Update from the Cambodia Children’s House of Peace
Greetings from the Cambodia Children’s House of Peace!
The start of 2013 has been a happy one for the children at CCHP. We are pleased to report to you on a number of successes that your kind donations have contributed to.
Exams
February was a busy month for our children, as they studied hard for their exams. We are pleased to tell you that all our children all passed their exams, with one of them scoring 100% in one English exam. We are pleased that the hard work of our children, teachers and volunteers is being effective.
Cinema Outing
After the success in their exams, we decided to treat the children to an outing to the cinema. We watched a Cambodian production called “Have you ever loved me?”, featuring a local pop star. For all of them it was their first experience at a cinema and they were very excited and happy.
Improvements to our home
Our classroom was outdoors and we worried about our books with rainy season coming soon. With your kind contributions through GlobalGiving we have been able to build a new indoor classroom.
Our kitchen was old and traditional so our children were required to wash dishes on the floor and our shelving was in urgent need of repair. In February we received funds from one of our volunteers to build a new kitchen. This has made an amazing difference:
Financial Reports & Facebook
We have now published our Annual Report for 2012 and Budget for 2013 on our website (http://www.santepheap.org/index.php?page=newsletter-2), so you can better understand how your generous donations are spent.
Our Facebook page has been growing in popularity as we post regular photos and comments. Please “like” our page to enjoy these updates:
(http://www.facebook.com/santepheap.org).
Thank you!
On behalf of the children and staff of the Cambodian Children’s House of Peace, we would like to thank you very much for your generous support to Cambodian Children’s House of Peace – CCHP.
With kind regards,
Sathya Hem
Project Leader
Links:
The Cambodian Children's House of Peace (CCHP) is a locally run Cambodian NGO. CCHP provides food, shelter, education and health care to poor, vulnerable and/or orphaned children. CCHP serves children, primarily from Siem Reap Province, the largest and poorest of the country location of the World Heritage Site, Angkor Wat.
Our children all come from very poor backgrounds and were in vulnerable situations before coming to the Cambodian Children’s House of Peace. Here, because our organization is small, they are receiving a lot of personal attention, with still enough space for them to grow as individuals. Some of our children are orphans or abandoned, many have a single mother, and some with both parents, but who have many other children, face food shortage and lack of schooling.
Our vision is to provide growth in body, mind and spirit for vulnerable children in a community of peace.
Our children attend public school for half the day as is required in Cambodia, and receive extra tutoring in English, math, physics, chemistry and Khmer literature at the children’s home every day, according to their level. When they are not studying, you will find our children playing volleyball, swinging and chatting in the hammocks, or helping out the cooks prepare the meals! The Cambodian Children’s House of Peace is like a big family!
For more information, please contact us at No. 004 Phum Mondul 3, Sangkat Slorkram, Siem Reap Province, Cambodia
Dear Friends and All,
On behalf of the children and staff of the Cambodian Children’s House of Peace, we would like to thank you very much for your generous support to Cambodian Children’s House of Peace – CCHP. It is a children’s home which provides food, shelter, clothing, medical care and most importantly, a quality education for the 30 children and youth.
CCHP has raised over $20,000 since 2011 from friends around the world. It is thanks to FRIENDS like you that make our project possible. CCHP is very proud of its success in making a difference in the lives of the 30 children and their families or relatives.
With the funds raised through GlobalGiving will enable us to provide food and education to our children here at Cambodian Children’s House of Peace. Our children look good and healthy because of food you have been providing them through this project. All our children attend state school during the day, either in the morning or in the afternoon, as scheduled by the government of Cambodia.
They are thus in touch with today's Cambodia and interacted with other children. Besides state school we provide additional classes in English and computer and tutoring sessions in Khmer literature, mathematics, physics, chemistry and morality, to help them in their learning. We are doing our best to ensure the need of the children to grow and develop into productive citizens of Cambodia. During this quarter we were able to build a new house to accommodate our children and tilling the pathways so that they have a proper place to live. We are trying our best to ensure that what we are doing is in compliance with the Minimum Standard of Alternative Care of the government. Once again, we would like to thank you very much for your generous support.
Sathya Hem
Project Leader
Cambodian Children’s House of Peace
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Links:
Greetings from the Cambodian Children’s House of Peace!
I have been volunteering here as an English teacher and office assistant for communications for the past three weeks and I absolutely love it! I hope that I will be able to share some of my excitement about my work here through this short report on our organization.
