Arts and Culture Cambodia Project #16371

Education/Arts Orphan, Disabled Children Cambodia

by Khmer Cultural Development Institute

Project Report | Feb 16, 2018
The Kampot Arts Festival!

By Catherine Louise Geach | Founder

Robam Chuon Puor (One of our KCDI student)

Dear Friends of the Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children,

First of all on behalf of us all at school, we would like to profoundly thank you for your most amazing help and support during the Giving Tuesday and End of Year Campaign. Thanks to your generosity and to our chairman Dr Peter Carey's wonderful networking, we raised $10,000! That is an incredibly important contribution as it provides our school with over one third of our annual budget.

Your support is being used to provide our children with food, clothing, medical care, electricity, water, support for our Braille teacher, our arts program and our childcare program. All our staff are Cambodian so that each donation goes straight to our school programs and our children without any waste on expatriate overheads, administrative costs etc, our board of directors is of course entirely voluntary.

In January of 2018, we helped organise the first Kampot Arts Festival for Cambodian artists together with Epic Arts and Sarawasati Publishing. We are deeply concerned about the neglect of the traditional arts by the Cambodian Government and the sharp rise of Westernised practices which are threatening to wipe out Cambodian culture altogether. First there was the war, then the genocide and now greed and indifference.

The opening ceremony was held at our school and our students performed the Robam Chuon Puor (Blessing Dance), Mohori and Pin Peat music (by our blind students) and traditional shadow puppet theatre. Epic Arts also gave a beautiful contemporary dance performance with their adult students some of whom are deaf or wheelchair users. The local youth club also gave a rendition of a lovely Folk Dance. The local Director of the Department of Culture came too. The next day we gave workshops on how to learn traditional Cambodian dance moves, Pin Peat music and how to make shadow puppets out of cured leather. Epic Arts also gave a contemporary dance and painting workshop at our school too. What was so lovely, was the queue of young Cambodians from the public wanting to take part and participating with such interest and enthusiasm. It really lifted our hearts, because it showed there was still hope for the arts in Cambodia.

In December we had a Belgian technical team come and visit and give expert help in re-wiring our main hall and bedrooms, they even installed a washing machine and also generously donated new mattresses and cooking utensils. Meanwhile medical staff and doctors from the Sonja Kill Memorial Hospital in Kampot gave our children and staff a workshop on preventative hygiene and our cook went on a cooking and food hygiene course given by a local Italian Chef, who kindly did everything for free. This is because the Ministry of Social Affairs has issued new regulations for centres and schools such as ours, so our cook who is actually already a very good cook, undertook this extra training.

Some of you also very kindly helped donate for two earlier appeals, one for transport for those of our special needs children who need to have medical care, some of it life-saving in Phnom Penh and in other provinces and in particular for one of our girls who suffered such a lot in her earlier life. Thevi (Not her full name) is now doing much better and after being diagnosed with epilepsy like her younger sister, she regularly receives treatment from the Russian Hospital in Phnom Penh, while her sister who is under fifteen, receives free medical care from the Kunthea Bopha Hospital. One of our little boys who has HIV and was hospitalised in December with the flu is now very well.

We are now developing our Outreach Program, so as to give free performing-arts lessons at our school to more children from local villages and pagodas, who would not otherwise receive this kind of training. I will keep you all updated on our progress.

We do not at present have any major donor or sponsor, although for the first decade and a half, we were very lucky to have complete funding from Terre des Hommes (Netherlands), Memisa and various embassies and foundations. Today Cambodia is not considered as an emergency, although around 75% of the population live in rural areas, which have remained in absolute poverty and developed little in the last two decades. Cambodia seems to be two countries, one for wealthy urban Cambodians and expatriates and one for ordinary Cambodian people for whom human rights violations, land grabs, difficult living conditions, destruction of the environment by foreign investors is a fact of life. Still much of the population in rural Cambodia have no electricity or clean, running water, sewage, toilets, functioning health centres and so on, Tuberculosis is endemic and Malaria a killer and HIV still rife. Parents leave their children and disappear into Thailand to try and earn a living. Today thankfully there are less orphaned children, yet still we see that much of Cambodian society is not ready for loving and adequate foster-care. Many of our children have suffered as a result of being abused or sold into slavery by their extended family, or rejected for having HIV by their communities. The Ministry of Social Affairs is doing it's best to enforce strict regulations on childcare for orphanages and care centres and this has helped eliminate "false" orphanages and unfortunate practices. It is a lot work, but it's worth it!

Thank you all so much for your heart-warming support. Each one of you has contributed to keeping our school open and running.

My thanks also to Steve Porte for his most marvelleous photographs!

With warmest wishes from us all

Mohori Performance (Our KCDI students)

Epic Arts performance

Shadow Puppet Theatre KCDI students

Puppet making workshop with Master Samoeun KCDI

The Queue to get in at our school - KCDI

Links:

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Nov 21, 2017
Join Giving Tuesday and our Year End Campaign

By Catherine Louise Geach | Founder

Learning the Tro

Hello dear friends,

We would like to invite you all to participate in our two most important fundraising events. These are #Giving Tuesday on the 28th November and our Year End Campaign from 29th November to 31st December 2017.

It is because of your wonderful help each year, (indeed there are some of you who help each month), that our school is able to keep on running.

