Feed our children, give them Wings to fly!

When one of our clients told us last month that she heard of a job available outside Cambodia from an unknown source, we raised the red flag immediately.

We helped her to identify the validity of the job and concluded that it was unclear who the recruiter was and that the job was genuine. Although she seemed caring because she requested Riverkids to enroll her younger siblings in our Weekly Boarding while she might be away from work, she bit them without apparent reasons when they were at home. The younger ones were terrified.

She was happy to let them have training and education, but stopped her younger sister from going to school. She is suffering from borderline disorder and has multi-personality, and this made our counselling extremely difficult, but after rounds of negotiation, we’re able to keep the family within our sight and safe – for now.

In another long-standing case, a loving grandpa threw in the towel, saying that he was no longer capable of looking after his five-year-old grandson due to deteriorating health. For two years, he had been taking care of him because the boy’s mother had been working at night and is HIV+. Our social workers provided monthly visits and allowance to support the grandpa and boy living far away from our centres.

The boy’s mother is now pregnant and near term, so we promised her that we would take care of the boy if no one else could. However, the mother neither wanted her son back nor had him in our Weekly Boarding. None of her friends and neighbours could help. For a month, we were in a deadlock, but broke through recently after going back and forth with her many times until she finally agreed. We met up with the local authority to sign the agreement to enroll the boy in our Weekly Boarding. He was also tested negative for HIV, which was a great relief to all of us, and you.

While all our families have some serious issue, a small minority of the families with multiple severe issues requires more staff time, funding and assistance than the rest of the majority of the families. We work on the Pareto principle (20% of our families take up 80% of our focus) and together with surveys and research, we become very good in what we do.

All these help had been possible because of your funding on May 7th GlobalGiving’s Bonus Day. You raised US$29,379 inclusive of matching bonus of US$6,549 and the US$1,000 award for the highest amount raised among over 3000 charities worldwide who participated. For 550 children we’re serving in Cambodia – that’s enormous help.

As of June 2nd, 2014, the remaining goal stands at US$9,431. The next Bonus Day is coming up on July 16th, 2014 and it’s even more rewarding. Because you have helped us to maintain our Superstar status, we’ll be getting 50% bonus matching funds for the donation anyone is going to make on that day. See you again on July 16th, 9PM Singapore time and for the rest of the world, the time to donate for 50% matching funds is here. Thank you.