Music Training Therapy Blind Youth Cambodia

Dear Kind Donors,

How grateful we are for your immensely kind and generous help towards supporting our Blind Students living at our School.

Your help matters so much to them and is Life-affirming. 

The other day, I had to be in the capital city Phnom Penh to go to the airport. At a main junction I heard beautiful singng. There sat at the side of the main road, a man in his late thirties, who was blind, singing into a microphone. Another sighted man took a collecting box from car to car.  Often in Cambodia, those people who are blind, who have no proper support but who have musical talent, are used by small gangs to earn money. It is almost impossible to break free and they remain enslaved and in poverty for the rest of their lives.  

This is why your support is so very important.

Since I last wrote, our Blind Students at our School, have performed Mohori Music, Yike Music and Music to accompany the Lakoun Sabaik Touch (Shadow Puppet Theatre) all for our 30th Anniversary Concert on the 3rd August, 2024. All was done to give thanks for the thirty years since our School was founded, surviving civil war and overcoming all the myriad challenges that come with caring for very vulnerable Children in an area of war and danger and even in times of Peace.

Our Blind Students even participated in a Classical Ballet Dance, involving the founder and all our Children resident at our School!   The British Ambassador attended our Concert, together with the Under Secretary of State for Cambodian Culture and Fine Arts. The local military and police attended too and local officials and partner NGOs, as well as many of our former Students from 1994 onwards!

From the 6th to the 9th August, our Blind Students also participated in an Opera Workshop, learning important breathing techniques and body excersises, especially important for them as Singers of Traditional Khmer Music and helping them physically to open up their chest and shoulders, often closed or hunched, because they are blind from birth.

As our Blind Students have their own professional Traditional Khmer Musical Ensemble, "Vichak Santapheap", whilst gradually learning to be independent. Each day our Students improve their skills as Musicians together with their main Teacher, Loak Kru Samouen. Master Samouen miraculously survived the Khmer Rouge genocide and being shackled together with other prisoners in a Khmer Rouge prison in Takeo Province. Master Samouen is our treasure and much loved. It is difficult to explain, but our School is deeply loved and the Heart of our School beats because of each Person who lives and contributes within.

If you can, please share with others and encourage others who are able to kindly donate.  We are facing an urgent funding gap in October. This is especially concerning, because it is no longer "fashionable" amongst large foundations and UN agencies to take full care of very vulnerable Children,. We also take care of Children who have been abandoned, abused, neglected and orphaned, in close cooperation with the local authorities and International Childsafe. We are also vetted by Unicef.  However, without our School, our Children have nowhere else safe and loving to live. There are also those who publicy decry the care of Children, whilst asking us to care for Children found in terrible conditions.  We are also the only such School, providing complete care and scholastic education, from infancy to university, whilst also giving high level tuition in Traditional Cambodian Music and Performing Arts as Conservation for future generations, Vocational Training and Therapy.  Since all our Staff are Cambodian, we do not have any expatriate overheads.

We Thank You All from our Hearts.

n.b.All photographs taken with the permission of Students and Teachers at KCDI. Photographs kind courtesy of Steve Porte

Links:

• Official website
• Official Facebook