Dear Kind Donors,
I would like to Profoundly Thank you, on behalf of everyone at our School, for your wonderful support all this year.
We have never stopped working and never stopped taking care of our Children, despite the huge difficulties that Cambodia and the World has been going through.
Our Children in Residence who have lost their parents, or been abandoned and then neglected or abused, are thriving and those Children who arrived with us this year, have settled in well and are playing and laughing and Thankfully, their trauma subsiding.
Our Bind Students are also doing well too and now all our Children in residence, have returned to doing their academic lessons at State School. Our Bind Students are supported by their Braille Teacher, who is sponsored by our School.
Next Month, we start our two-year Program, to revive the performance of ancient and rare Cambodian instruments in danger of dying out. These instruments will include the Sdeu, Khèan and the Chapey, as part of our School's mission for the preservation of Traditional Khmer Arts, so badly damaged by the Khmer Rouge genocide and the deaths of 90% of Cambodian artists.
Despite multiple lock-downs, our staff have continued their (online) Childsafe Training with Friends International.
With funds from Unicef, CSA and The Dakk Foundation, our staff have worked tirelessly and sometimes round the clock, to provide emergency food parcels to over 130 very impoversished families, some facing starvation and many with disabilities and HIV, who already on the verge, were pushed over the edge by the Covid pandemic. We have also provided 80 cooked meals every day at lunchtime for our Soup Kitchen Project, for those individuals (Men, Women, Children), who would not otherwise have had any possibility of eating at all.
We will continue to provide food parcels to a further 120 families living in outlying districts. Our program also includes counselling and assistance for all Children within each family and to make sure that no child is suffering violence or is at risk.
Our School continues to run our Emergency Temporary Shelter, taking in Children and also homeless Mothers with small Children and Pregnant Woment who have ended up on the streets or have suffered violence. In partnership with other Childsafe NGOs and the local authorities, we are then able to find suitable long-term accomodation or where safe to reunite them with their families. Some Children who have lost everybody, or been severely abused, come and stay long-term at our School and we become their home.
On Tuesday 30th November we will participate in GlobalGiving's #Giving Tuesday. This is our most important fundraising day in the year, because GlobalGiving give matching funds and a prize for the most individual donations and funds raised. The funds we raise on #Giving Tuesday are essential in helping keep our School open and running. If you would like to participate and help our School, then #Giving Tuesday starts at 00:00:00 EST on the 30th November and ends at 23.59:59 EST on the same day.
If you are not able to join on that day, but would like to help us a little later, there is also our End of Year Campaign which starts on the 1st December and ends on 31st December 2021,
I would like to Thank my Wonderful staff, all of whom are Cambodian for their work which is done with so much love and care and dedication.
I would like to Thank you all so much for helping us.
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Dear Kind Donors,
Thank You all for having supported us even through the most difficult period the World has known since the 2nd World War!
We are Profoundly Grateful.
Your help has provided all our children living at our school, with nourishing meals. clothing, materials for school, all sanitary products, healthcare, Childcare and training in Traditional Cambodian Arts.
In my last report, I mentioned that Cambodia is facing a huge crisis because of the effects of Covid and that the health system has collapsed. Kampot, where our school is based, is actually a Red Zone. In order to assist others beyond our own children at our School, we have also received funds from Unicef, Dak and the Child Safe Alliance, to help 75 very vulnerable families facing starvation and to provide 50 cooked meals every day to homeless people.
Our children who live at school, have nowhere else to go and so providing them with a loving home at our School, education and care, is at the heart of our mission. If you would like to help us, GlobalGiving is having a special Bonus Matching Funds Day on Wednesday 14th July. On this Bonus day, the higher the donation, the more GlobalGiving will match! However the Bonus day starts at 09:00 on July 14th and ends on the same day at 23.59:59, but because Matching Funds run out within the first few minutes of the start, please be Sure to Donate to This Project just after 09:00 am EDT!!!
Here below are the GlobalGiving Matching Funds Structure:
$100 - $499: Matching Funds 15%
$500 - $749: Matching Funds 30%
$750 - $1,000:Matching Funds 50%
Please Remember to Give Early!
Thank You and May You All be Well.
Catherine
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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
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