By Riverkids Project Ltd | Singapore
We’ve been saying goodbye and hello in equal measures of joy and grief in September and it’s wonderful.
It’s heartbreaking in the best possible way to see so many families leaving Riverkids, knowing that we’ve helped 126 families graduate because they’ve become safe and stable again, and to have found help with partner organisations for another 127 safe families who need support for school for their children.
In August and September, we handed out hundreds of school uniforms and school supplies, making sure that all of our children were prepared and enrolled for the year ahead.
And the scholarships! An unexpected gift this past month was that two excellent private schools in Cambodia suddenly offered very generous scholarships to our brightest students, and we now have 18 high school scholarships and two university scholarships for 2015 -2016.
We shared many quiet goodbyes, the kind of happy-sad goodbyes with a little kid you first met barefoot and scared who is almost a teenager now, a boy with a bright future and a quick ready smile when he leaves our offices for the last time, waving goodbye to his teachers and social workers.
We will be checking in with the families regularly under our follow-up team to make sure the kids stay in school and to offer help during family crises or health emergencies.
Now we’re busy working out how we’re going to arrange the new rooms we’ll need, with the two classrooms for the little children and the older children, therapy rooms, the nurse’s room, and a workshop space, and more space for our sheltered workshop and daycare – and of course, making sure that the whole space is as cheerful and child-friendly as possible!
In less than a month, we will officially begin our Lifeboat program at Riverkids for up to 60 families. We have 45 families we’re already working with who will continue in our new Lifeboat program, families with staggeringly complicated dark histories and children suffering.
Recently, one family sold a newborn. We don’t even know if the baby was a boy or girl yet, only that the child was born healthy and sold for US$300.
We’ve gotten one child from that family into a safe home with a secure future, and we’re working on finding a long-term safe situation for their other child, and with your support--with Lifeboat and the House of Hope--we’re going to get those children safely home.
Hundreds of children have homes now. And we get to make a House of Hope to make homes with families for children who desperately need their homes healed or a safe home found for them.
The Bonus Day on September 16th was a great success, thanks to wonderful people like you. Your thoughtful gift helped us win the prize fund of US$1,500 in addition to the 30% matching. There won't be any GlobalGiving Bonus Day for the rest of the year 2015, but it'd be fantastic if you could make an USD tax-deductible donation now to avoid the generous rush of year-end giving that is just two months away.
Your giving will help the existing 45 families who are already in our Lifeboat and 60 new families joining us next month to recover from post traumatic stress disorder, addictions and hurt to be able to send their children to school again and give them a healthy, bright and happy future.
Click here to give now.
Thank you *SO* very much,
Elaine Woon
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