GlobalGiving Annual Bonus Match Day is June 15 !
The “big story" and the price of garlic....
Project updates are sometimes hard to write because much of the work that we do is quiet and not very exciting to read about. A large part of what we do is to function as “ family” for our families, helping them to help themselves. While we always like to tell a story that has a shows a concrete example of the benefits of our efforts, such as getting and keeping children in school, sometimes the “big story” is simply about being there to offer the support that allows a family to function instead of breaking apart.
Introducing Nhieng
Nhieng’s family has been a part of our program for a number of years. Nhieng has AIDS. She is about 40 years old and she works hard to support to her three children. We met Nhieng some years ago in the mid 2000s before the ready availability of antiviral AIDS medications and we expected that she, like so many mothers in our program, would survive just a year or two. Like other families in her situation, life changed radically when new antiretroviral AIDS medicines became available and her stable living situation supported by our program, qualified her to access these life prolonging drugs and medical treatment. Now, several years later, she is still with us. Her health, despite AIDS, remains good enough to allow her to try to support her family which consists of a son from a first marriage and two other young children from a subsequent relationship. The son is now turning 18. He completed grade 8, but dropped out of school in grade nine. Suffering from severe depression, he stays at home. Her other children are a daughter age 6 and a son age 3. To the best of our knowledge, the children are not HIV positive.
Despite her HIV status and difficult life, Nhieng is not a quitter. She works hard to try to support her family by peeling garlic in a produce market near to her home. She receives Cambodian Riel 3,000 (about $0.75) per kilo ( 2.2 pounds) . Nhieng works all day, 7 days per week, doing this work. She can complete up to about 3 kg per day earning about $2.25 per day or about $68 per month , less if she is unwell and unable to work. Obviously, this is not enough to support a family of four but Nhieng continues to work hard to help her family and the support from our program of about $ 140 per month makes life bearable by providing shelter, additional money for food , access to social support and continuing access to medical care. Beyond this, her younger children are safe from trafficking and they will have an opportunity to access the education so needed by children to break free of this cycle of poverty.
Our program to help moms with HIV/AIDS to support their children is not a headline making, quick fix program, but a program that recognizes that it is too late for these moms to build a successful life for themselves. Instead , we focus on providing humanitarian support to keep these fragile families together, keep children safe and give us time to help the children in the families to build a brighter future through education.
Your support helps us to help our families. We continue to support a family for an average of about $ 140 per month. We are deeply grateful to you all for your generosity and we encourage you to consider making a donation during the upcoming GlobalGiving Annual Bonus Match Day on June 15 where your donation can receive a bonus match of 50% on a donation of up to $1000 per organization.
Thank you again for your generous support of our families.
Barbara & Mark Rosasco
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Since 1999, Kasumisou Foundation has provided care and support to fragile families and children impacted by extreme poverty and HIV/ AIDS in and around Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital city. In 2000 we began an attempt to create a formalized effort to provide homeless , destitute women and mothers afflicted by mid-to-late stages of AIDS with basic housing, monthly food support and provide assistance for the school expenses for school age dependent children.
Now, in 2016, we continue to focus on providing the destitute women, mothers and children in our program with modest housing, school expenses, basic medicines, transportation to and from medical appointments, counseling encouragement and food support. We have been supporting our families on just $140 per month on average.
The title of this project update is “ The Price of Rice” and we would like to discuss its impact on our program.
These days, in the US we hear a lot about droughts in various parts of the US and the anticipation of El Nino rains to break the prolonged drought cycle . In the developed world, this drought has been a serious matter, with areas such as California imposing severe water rationing. For others, in the developing world , such as SE Asia and parts of South America, the drought situation may likely soon develop into a food emergency.
Impact of a “ super drought”
The flipside of the El Nino rains that recently came to the Western US has been the impact of a "super" La Nina in the southern hemisphere . It is causing a “super drought” in South East Asia, and severe drought conditions in Cambodia, such as have not been seen in nearly 10 years. More importantly, the coming rainy season is projected to have such a lack of rain as to be unable to irrigate the next rice just as global rice stocks stand a ultra low levels not seen in a decade. According to a May 9,2016 article in Barron's "drought, floods ,and historically low global inventories have rice market experts worried" that the price of rice could double if rice harvests ( rains) fail. World rice prices have already started to rise already beginning local impact.
Imagine how your own finances would be impacted if your food costs doubled over the course of a few weeks or months. Such stress is unthinkable for the families in our program and consequently, we anticipate that our current funding costs to support our families may rise significantly.
