to go to school.  Toni has been working with Kolab, one of the Staff at the Goodwill Centre to help identify some of the poorest children.  These are often the ones who have everything against them, losing one or both parents is typically the major contributor.

While the Goodwill Centre does a great job of providing care for children in the community and access to materials and facilities they would never see elsewhere and access to free English language and Computer classes for anyone in the village who wants to improve themselves, the children still have to go to Khmer public school.  One of the requirements to go to school is they must wear a school uniform.  Some have no chance of affording that, so we identified six at risk children who have stopped going because of that and went on a small shopping trip to provide them with two uniforms, a backpack and minor supplies like pencils, books etc.

Kolab with the kids at the local Phsar (market)

In the "change room". measuring up

Everyone into the Tuk Tuk to go back to the Goodwill Center

Back at the Goodwill Center for the obligatory group shot

All up we spent $126 and look at their smiles.

This is one of the things about being here on the ground and forming relationships in the community, you are actually able to help and by maintaining those relationships, continue helping and monitoring into the future. We  don't have to go through a variety of middleman, all taking their legal cut, you don't have to deal with bureaucracy, you just get things done, immensely satisfying but impossible if we had not had the help of all you guys back in Australia, giving donations, thank you so very much.

Changing the Finances

Knowing we were eventually coming back to Australia, we have been struggling for some time to come up with a solution on how best to enable the continual use of the funds.  Transferring money from Aus to Cambodia is expensive, often the fees involved are more than the money itself. The donation money going to Bankers seems a poor use of funds, as does us paying for it personally.

Canadia Bank Account: Cambodian Donations Account

The solution we have come up with is to open a bank account here in Cambodia and transfer the majority of the remaining funds. We then attached an ATM card ($6 fee over here as most don't use them) and leave that with a trusted local,  Jen Hoggett.   Jen is a long term English expat. We met Jen when we first came here and taught English with her at the school in Wat Otres. Jen has been volunteering at the Goodwill Center for over a month and is well respected in the community. We have complete faith in Jen.  We have contacted all the local groups we have dealt with and advised them that if they have projects etc they want funded they are to contact us via email. If we think their project is worthy, we will advise Jen of the amount via email and Skype, she will then withdraw the money from the ATM and they will give her receipts/invoices etc that will be copied electronically and sent to us.

We decided to do this, as from the outset, the money is supposed to be there to help the peoples of Cambodian.  The Cambodian banking system is still quite "old school", yes they have Passbooks and electronic banking is a far away dream, it's probably akin to the Australian banking system in the 1980's. The bank we used is Canadia. We hope everyone agrees this is the best solution ?

In that respect we added the details of the new bank account to the Financials Page, go there if you want more info.

Read More

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. 

Read More