Dear Kind Donors,
Thank you all for your wonderful support to our school, despite these difficult and challenging times.
Although Covid has affected almost the whole world, including Cambodia, our school has continued to stay open and care for all our children. We are their home and many have nowhere else safe to stay.
Together with the local authorities and our Childsafe Partners, seven very vulnerable children were identified as needing urgent help. Two little sisters had been abandoned by their parents who after their divorce, left without trace and nobody knows their whereabouts. The little girls grandmother is disabled and lives in a little hut in a remote part of the countryside, without electricity, running water or toilets and far away from school. We provided material help and food for their grandmother and brought her together with the little girls to stay at our school, so that they could all get used to a new environment and not feel too daunted, or that the children were being "abandoned" a second time. After the sisters settled in, their grandmother went back to her home. We faciliate visits between them at regular intervals.
Another two brothers were abandoned by their mother and left with their father, who working as a labourer, lives on building sites and has no proper home and no extended family. One of the brothers was placed in a seperate centre from our school and so we managed to reunite the two brothers and we take care of them both. They are also able to see their father regularly. If their father were able to procure himself a home, then of course they would be able to return there and we would support them from there.
Then a little brother and sister were brought to our school by their mother who was in a desperate situation. Her second husband, the children's stepfather was beating the two children very badly. He did not beat his own birth children. She was at the time pregnant with another child and felt she could not protect her children from her second husband. Although the authorities assisted her in placing her children at our school, Cambodian laws are not vigorous in protecting children from domestic violence. We organised for the mother to be able to visit our school when she needed and wished so that she could meet her children in a safe space.
Another little girl lost both parents to AIDS and has herself HIV. She was then living with elderly relatives (great-aunt and uncle), who did not have the energy or resources to care for her properly. They lived in a little hut in a remote part of Dang Tung in Kampot Province, without electricity, water, toilet or access to school. The little girl now lives with us and is able to visit her great-aunt and uncle regularly. She receives Retroviral medicine for her HIV from the Kampot AIDS and HIV clinic.
All the children have really settled in well and are playing and happy together with our other children already living at our school. They are learnng music, dance and Yike as well as Shadow Puppet Theatre, they go to state school for their schooling, have created a lovely vegetable garden and play in our big garden.
We also received into our care two blind youth who are studying on our rehabiltiation and education program.
Our blind students are also doing very well. We are also supporting two through university and one other student will start teaching college soon.
Although this year must have been very difficult for some of you, yet you have all continued to help us. We are so very grateful.
If you would like to help us and make a big difference, we will be part of GlobalGiving's #Giving Tuesday on the 1st December 2020 starting at 09.00am ET and ending on the same day at 23.59 ET. GlobalGiving will be giving away $1 million in Matching Funds! This means that each individual donation gets matched, providing essential funding for our school and helping us to continue helping our children through 2021.
Meanwhile we wish you all well and to stay safe, healthy and happy!
Thank you all again!
(Photos taken with permission of our students and staff at KCDI)
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Project Report: A Ray of Light in our Troubled World
Dear Kind Supporters,
Thank you all again for your marvelleous support. It's so wonderful for us to know that you are there, some of you have been helping us for years.
We were recently asked by the local authorities to urgently help six young children originally from three families. Four of the children from two families had been abandoned by their parents and had no adequate family care-giver, no home or support. The parents of the fourth little girl had died and she had not received proper care since and was severely emaciated.
Last month we also took into our school a young boy of twelve, who had lost both his parents and after extensive background research, it was found he had been wandering the streets for six years! All our new children are doing well and have lots of happy moments of playtime with our other children.
At the end of April a blind youth will come to join us too and so add to our group of blind children and youth on our vocational training and rehabilitation program. Our older blind students have been doing a phsyiotherapy course, on top of their music and education classes. Their physiotherapy lessons which were held in a therapy centre have had to be stopped due to Covid-19. We will continue when all is well again.
In mid-January after noting news from Wuhan, China, I requested our school to observe the hygiene measures recommended by the World Health Organisation, to ensure that the Covid-19 virus was not spread to our school. Recently there have been signs that Covid-19 is picking up speed in Cambodia and so I have requested our school to follow the protocol for Lockdown. Resident staff and children won't leave our school and only our cook is able to go in and out, together with our director and accountant, but they observe rigorous hygiene practices and safety measures to safeguard their own health and ensure that they don't spread the virus.
Some of our external staff are now taking leave, especially those with pregnancies or older staff with health issues. They will continue to receive a stipend. All our external staff have been asked to observe lockdown with their own families. Our director Mr Sothy has stocked our school with rice, cooking oil and canned fish. We grow some of our own fruit and vegetables and have our own fish in our fishponds.This is because there are no clear trading laws in Cambodia and speculation during war or disaster is rife and we would risk not being able to feed our children.
The Cambodian Government has shut-down all schools and universities to stem the tide of infection. Our own children no longer go to state school in the mornings, but they will follow a scholastic learning program in the morning inside our school and then in the afternoon they will continue their arts classes. There will also be lots of playtime and drawing...but all within our school. Thank goodness we have a lovely big garden with lots of trees! We are not only a school but also their home.
