Hello Everyone,
We hope that you are all well?
 | |
| Girl's Home construction |
The construction of the girl’s home is coming along, the concrete and brick structure is nearing completion and soon work will begin on the roof and both interior and exterior finishing . We are all getting excited as we can now see how the extra space will look when the building is complete. The girl’s are very happy we had a nice time with them the other night when we went there for dinner.
As you know K.I.D.S assists children with education, tuition, transportation, books and uniforms. Two of these children are the daughters of Vanna and his wife the girls are age nine and eleven. Vanna is a land mine victim and has lost both arms just below the elbows and we have known him for many years. We have always admired him; he and his family are very poor and refuse to beg for a living, as many are forced to do here. Instead Vana and his wife support their family by selling books off a cart on the side of the road and Vanna’s wife hand washes clothes. The girl’s love school and this will be the second year that we will be assisting them with tuition and whatever supplies they need for the next year. Right now Vanna is down in Phnom Penh being fitted with prosthetic arms at an organization that assists land mine victims; Vanna even without lower arms manages to sells books, puts them into bags and makes change.
 |
| Solar lamps for all |
Still on the topic of assisting children with education, we took a ride out to a village about an hours drive from Siem Reap to visit a program we started in a rural area a couple of years ago. We select children from the poorest families and assist them with tuition for English and Khmer school as well as other educational needs. We began sponsoring eight children a couple of years ago and added two more when we arrived this year. Hak, our friend and administrator of this program, also identified eleven more children that would love to be able to study English. When we arrived they were all waiting for us along with the principal of the school. The children that have had a year of English are doing very well and were able to answer basic questions and even asked a few themselves, we were greatly impressed with their confidence. Last fall we were given a donation to supply personal solar powered lamps for children so they child could study at night, as obtaining a candle or enough fuel to burn an oil lamp is difficult for them. We distributed the lamps and instructed them on their use and they were excited to get these useful and brightly coloured lights. We then went and visited the eleven new children and their families at their homes; this is always a very difficult part of the work here. Their stories are all very sad and similar, living in thatched tattered huts, most rented, a few families homeless and living with others or on factory land and most of the children having to work in tough conditions at the local brick factories. Many of these small 11 and 12 year old children spend the morning in Khmer school and the rest of the day hauling bricks or loading kilns at the factories, hard to believe these slight and beautiful children have to work in such hot and tiring environments. Most of the families agreed that they would try to compensate for the income lost if their child could go to school, some parents imploring us to improve their children's lot in life. Each time we asked the children if they wanted to learn English their faces lit up with great smiles and of course it is difficult to say no to such enthusiasm for learning. The cost for education is $14.00 a month per child and we will also provide them with bicycles as they have difficulty getting to school on foot as some live 5 kilometers away.
The floating clinic is nearing completion. The building and hull are finished and the electrical, plumbing and solar systems are done. We have a few days to take care of all the small details and the rain catchment system to supplement the water filtration in the rainy season. We are lining up the dedication and christening of the clinic for Friday the 17 and departure for the Stung Sen river on the 19. On the way to the Stung Sen we are going to stop and drop off a generator at the school for KIDS built last year for 330 children in Moat Kla village on the Tonle Sap Lake. We visited them a few weeks ago and the children want to study at night but they have no lights or fans for the hot season.
It should prove to be an adventure we will keep you posted.
All the best to you and yours,
Rick and Adrianne