CamKids Medical Update

CamKids is very pleased to report that the medical hut, built by volunteers in 2006, still has a doctor visiting every week and the general health of the children is unrecognisable from the situation 3 years ago.

As well as paying for the doctor's visit, CamKids covers the cost of necessary medicines and is now paying for a full time nurse to live on site. This will help in the training of the nannies, day to day medical care and aiding the doctor with his visits as well as on going treatment and observation.

Each visit, the doctor sees all the babies and toddlers and all children now have well documented and up to date medical records. Babies are weighed at regular intervals to check growth and development. The doctor also spends half an hour every visit, instructing the nannies on basic first aid and hygiene. CamKids is proud to be able to continue to support such a worthwhile project.

We have been expanding our medical programs to reach more children and details of these projects will follow shortly. However, as we expand such projects (where the benefits to children are obvious and undeniable) our costs also grow. If you feel you could help in any way, please contact medical@camkids.org or make a donation HERE (please insert 'Medical', as the project).

In the slide show below you will see the doctor and the nurse, as well as a number of nannies and the children being treated.

Facebook Updates

Check out the CamKids Facebook Page for photos and videos from some of our projects, including the kids having great fun at the recent christmas party - and much more: www.facebook.com/camkids

New CamKids Newsletter

Our latest Newsletter is now available in a slightly different format than usual. As 2 of our Trustees and their family are currently living (self-funded) in Cambodia for a year, we thought that you might like to hear what we are doing, directly from them. We have also taken this opportunity of providing a summary of what we have achieved in our first 3 years and some of our plans for the future.

The Newsletter also includes an update on our Education projects, including short reports from two of our supporters who were recently in Cambodia.

To access the Newsletter, please click Here or Contact Us and we will send you a copy by e-mail. If you sign up to our Newsletter Here, you will receive your copy by e-mail every 6 months (your details will not be used for commercial or any other purpose).

Thank you once again to all of our donors and supporters, without whom none of this would have been possible. Finally, we would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


With Best Wishes
The CamKids Trustees

New Education Projects - A Personal View

The following report was received from a great supporter of CamKids from Australia, Andrew Gait, giving a a personal insight into two new education initiatives, being funded by CamKids:

My first involvement with CamKids was to take a Hills Hoist (washing line) to the Kais Village Orphanage and install it there. My son Nick lives in Sihnoukville and I’d asked the sister of one of the CamKids Trustees if there was anything I could take out to Cambodia for the charity, when I visited him in Cambodia. While I was at Kais I helped out in the orphanage school. It felt really good so I made the decision to get involved. It was that easy.

Since then I’ve been back to Cambodia several times to visit Nick and his new family. Every time I bring things over from Australia for the charity and I’ve spent time teaching at the Kais Orphanage and at the Rumdoul Thmei School, funded by CamKids.

On my last visit Dom and Benita Sharpe, who work tirelessly for CamKids, introduced me to Drew McDowell and I became involved, along with some with friends and colleagues in Tasmania, with financially supporting the Boeung Kok School and Community Centre project in Lakeside Phonm Penh. In a matter of weeks what was once an almost derelict building had been transformed into a vibrant school and community centre. The building was repainted, lights and fans fitted and student desks and a whiteboard installed. Almost 200 students attend the school daily and the building is being used constantly by the local community for a myriad of purposes. Every cent we send to CamKids goes directly into the school and centre and we are all kept up to date with what is happening by emails and photos supplied by CamKids and Drew.

I was also fortunate to be able to spend time working with teachers in the Takeo area, where CamKids supports a number of village schools. At the moment colleagues in Tasmania and myself are putting together an English As A Second Language resource for Khmer teachers. I hope to present this resource to the teachers in March next year. I will be working closely with the local CamKids Educational Co-ordinator (Ken) in translating and presenting the resource for teachers in the area.

I have felt privileged to have been allowed to play a small part in expanding the skills of the Cambodian educators and helping to developing their infrastructures with CamKids. It’s a small thing to do and I would recommend to anyone else visiting Cambodia to try it, the rewards are huge.

Andrew Gait, CamKids Supporter

Angkor Wat Cycle and Run by CamKids Trustees

Two of our trustees, Dom & Benita, are taking on the Angkor Wat challenge in aid of CamKids. They moved to Cambodia for a year with their 2 children three months ago. They are self funding their trip and are on a very tight budget so when they mentioned the idea to their great friend and CamKids Patron, Al Murray, he immediately said he would pay their costs for entering the race, including the purchase of a bike.

