A Very Happy Thanksgiving

Dear Friends,

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, a day when we think about and acknowledge what we have and what we have done to be grateful for. Rick and I would like to express our sincere gratitude to all our family, friends and donors who have so kindly helped so many children and families to live better lives. Over the years together we have collectively been able to bring clean drinking water, education, housing, sanitation, healthcare and medical support to those in need in Cambodia. Today we lit a candle for all those we have loved and lost and for all those that together K.I.D.S. has been able to save and help.

We are leaving for Cambodia soon and will stay in touch and update you on our collective work while we are in Cambodia.

These are some recent pictures of a few of the hundreds of children we all help to eat a daily meal at one of K.I.D.S. education and meal programs. These particular kids attend The Farm School, a countryside school that K.I.D.S. runs to educate poor children, they come every day to study and learn English. The students are fed a good daily meal by the wonderful teacher and her family.

 

 

A Very Happy Thanksgiving to you all, as you gather together to enjoy your Thanksgiving dinners, family, friends and holiday.

All the very best to you and yours,
Until Next Time,

Adrianne and Rick

Some Good News

Hello Everyone,

We were sent this article from Fix The News on a report from WHO/UNICEF report on water, sanitation and hygiene. 

Before you read it we would like to thank everyone who has ever been a part of KIDS as a donor, volunteer or in any way at all. You have been part of a change for the good in KIDS quest to bring water, sanitation and hygiene to as many as we can.

Phew, some good news for a change.

The article reads,

The change since 2000 is staggering. Back then, only two-thirds of humanity could drink safe water; today it’s three-quarters, despite the world’s population growing by two billion. During the same time, sanitation has gone from being accessible to less than half of the world to nearly 60%, and basic handwashing has gone from 59% to 80% of the global population

The scale of this is almost impossible to get your head around. We are talking about billions of lives altered in the most tangible of ways: homes with taps, schools with toilets, clinics where soap and water are always available. Progress like this slips past unnoticed, hidden by the news cycle, but in the grand sweep of history it’s as big as anything gets. Those numbers represent real children playing in the streets instead of dying from some terrible disease, hundreds of millions of mothers spared the daily burden of carrying water, and countless communities freed to focus on more than just survival.

Our species has done something genuinely remarkable here, and it’s worth stopping for a moment to appreciate it.

Thank You Suzanne for making our day.

 

 

Thank you again for your support and helping so many.
All the best to you and yours,
Until Next Time,
Adrianne and Rick

The Lake Clinic (TLC)

Dear Friends,

We hope all is well with you and yours and that you are enjoying the summertime. We have recently been in touch with Jon Morgan the director of the Lake Clinic. As many of you may remember the Lake Clinic serves those that are living on the Tonle Sap Lake, many miles from any towns and clinics.

Years ago, we met Jon, when he was the director of the children's hospital in Siem Reap, we ended up volunteering there by building some drying sheds for hospital laundry. Jon told us about the people who lived in fishing communities out on the Tonle Sap Lake and had little to no access to medical treatments or help. Jon took us to the lake on a small boat to see the villages and we were in shock at how people managed to live on floating shacks, mostly the families fished for a living.

When visiting the chief of the village he asked Jon about getting healthcare out there as they did not have any so if someone was sick, they would have to travel long distances to land and then try to find a clinic, which many of them could not afford. On our way back to town Jon and we decided that he would find a way to bring healthcare to the village. We decided that we would build a local village clinic where the doctors and nurses could help the communities in this isolated area. So we when went back to Canada and we fund-raised for building a floating clinic and thanks to K.I.D.S. wonderful donors we built.

Jon put together a team of doctors, nurses and midwives and now the clinic serves hundreds of people each week both at the floating clinic and also doing home visits. The teams travel there on small boats and stay on the clinic every week, it was like a miracle come true to the very poor villagers. We have been out there many times and so admire the work that is being done, literally saving lives, and how strong the staff are. The Lake Clinic also educates the villagers on preventive health, nutrition and clean drinking water. The first K.I.D.S. clinic inspired other international donors who teamed up with the Lake Clinic and 4 more were built.

 

We can’t thank everyone enough for helping this life saving medical centre. K.I.D.S. continues our support for TLC by providing the salaries for three midwives who rotate through the 5 clinics and who assist many women and families there. 

 

 

 

Thank you for your support and helping so many.
All the best to you and yours,

Until Next Time,
Adrianne and Rick 

 

Bathrooms for Schools and Families

Dear Friends,
We hope this finds you and yours well. As many of you know one of the problems in developing countries is the lack of toilets, especially in the poor rural areas. Each year K.I.D.S. tries to put as many toilets/bathrooms at schools and at poor families’ homes.

This last trip we went to visit a high school in a remote area, we were bringing some students bicycles, so the children who lived further away could get to school easier. After the ceremony of delivering bikes to the poorest kids attending the high school for 1000 students, we went looking around the school and discovered that they only had two outdoor toilets for all the kids and 10 teachers. The teachers did not even have their own bathroom.

Needless to say the staff and children were thrilled when we told them we could help them out with more bathrooms. The teachers were very grateful to have their own private bathrooms and the kids were so happy to have more access to bathrooms, especially the girls. We can’t thank you all enough for bringing dignity and hygiene to both the students and to the teachers. They are extremely grateful for everyone’s help. Having better hygiene will also cut down on illness and girls missing school.

