By Tanya Seeley | Trustee
Did you know Cambodia operates with two currencies……….interchangeably. The US dollar and Cambodian Riel – there is typically 4,000 Riel to one dollar so if you were buying a drink priced at $1.5 you can actually pay with one dollar note and 2,000 Riel and no one would bat an eye. If you handed over a $5 note you would receive $3 and 2,000 Riel in change. It takes a while to get used to it!
Unfortunately for us as a UK charity, the impact of Brexit saw the value of the pound against the US Dollar drop significantly and all UK charities doing work overseas where the dollar is king will be facing this challenge. This is not new to us, when we first set up HOPE the rate was almost as high as £1 got us $2, but for some time now it has been hovering around $1.5 and following Brexit this fell as low as $1.25.
On the morning of the Brexit result HOPE trustees were due to have a Skype call with the director of the Sangkheum Centre over in Cambodia, but like most of the country we were glued to the news and postponed our call by a few hours. At least the news from Cambodia was all good, the young adults in the programme continue to prosper, some are about to start new terms at school or university and there are a new group of teenagers preparing to move out into independent accommodation in September/October. This preparation is vital and the core of the programme HOPE supports.
We are always very careful how we allocate our resources but as you can tell we have to try even harder now. Your help is always appreciated now more than ever, thank you.
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