As you know, most of our children have nowhere else to go and so we are dedicated to providing full-time care for them, whatever happens in the world outside.
Please join us for the Little by Little GlobalGiving Campaign from Monday the 23rd March to Friday 27th March. All donations up to $50 will be matched by GlobalGiving 50%.
To Donate Please go to our link is www.globalgiving.org/projects/education-arts-orphan-disabled-children-cambodia/
Every donation makes a difference.
Please may I take this opportunity to wish you all well and hope for healing in our world.
Thank you,
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Dear Kind Friends and Supporters of our school,
Thank you so very much for your extraordinary generosity during our End of Year Campaign and Giving Tuesday, as well as all those who gave each month last year. In December we raised over $9,000 which is an amazing sum and such a big help to our school.
Your donations will provide our children with nourishing food, clothing, medical care (when our current donor for medical care ends), scholastic materials, electricity, water, cooking utensils, mosquito nets, bedding, eating utensils, hygiene products, repairs to our building, transport, bicycle repairs, support for our Childcare team and support for our Traditional Arts Training Program.
In December we celebrated 25 years since our school began. Our school was built during the civil war when the Khmer Rouge had their stronghold in Phnom Vor in Kampot. Some of our colleagues working in the countryside were killed by Khmer Rouge. There was shelling, a hostage crisis and a lot of the countryside was littered with anti-personnel mines.
Many of our students at the time had been badly affected by the war. Either they had lost parents because of crossfire or Khmer Rouge attacks, or they themselves were injured by mines. Some were affected by Polio when the disease was not yet eradicated.
This December we gave a big concert and many of our students from 1994 and onwards came and joined in. Some, who are professional musicians performed alongside our current students. Others brought their spouses and children. His Excellency Hab Touch, Secretary of State for Culture also attended and at the end we had a buffet underrneath the trees by our fish-ponds and then a big birthday cake. We also had an exhibition of archive photographs from 1992 when the founder was first given the land by the Governor of Kampot and what it looked like then, to actually building the school and the first students. At the beginning, the land was wasteland and had originally housed a Pagoda which had been moved by the french Protecterate. There remains today a Stupa with a Boddhi tree growing around it. The land of our school is considered sacred and for this reason, permission was given to build a Music School, because Traditional Cambodian Arts are considered sacred.
Many people attended the concert and could enjoy our performance and the exhibition in the main hall afterwards. Former students from 1994 also laughed at photos of themselves and the changes after a quarter of a century.
We are incredibly grateful and moved to have this opportunity and we would like to express our profound thanks to you all and to all those who have donated throughout the years, making it possible to keep our school open and running.
Thank You!
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Dear Friends and Supporters of our school,
Thank you so much for your marvelleous support this year and to those who kindly donated each month, as well as those who have given a special one-off donation.
Your precious help has provided our children resident at our school with nourishing food, clothing, medical care, transport to school, Braille materials, musical instruments and scholastic materials, as well as electricity, water, sanitary products and of course our childcare and vocational training programs. You have helped enable and empower many children to receive proper life-saving care and protection, scholastic education and vocational and therapeutic training in traditional Cambodian arts. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your generosity and good-will.
This year we celebrate 25 years since the beginning of our school. The Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children - Khmer Cultural Development Institute (KCDI), was founded in 1993 and built in 1994 during the civil war in Kampot. Remembering what it was like then and all the challenges we faced during the war, the heartbreaks we have experienced as well as the love, joy and solidarity we have shared. Today we look back at a quarter of a century of caring for so many children and working to preserve Cambodia's precious ancient cultural heritage.
We will celebrate our 25th Anniversary this December by giving a big concert at our school in the presence of His Excellency the Director General from the Ministry of Culture, involving our current students and former alumni from our school. We will also hold an exhibition in our main hall of photographs of our children from 1994 and what they look like today, as well as archive material from the building of our school.
You are all welcome to come to our Concert at our school on Saturday the 7th December at 6.30pm in Kampot!
On 3rd December we will also be having #Giving Tuesday on GlobalGiving where Each donation will be matched by GlobalGiving. #Giving Tuesday starts at 00.00.00 ET (Eastern Time) and ends at 23.59.59 ET. Donations can be made using credit card, Apple Pay and Paypal.
If you are not able to join us on # Giving Tuesday, then you can participate in the End of Year Campaign, from the 4th December at 00.00 (ET) to the 31st December 2019 at 23.59.59 (ET) you can donate for both campaigns using this link:-
www.globalgiving.org/projects/education-arts-orphan-disabled-children-cambodia/ Project No 16371
The projects that engage the most donors will also receive a Bonus Prize from GlobalGiving. Both #Giving Tuesday and The year End Campaign are vitally important for our school. The funds raised help us keep on running and allow us to help many vulnerable children, who would otherwise have nowhere else to go. These include children resident at our school who have no parents, but have been neglected and abused by their extended families, with some affected by chronic and serious illnesses and life-changing injuries; Blind children and youth; Vulnerable children on our Outreach program. Please share with your friends and family and anyone you think might be interested.
Thank You!
Catherine and Everyone at KCDI
(Photographs kind courtesy of Steve Porte. Taken with permission by the students and staff of KCDI)
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