A failure of the rice crop creates dire conditions for the general population, including severe hunger, and even starvation for families and children who, already living on the edge of survival, will be unable to afford to buy nt adequate food .
Additionally, a hunger driven forced migration , could bring thousands of desperate peasant farmers to the cities in search of work. There is a likelihood that may there more children trafficked and other impacts as desperate families experience the impact of sexually transmitted diseases (HIV/AIDS) caused by prostitution and trafficking and creating an even greater need for the services of programs like ours and forcing our operating costs ever higher. It is a dreadful cycle that we gone through before and one which takes families and communities year for recovery.
On average and at any given time, our program now serves approximately 35 to 40 AIDS afflicted women and their approximately 70 dependent children. We also continue to serve some AIDS orphans who are the children of women who died while in the care of our Family Support Program (FSP). All of this is possibly only because of the kind generosity of our donors.
Import Notice: Make your donation even more effective on the June 15 Bonus Match Day
June 15 is a GlobalGiving Match Day, where your contribution can receive a match of 50%. Your continued generosity can help us to continue to serve the fragile families in our programs during the challenging months ahead.
Thank you,
Barbara & Mark Rosasco
A recurring theme in our updates for this program is how we function as the " family for the family" . In simple terms, it means that we are there to lend moral support and guidance for our families. Many of the mothers in our program are illiterate or have minimal literacy. These moms , while loving to their children , are not sophisticated and often not really capable of identifying or evaluating complex situations and resources.
One such family, has been with us for more than 10 years. Ms. S, now age 20 and her family came to us when Ms. S was just a yound child and her father was dying of AIDS. The entire family is HIV positive . Sadly, Ms. S's father passed away, but since that time S, her mother and her younger sister have all been in our program. Both mother and sister have been seriously ill at times over the years, although both are currently stable. S, has taken antiretroviral medications and tolerated them well over the years and has remained well, until about a year ago.
S completed highschool with high marks, in the top 3 of her class and dreamed of being a doctor. After much discussion, her mother felt that she probably could not manage the stresses and strains of such a long education and that in the end, in Cambodia, where there is still great prejudice against AIDs, felt that no one would want to be treated or see by a doctor who was HIV positive , so S set her sights on trying to attend local college and get a business degree.
After completeing 2 years of her program she fell ill, developing numbness in one arm which soon led to complete loss of use in her dominant hand and arm. Doctors in Cambodia were baffled and told us to take her to Bangkok for diagnosis and advised us that unless we did this, she could permanently loose use of her arm. We arranged for the 11 hour bus ride to Bangkok accompanied by an aunt and uncle who could speak some english. The bus ride was a small fraction of the cost of a plane ticket . We then made arrangements with one of our kind Thai friends to coordinate doctor and hospital appointments , accompany the family, arrange for inexpensive lodging and everything else.
Tests were performed but were inconclusive.Treatment was prescribed with an uncertain view as to outcome. S returned to Cambodia where her continued to deteriorate to where she was confined to bed at home in their tiny rooms ,with vomitting and extreme weekness, unable to stand without assistance. Although we feared she could die, she did not. S is a fighter and she held in . Some weeks later we again arranged for another 11 hour ( one way !) trip to Bangkok for more appointments for an MRI and meeting with a neurosurgeon made a tentative diagnosis that there was inflammation around a tumor but that without biopsy there could not be a firm diagnosis but the doctor felt that it looked like a type of central nervous system lymphoma and that a combination of chemotherapy and radiation might be the best treatment.There was no money for a biopsy and the family feared possible damage from such a procedure, so biopsy was ruled out and the doctor suggested a regime of other medications and a watch and wait position. And S returned to Cambodia.
The good news is that S has since improved but the future remains unclear. She is determined to return to try to finish her degree, and her strong will and positive attitude are something to marvel as we all hope for a miracle.
One thing is certain, without the support of Ms. S's " extended family" it is quite likely that we simply would have lost her. We are hopeful that Ms. S will return to full health and return to her studies.
You, our donors, are also a part of the " family for the family" .Over the many years we have had situations where on a wing and a prayer , with scarce resources, we have been able to pull together resources to help our families navigate complex resources and solutions. We are grateful for your continued support .
Barbara & Mark Rosasco
As we have often said, a large part of the success of each of project is its ability to have sustained funding.
You are receiving this project update because you may have, in the past, been a supporter of out program to help indigent mothers impacted by HIV/AIDs to support their chidlren, and we hope that you will again consider supporting this effort as we move toward Giving Tuesday, on December 1.