The Cambodian Children’s House of Peace - or Santepheap for short, which means ‘peace’ in Khmer - provides food, shelter, education, health care and moral development to twenty children from the Siem Reap province. Most of the children do not have a family that can support them, and many have lost one or both of their parents. The situation of the children of Santepheap is reflective of the hard reality facing many families in Cambodia, a country that is still struggling to build a bright future after half a century of war, instabilities and atrocities under the Khmer Rouge.
However, Santepheap has been doing an incredible job to give its children better opportunities. In addition to the half day of schooling they get by attending local public Khmer school, the children have three to four hours of extra English, Khmer, physics,chemistry and math classes, taught here by local teachers and international volunteers. The children show an impressive will to learn more all the time and are very glad for the extra tutoring they are getting through Santepheap. When they are not studying, you will find the children enjoying free time around the grounds of the school, singing along to the radio, playing volleyball or helping prepare meals with the cooks. There is a very friendly and welcoming atmosphere here.
Santepheap has been very involved recently in making the lives of its children even more comfortable. A new building was built this past Spring to house the boys. They now have concrete walls and a proper roof that does not leak when it rains! The classroom, which is located at the back of the boys’ building also gained from the renovations. It is now a much nicer environment to teach in, with proper white boards. The wall is already covered with informative posters of all sorts. Because it is the beginning of the rainy season, all the children also got involved over the past few weeks in tilling the main pathways between the buildings. Now, the paths will not get flooded anymore and walking around the school will be much less troublesome when the rain comes.
Santepheap’s staff has been very eager to share more of their upcoming projects. They want to turn what is now simply a hole to collect rain water into a proper fish pond, and are looking into creating an organic garden at the back to the school. This latter project would greatly benefit the organization, because it would help them be more autonomous and sustainable. It would also be a great way to teach the children gardening skills, and foster in them yet another sense of responsibility and accountability.
While the Cambodian Children’s House of Peace benefits from a great staff and very ambitious students, it sadly not financially secure, relying on ad-hoc donations. Future projects thus can only happen through the generosity of donors. However, Santepheap has actively been looking for income generating projects. One of such projects just became reality, with the very recent opening of their own volunteer lodging accommodation, where I am staying at the moment, and which doubles as the office for some of the staff. All the money collected by having volunteers stay here goes directly to the organization. The accommodations are very nice, fully equipped, and is very conveniently located very close to the Children’s House of Peace, which makes it easy to go volunteer every day. I warmly recommend staying there if you are considering volunteering at Santepheap.
Until Santepheap finalizes some of its other income generating projects, I hope people would consider making a donation towards this great project. I can see the evolution of the children everyday through my work here, and I love the full dedication of everyone who is part of this organization, be it staff or children. Santepheap is working very hard to fulfill its mission, and is doing so very successfully.
Best wishes from Santepheap,
Elisabeth
Links:
Jacqueline Lee is an InTheField Traveler with GlobalGiving who is visiting our partners’ projects throughout Southeast Asia. Her “Postcard” from the visit in Cambodia:
On March 21, 2012, Alexis (GlobalGiving staff) and I visited Cambodian Children’s House of Peace in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Upon arrival, staff and Sathya, Cambodian Children’s House of Peace’s Project Leader, greeted us. We were led to the back of the center and sat on the stage, which on Sundays serves as a place for the children to perform traditional Apsara dance for visitors and tourists.
Signs hung that read “Peace”, since the organizations’ Cambodian name is “Santepheap” which means peace in Cambodian. Sathya shared his background, the beginnings of Santepheap, and its goals for the future. The current program for the kids consists of school in the morning as well as classes available in English, computers, dance, art, and vocational trainings like sewing.
After, the entire staff came to sit with Alexis and me. Each introduced themselves and shared why they came to work at Santepheap. First the “money woman”, also known as their head of finances, shared how it’s not just about the salary… it’s about a job you like. The rest of the staff shared how they were able to learn skills through the job and how to better take care of the kids.
Finally we toured the campus which consisted of: land in the back to be turned into play areas and maybe a garden, a stage and sitting area for the dance performances, the sleeping quarters, office area, and outdoor kitchen. The area reflected a typical Cambodian home. In the background during our visit, the chef and cook assistants were preparing food for the kids when they returned – chopping many vegetables and smashing by hand spices and herbs.
The challenge that Cambodian Children’s House of Peace faces is securing long term funding to stop functioning “hand to mouth” as Sathya explained. They would like to be able to create long-term strategy based on funds for new projects as well as maintain current ones. The new campus is located on a piece of land with much more affordable rent than their previous location.
Cambodian Children’s House of Peace is a local-run for local children organization. The organization was taking care of 33 children, majority of whom were away at school during our visit.
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