Bikes, Books and Bunches of Fun

Dear Friends,

We hope all is well with you and yours. As you know KIDS focuses on education, clean drinking water, healthcare and generally improving the lives of children who face difficult situations. One simple and fairly cheap way of improving a child and a families life is by providing them with a basic bicycle. Throughout the year we give out hundreds of bicycles to those who need one.


Many of the parents come to the school for the bike distribution. It is a happy event. A bike does not only allow children to continue their education, as most rural schools are often such long distances from students homes, it is also used for transportation for the family to go to market etc.


KIDS also assists schools and students by providing, books/school supplies, backpacks, whiteboards and uniforms.


Teachers and families appreciate this support as it improves the level of education these children receive.


Although education is incredibly important KIDS also believes that giving children and youth the opportunity to let go, have fun and broaden their borders is also important. Each year we take kids from our sponsorship programs for outings. It is wonderful to see these young people, laugh, play and see new sights. Many have never been on a bus, seen a movie, swam in a lake, been in a city or rode an escalator. We think the photos say it all!!


Thanks as always for your support,
Until next time,
Adrianne and Rick

Floating Middle School

Dear Friends,
We hope all is well with you and yours. K.I.D.S. has quite a few projects on the go this year. One of these projects, that we are pleased to tell you about, is a floating middle school. Last year Lion's Club Norway contacted us and asked us to partner with them to build one of the few if any floating middle schools out on the Tonle Sap Lake.

As some of you may remember K.I.D.S. built a floating primary school on the lake 8 years ago, thanks to a very generous donation. Life on the lake is extremely difficult and it is hard for children to get an education.

When we visited a primary school on the lake many years ago we could not believe how the little, overcrowded school was literally sinking under our feet.


The villagers were happy to have a well built and safe primary school for their community. Since building the school more and more children have been able to get an education, however, after grade six, there is nowhere else that they can go to further their learning.

Lion's Club Norway generously offered to donate through K.I.D.S. to build a middle school and we are pleased to be able to manage the construction of the school. Thanks to our partner Compassionate Eye Foundation we will also be installing one of the lakes first clean drinking water systems at the school. Children and families on the lake have little to no access to clean drinking water and suffer from illnesses due to drinking polluted lake water.

We have started the project, the builders are now building the steel barges that will support the school, at the port near Siem Reap (where we live) and once the school is built we will have it towed to the village. Needless to say, the students, families and teachers are excited to have a higher level of education in their community.


The five teachers, who live in one room on the elementary school year-round, work very hard to educate the students.

They too live difficult lives and sacrifice comfort and privacy to better the future of the children in these villages. K.I.D.S. plans to improve their living conditions at the elementary school. We will keep you posted.

With gratitude and best wishes,
Adrianne and Rick

New Year, New Life, New Beginnings

Dear Friends,

We wish you all a happy, healthy and meaningful new year. The new year is both a time for new beginnings and a time for reflection. Here we are celebrating past achievements and supporting new opportunities for children, youth and families. We were pleased to have a celebratory dinner for some of the young people who recently graduated from their yearlong hospitality training program. They now all have good jobs and are heading into a new and exciting phase of their lives. It was wonderful to see how their situations have changed since joining K.I.D.S. Smart Kids program 7 years ago and as one young man put it "if it were not for you and K.I.D.S. we would not be us" there were tears of appreciation, happiness, and gratitude...which they asked us to pass on.

We are so grateful to Hak Sok, who manages the program and also takes kids to live with his family in the city so they can attend their training programs. We now have three more young people in training school and living with Hak and his wonderful family.

In the same week we spent time in the countryside meeting and interviewing new students and their families. As we went to visit each of their basic dwellings and chat we were filled with both sadness and hope. These families are extremely poor. Giving up the labour of one child, to further their education, is a noble sacrifice; as they could work in the brick factories and increase the family income, however their desire to better their children's lives outweighs their basic needs. Thanks to you we were able to add eleven more families to the program.

We know that through K.I.D.S. support this program we will be able to assist the families to make life easier by providing them with bathrooms, better living conditions, bikes and solar lighting systems over the next few years. We have witnessed the changes families go through when given support and it is truly uplifting.

The new classrooms are well underway and everyone is very excited to soon open more spaces for children to learn. The building team is so happy to have the work and this project contributes to the village economy.

For many children and families here, thanks to your support and generosity, there is much to be celebrated and look forward to.

One of the graduate students sent this song to thank everyone for their support. (here is the link)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDEmA2GizZA (Open in YouTube)

Until next time,
Adrianne and Rick