Stueng Hav

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Steung Hav

We hit the ground running. The first day after our arrival we visited Steung Hau, a smaller coastal town outside of Sihanoukville. Sabine, our wonderful friend from Germany who is one of the main drivers behind an educational initiative in Steung Hav, arranged the visit. Long time readers may remember we gave a donation to fund the construction of  the main schools all-weather shelter, this could only happen due to your generous donations. It's long been finished but this was our first opportunity to view it.

The shelter allows the children to play outside during the long monsoon season where the center's yard turns to mud.

All weather shelter

The center is deigned to supplement the Khmer State School curriculum, with access to computers for computer classes

Computer Room

and more english lessons as well as a facility the community can use (library etc).

Village 

We also managed to take a tour around the school and village itself to see how the locals live, the photo slideshow below is probably better at telling that story.

English Classes

While there, we had the opportunity to visit the night English classes. Thi is an initiative where they have taken the schools to the children. They have several of these classrooms scattered through the outer areas of Steung Hav. The German charitable organisation running the project, led by Sabine is doing an incredible job, as are the local Khmer staff.

Typical under house village English class

and another

English lesson

You can read more about the great work being done at Steung Hav by Sabine and friends here

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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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Stueng Hav completion

Stueng Hav

The outdoor enclosure at the Stueng hav center, which we part funded has finally been completed. The children now have a safe and dry area to play, study and learn out of the torrential tropical rains of Cambodia. There was an opening ceremony with local dignitaries and parents in attendance. The children received certificates and gifts from the Village Chief. M'Lop Tapang, who we have mentioned many times in past posts, performed a dance for the occasion. You can read more about the excellent work being done in Steung Hav.  For those if you who receive this blog update via email, you will need to click through to the web page to view the photo slideshow.

Poor village families receive food parcels

Jen, the Goodwill Center Manager and Kolab, one of the teachers, are continuing to donate their spare time to arrange food parcels for some of the poorer village families. We thank you many times over for your efforts. 

Romdual School

There are plans underway to return to Cambodia with two generous friends who support this school by paying the wages of one of the teachers. The new teacher travels 2 hours a day on his scooter to give the children their lessons which is only possible because of Jen and Richards help.   We also maintain the organisations website and other administrative duties to help ease the load. 

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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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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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