Without his help they would not be able to do it. Please repay his faith in them and their faith in helping Cambodian children by donating what you can. Their children, Jak and Theavy, are both doing the 3km fun run. Benita is doing the 10km run, having never done any running in her life.
Dom is cycling 80km on December 5th and running the half marathon on the following day!

Benita and Dom DO NOT like running but they really want to raise some money for CamKids' projects in Camboda and put your money directly into the hands of those who need it most. That may be in the form of food, education or medicines. You tell us how much we have and we will show you exactly what we can do with it to enhance children's lives.

• Change One Life


• Change The World

To support Dom & Benita, please go to their Justgiving page: www.justgiving.com/Cambo-Sharpies. Thank You.

STOP PRESS - 8/12/09:
Dom, Benita and their children completed the grueling weekend of sponsored events in Siem Reap at the weekend. Dom cycled 80 km on Saturday in 2 hours 40 mins, followed by a 21 km run on Sunday in 1 hour and 52 minutes. Benita ran 10 km in 1 hour 1½ minutes, whilst their 10 year old son, Jakamo, ran 3km in 16 minutes and their 6 year old daughter, Theavy, ran 3km in 27 minutes – a fantastic effort all round. So far they have raised nearly £1,500 from the event, which will help fund one of our many new projects. If you would like to show your support to the Sharpes and CamKids, please make a donation on their JustGiving fundraising page: www.justgiving.com/Cambo-Sharpies.

New Education Project in Takeo

CamKids' latest education project involves the creation of a chain of schools in the rural villages surrounding Takeo town, which is being established by New Futures Organisation ("NFO"), to teach English to the children. The area around Takeo is overwhelmingly an agricultural region with remote and often quite poor villages scattered among the rice fields. English language ability is of increasing importance in Cambodia, where the tourism and service sectors are growing the fastest and good written and spoken English will be a great advantage when these children are looking for employment.

NFO has recently opened its sixth rural school and work is ongoing to expand the project further into other villages. The whole cost of the project is being funded by CamKids, from public donations and CamKids has initially committed to fund the cost of 15 teachers in 2009, with further expansion expected in 2010.

Why is there a need for rural schools?
Many of the children who live in these villages are unable to attend regular school. Although education in Cambodia is free, it is compulsory for parents to buy uniforms and books, which are often beyond the financial means of rural farming families. In addition, the main schools for the area are located in Takeo town, which is several miles away from the children's home villages, down unpaved dirt roads which can become virtually impassable during the rainy season.

Finally, a combination of necessity and local custom often dictates that children of all ages are required to help out on the family farm, sowing and harvesting rice or looking after livestock. Again, this prevents them from attending regular school classes.

What does the rural schools project provide?
NFO funds teachers - often public school teachers or education students from local universities - to go out into the communities where access to education is limited and provide lessons to children and young people there. The lessons are held in private premises in the village which are loaned or rented to the organisation, and following discussions with parents and village leaders, classes are scheduled for times which are suitable for the children to attend - often at lunchtime, late afternoon or in the evening, when the agricultural work is finished. A typical rural school has anything from 70 to 150 students enrolled, attending whichever class is most convenient for them.

NFO provides exercise books and pencils, and uniforms are not required. In addition to the regular Khmer teachers, NFO volunteers visit the schools to provide students with the opportunity to listen to and talk with a native speaker, which helps to develop both their pronunciation skills and their cultural awareness.

What are the rural schools like?
The schools' locations and premises vary from village to village. At one school, classes are held in a fisherman's hut overlooking a lake. Others take place in village centres and in one village where children study in a cow shed beneath the teacher's house! The common theme which unites all the schools is the eagerness of the children to learn - every class is packed with young people, carefully repeating and noting down the day's lesson taught by a committed and motivated teacher. The rural schools project has so far proven a great success and is bringing education to children who would otherwise miss out on the opportunity.

CamKids is also funding the cost of an education administrator for the project. Their job will be to coordinate teaching, distribute materials to the teachers and students and control finances. Recently, an Australian teacher spent some time at the project and we are delighted that he, together with colleagues back in Tasmania, have committed to putting together an English As A Second Language course for the project. He will also be assisting the project coordinator in improving the skills of the teachers and with fundraising for the project in Tasmania.

If you are interested in finding out more about this project or if you would like to support our work by way of a single or regular donation, please send an email to schools@camkids.org.

Farming Update

CamKids have been committed in trying to help communities establish alternative means of subsistence.