Your precious help enables us to provide food, medical care, clothing, schooling, Braille for our blind students and traditional arts education to all our children resident at our school and to children from local villages too. Today special care centres are no longer considered by international NGOs as a priority and so children who have lost their parents, or who have been abused by their extended family are left by the wayside. Cambodian society is not ready to take care of children properly by fostering them. Blind children are completely forgotten both by the state and society and the traditional arts need help to survive more than ever. Taking loving care of children in a small family-like centre like our school is for now the only solution. So please keep on helping us.

We would like you to know that Global Giving has visited our school twice now and that we have acquired Superstar status and Top-ranked organisation for the last two years running.

What is #Giving Tuesday?

This begins at 00:00:01 EST (Washington DC time) on 28th November 2017 and lasts nearly 24 hours until 23.59.59 (EST)

Firstlly and importantly, Your Donations will be matched by Global Giving, but also if we can raise more than twenty donors and $5,000 we will also be able to win a prize as well. Because the campagin on Giving Tuesday is so short, only payments using Paypal and Credit/Debit card wil be accepted.

What is The End of Year Campaign?

This Campaign begins on the 29th November and lasts all the way until 31st December 2017 at 23.59:59 (EST). By raising more than forty donors we will be eligible for a prize too. In this campaign we aim for $10,000. You can participate in both campaigns, your donation will be considered seperately.

Donations for this latter campaign, can be made using Paypal, Credit/Debit Card, Apple Pay, Gift Cards, Transfer and Cheque (Cheques are best in before 20th December).

Please kindly donate for both Campaigns on this Project: Education/Arts Orphan, Disabled Children Cambodia - #16371

Why?

Because, though the funds raised will go to all our school activities and all our children, if we try to raise funds on too many different projects, we won't be able to gather enough donors and funds to one single project, in order to be eligible for a prize at the end.

Thank you dear friends for your kind understanding, your thoughtfulness and the time you have taken to read this, and of course for all your help.

One of our beautiful children in the garden

Links:

Attachments:

School Details regarding this campaign appeal (PDF)

3 Attachments

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Oct 5, 2017
Transport to Hospital Saves Lives

By Catherine Louise Geach | Founder

Living a full life despite illness

Dear Friends,

Before I begin I would like to thank all of you who have been so generously donating to our school.

Our school stays open and running thanks to individual donors. You are amazing people and have done so much for us. Thank you.

This report is about a hidden problem that we are facing and we would like to tell you all about it.

As we care for children who have very complicated and life-threatening illnesses, we have to provide them with proper medical care. These include correct drugs, Magnetic Resonancing (MR) and Cat scans for severe epilepsy for one young girl Srey Ka* and psychologial support and MR for her older sister who was sold into slavery by their father as a little girl and severely physically and emotionally abused. She was also kicked in the head by a cow leaving her in a coma without proper medical care while living in her former village before coming to our school.

We have some children who were born with HIV and their parents died of AIDS. They did not receive retroviral treatment until coming to our school, this means that their HIV levels became border-line with AIDS. People who have HIV although they can prolong their life and live relatively normally, can sometimes suffer from complications such as specific tumours, almost unique to HIV patients.

As you all probably remember, we have our little deaf and blind boy 'Da* who was put in an orphange at three months old and there neglected and abused until he came to our school and began a new life. He receives treatment for his hearing disability from the wonderful NGO "All Ears" in Phnom Penh. Gradually his life is being re-built, but he needs constant care and assistance to help him heal and also realise his full-potential.

Then we have our children who are blind. Mostly we can do eye-tests and give assistance locally, but one of them a young girl was so severely abused by her uncle that after being hit accross the face by a bamboo cane, she lost the sight of one eye. This eye must be constantly monitored in a proper eye hospital. Eventually her eye will have to be removed and a prosthesis put in place.

We live in Kampot Province. There is no Magnetic Resonancing, Cat scan, Pet or Tac. There is no medical assistance or expertise for severe epilepsy, no proper specialists in psychology or psychotherapy. There are no specialists for the deaf and no equipment as such. The nearest eye hospital is in Takeo Province. There are not even anti-rabic injections (Rabies is a problem in Kampot). For each child who becomes severely ill, or who has a life-threatening condition which needs regular treatment, for those who are deaf or have health or sight complications, we must take them to the capital city Phnom Penh 137 km away.

We do not own our own car. We must hire a taxi and share it with other passengers and then hire a motorbike taxi in Phnom Penh. Even if we did own our own car, the cost of petrol for a total of 274 km each time we take a child to the capital for treatment, is very high.

We are very happy to take our children to receive proper treatment and we would not consider anything less for them, however this necessity requires extra budget support and it has now become really urgent.

If you would like to help or think someone you know would like to give support, then the 5th October is the perfect time to do so. We have set up a micro-project especially to deal with this urgent requirement: You can find it on "Save Lives Through Providing Transport" Project Number 29610. It is affiliated to this - our main project. GlobalGiving will be matching funds on the 5th October, starting from 9.am Washington DC time and lasting until 11.59pm

If you can't find our micro-project, then it's fine to help our transport project and other needs on this project page (Education/Arts Orphan, Disabled Children #16371). If you didn't make it for the 5th October, no problem, our micro-project is running until the end of October.

Thank you all for your wonderful support!

(* With thanks to the photographer Steve Porte for all his lovely photos.

*To protect their privacy the names given are not our children's full names)

Art creates happiness and is healing

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