During the month of December, recurring donations, which can be as small as just $10.00 per month, can receive a one month match from Global Giving. Donations may be made directly to the FSP program here or to our Educate Cambodian Kids Impacted by AIDS micro project , also posted on GlobalGiving.
Since 2000, our AIDS Patient Family Support Program has continued a 15 year effort to protect fragile children impacted by extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS. Beyond the social support that we provide for our current roster of 37 families and approximately 70 children, we provide access to education for the children in the FSP. Social support includes helping with tasks of daily living, such as connecting family with resources, making and attending doctors appointments and a large variety of other ways to help these families more safe and secure. Key to our long term strategy to lift the children out of poverty is our focus on education.
We are proud to say that our strategy works ! In Cambodia where it is estimated that only 40% of Cambodian students graduate from high school and the average educational grade proficiency is 6th grade, we take great pride that our FSP program has children graduating from high school in spite of the giant challenges of extreme poverty and families impacted by HIV/AIDs. We even have a few who have made it to college.
The children all returned to school in October to start their new year. These children benefit from our education program because they can start each year with a new school uniform, a new book bag and proper school supplies and avoid the stigma of being immediately identified as the “ poor kids” at the start of the term. We pay the extra weekly " teacher fees" that are a part of the reality of underfunded public education in Cambodia, as teacher salaries are grossly inadequate. Consequently , teachers assess each student additional " fees" these fees , and depending upon the grade level, the fees can add up to as much as $30 per month for students to receive proper instruction in the public schools. Without the fees, students are not given proper lesson instruction, teachers ignore questions in class and will not provide key information to enable middle and high school students to pass proficiency exams.
Our FSP home care team , visits each family at least once per week, and quite often more than once per week. Our Team in addition to monitoring the general condition of the family, is also tasked with trying to keep kids on track at grade level. In the event that remedial or supplemental tutoring is required or indicated , our program will provide the funds to access these services and monitor progress. . Our strong focus on education has created results over the years, with the large majority of our students passing each year on to the next grade . Many of our students have graduated from middle and high school and we currently have 2 in our college program.
These accomplishments, while ordinary in the developed world, are often " firsts". The child may be the first in the family to achieve any literacy, or the first family member to achieve graduation from elementary school, and for the great majority of our FSP families, the children who graduate from middle school and high school are truly " firsts". All of this requires a slow, consistent and focused effort to help these kids overcome the challenges of living in extreme poverty, illiterate parents and social stigma.
We are proud to say that our efforts over these many years does move these kids forward toward the day when they will step forward and step out of their current situation of inherited poverty. We are deeply grateful to our generous supporters for their long time support and hope that you will again join us in our efforts to help these children.
Barbara & Mark Rosasco
Since 1999, Kasumisou Foundation has provided care and support to the AIDS afflicted poor in and around Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital city. With the founding of our AIDS Patients Family Support Program (FSP) in 2000, we instituted a formalized effort to provide homeless and destitute women afflicted by mid-to-late stages of AIDS with basic housing, monthly food support, and sponsorship for the school expenses of their primary and secondary school age dependent children.
In the early years of our Family Support Program, we did also provide antiretroviral medicines (ARVs, often referred to as the "AIDS cocktail") to some of our patients including their HIV positive children and the HIV positive orphaned children of women who had died in our program.
Thanks to the contribution of free medicines by the UN's Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Cambodia, it became unnecessary for us to provide those life prolonging but very expensive medicines.
We continue to focus on providing the destitute women and children in our program with modest housing, food support, school expenses, basic medicines, transportation to and from medical appointments, and constant counseling and encouragement.
On average and at any given time, our program now serves approximately 35 to 40 AIDS afflicted women and their approximately 70 dependent children. We also continue to serve some AIDS orphans who are the children of women who died while in the care of our Family Support Program (FSP).
A key part of our effort is to provide the children in these families with the skills needed to break the cycle of inherited poverty. Our approach is not only to provide the basics of a stable lifestyle but to maintain a high level of support and encouragement for these children to say in school, strive for academic excellence and introduce them to the concepts of self determination and personal accomplishment.
Since our program began, in 2000, we have cared for hundreds of mothers, and families with their many children. Although many of the mothers who entered our program have passed away, we still have seen the emerging success of many of the children , who without the care and support of our program, would have lived short lives of hopelessness and homelessness.
All of this is possibly only because of the kind generousity of our donors who help us to continue in our efforts.
Thank you so very much for your support.
Barbara & Mark Rosasco
Links:
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