In 2007 CamKids was instrumental in contracting the CRDT – The Cambodian Rural Development Team – to establish a working farm at Kais Village Orphanage. CamKids donated over $21,000 to the project in the first year and when the CRDT left in 2008 there were chickens, pigs, fruit and vegetables. They had also installed a bio digester, a means of harnessing the methane gas from the cow and pig manure for cooking. The bio digester has cut the cost of gas for cooking by half.

As with any project of this nature in a country such as Cambodia, there have been new challenges and set backs as well as successes. However, the directors of Kais have found a new farm manager who has transformed the farm in under two months. He has ingeniously and cheaply found a way to aerate the water in the pond that has, up until now, provided no real advantage to the orphanage, but now he has begun to breed fish with the expectation of having fish on the table for the children within six months.

The bio digester remains a huge success and can be seen in the photos. The fruit trees, vegetable gardens and chickens are all thriving. It is hoped that in twelve months the project will be self sufficient, supplying most of the orphanage food and paying for the farmers to work the land by growing and selling off season fruit. For example 1kg of mangoes in season fetches 500 riel, out of season 3000 riel. This is already underway and fruit, which normally appears in December, is already on the trees . Growing out of season also ensures the orphanage farm is not competing with local farmers.CamKids is proud in still helping to support this farm and is always looking for new projects of this nature and new funding to help cover the cost.

If you are interested or can help in any way please contact farming@camkids.org.

Fishery Project by Who Will NGO

In 2008, CamKids was approached by a potential donor who wanted to invest in a project in Cambodia. After introducing him to the directors of Who Will, it was agreed that he would fund the cost of a sustainable fishery project. The project is now underway and the directors of Who Will have provided us with the following report:

On one of our trips to look at children needing a home, we saw many children running around and we asked the villagers why the children weren’t going to school. No money! The village is extremely poor – family income is $8 - $12 per month. However, the village is on the banks of the river. Fifteen years ago an NGO had started a fishing project in the village but had given them no back-up. The fish had died from lack of food and the villagers had lost money.

A prospective donor came to visit and we mentioned this to him and a new project was born – small scale fishing to generate income so the children can go to school and the whole community will benefit.

Four dams were pinpointed and the farmers were taken through the steps of how the funding will be done – no cash, only product in the form of fuel, pump hire, fish feed, fingerlings and anything else that may be required. The farmers have the money on loan and it must be repaid at the end of the fishing season (approximately 4 months). They also have to hold back enough money to supply their new season.

Three weeks ago 44,000 fingerlings were purchased and to date only 78 have died – a mortality rate of 0.17%! The fish are doing well and growing fast – their progress being measured according to the circumference of the specific farmer’s big toe or middle finger!

This is a great example of a self-sustaining micro-finance project and, if successful, can be rolled out at hundreds of locations throughout rural Cambodia. The total cost of the project is around £1,500, but this 'seed capital' could be enough to create a new project at a different location every year. If you are interested in finding out more, please send an email to farming@camkids.org.

CamKids 2008 Annual Report & Accounts

The Trustees of CamKids - The Cambodian Children's Charity, are pleased to report that the Charity's Annual Report and Accounts for 2008 have been filed with the Charity Commission ahead of schedule. A copy of the report and accounts can be downloaded from HERE.

The Trustees of CamKids are committed to open and full disclosure of its activities and, although not a requirement, the Charity has opted to make additional voluntary disclosures in line with best practice for large charities.

Please direct any questions about these accounts to finance@camkids.org.

Gulf 4 Good Challenge - Raising Money for Who Will Children's Village

As reported in an earlier post, CamKids was selected by Gulf for Good as the recipient of funds raised from their Great Asian Cycling Challenge, which took place from 26 March to 4 April 2009 in Vietnam and Cambodia. CamKids nominated the Who Will NGO as the beneficiary and the directors have just sent in this update:

On 1st April, the Gulf for Good challenge participants visited the site of the children’s home, planted trees and had the opportunity to meet the children and some of the villagers. Many photos were taken and, to our absolute delight, Brian Wilkie, chairman of Gulf for Good, announced that $27,000 had been raised for Who Will – enough to complete another home in the children’s village in Kampong Tralach !

The home is nearing completion; the roof is on, tiling is being done, the outside has been painted and within the next three to four weeks, the children will move in.

CamKids and Who Will would like to thank Gulf for Good, the challenge participants and all of their sponsors and supporters for this fantastic achievement.