At the school in the northeast of the country where K.I.D.S. funds a preschool/kindergarten and computer lab which is also the site of a free clinic for the villagers they were having issues with the water supply and sanitation situation. We were able to work in partnership with another Canadian NGO called Kindred Hearts Cambodia who fund the clinic to replace the water supply lines and sanitation systems to bring all the toilets, sinks and showers back into working order.

 

KIDS was also able to build six family bathrooms. Many families do not have bathrooms and so they have to use the fields, which can be dangerous at night with snakes and other creatures. Each year thanks to our donors we build as many bathrooms for families as possible. The families are very grateful, they also can use the bathrooms for doing laundry which is a great help.

Thank you very much for your support and improving the health, hygiene and dignity for these students, teachers and families. They are all very grateful and so are we.

Wishing You and Yours All the very best,
Until Next Time,
Adrianne and Rick

Helping Healthcare

 Dear Friends,

We hope all is well with you and yours. We are now home and settled in, however our programs and projects continue. Before we left Cambodia we visited a hospital up in the northern part of Cambodia in Stung Treng Province. As many of you know KIDS funds a great preschool/kindergarten there as well as a computer lab for students. Stung Treng is one of the poorest provinces in the country. While we were there, K.I.D.S. manager Chan, asked us to visit the provincial hospital. We met the head of the hospital and saw the good work they were doing serving many people in the whole province.

We visited the pre and perinatal parts of the hospital and the head doctor told us about the problem they were having with oxygen; apparently they do not have enough oxygen and this is causing life threatening problems for the babies.

They also needed a permanent oxygen system for patients in the emergency ward.

We decided that this was a very important need and we had the resources to install the much needed oxygen and regulator system first to the emergency and the next step would be to extend it to the to the nursery they can share the ER system for now. Hopefully we can extend the permanent system to the nursery soon. Again Thanks to our donors the first stage of the system is running well and words cannot truly express how much the doctors, nurses and patients and parents appreciated us being able to help them and literally save lives.

We travelled back to Siem Reap and had another visit at one of the other rural clinics we supported by putting in a clean drinking water system this past year. The head doctor/nurse thanked us and all our donors for bringing the gift of clean water to their small rural clinic. The emergency and inpatient ward had a metal roof and no ceiling which was a big problem in the hot season as the heat radiates down from the metal roof onto the patients. We hired our builder to install a ceiling under the roof to stop the transfer of heat making patient hospital stays much more comfortable.

Because the clinic serves rural families they have to deliver quite a few babies throughout the year. The head nurse said that they really needed a delivery table with stirrups for the mothers in labour, as that would make the deliveries so much easier for the moms. KIDS was able to supply the delivery table as well.
We are always amazed and inspired by the people we meet who dedicate their lives to ease the lives of those in their villages and communities. Thank you for helping us help them to bring health and well-being to those in need.

Wishing You and Yours All the very best,
Until Next Time,
Adrianne and Rick

K.I.D.S. Smart Kids Program

 Dear Friends,

We hope all is well with you and yours. We are now home and before we left we were busy winding down our trip in Cambodia; however all our programs and projects will carry on thanks to our donors. We were busy saying goodbye to many kids and those we work with. While we were in Cambodia we went out to visit our Smart Kids Program, which we visit several times while we are there. This was one of our very first education programs that we started fourteen years ago.

Over the years we have had the privilege to watch many, many students go through this afterschool and weekend English training program. It has been very rewarding to watch as these very poor children attend this program and learn English as well as finding their strengths and supporting their dreams. All the students come from the very poor countryside families in the brick factory and farming area, they often live in very primitive housing.

Our manager and principal at the school they attend choose the kids from the poorest families to attend. Each day after school and Sundays they come to class to study English as well as learning life skills. Thanks to our donors we have been able to educate these kids to go on to post-secondary education and training. We have a house in the city where our K.I.D.S. manager and his family live and when the students graduate from high school they move into their house with Hak’s Family to attend post-secondary training.

Each day after school and Sundays they come to class to study English as well as learning life skills. Thanks to our donors we have been able to educate these kids to go on to post-secondary education and training. We have a house in the city where our K.I.D.S. manager and his family live and when the students graduate from high school they move into their house with Hak’s Family to attend post-secondary training. Hak and his family are very kind and K.I.D.S. pays for all the expenses for the house and the students. This year we have been able to build an extension to Hak’s house which included a larger kitchen as well as a more room for students to study.

It is truly heartwarming to watch these young people go from working in factories for slave labour wages and go to working in different industries for decent wages. Where many of the girls would have become young mothers in their teens they are now managing front desks in hotels and working in different businesses and trades, all the students are happy and independent and they also help their families once they are making decent wages. Thanks to our donors we have been able to take these young people out of poverty and change their lives and often the lives of their families. They are so grateful and so are we. Thank You!!!

Till Next time
Adrianne and Rick

Cheers to World Water Day

Dear Friends,

We hope all is well with you and yours and happy World Water Day. One of the things that we notice when we are working here in Cambodia, is how often we realize what we take for granted where we live in Canada. One of those things is clean drinking water. As the temperature rises here to the mid-30s, we need to drink more water…at home, we can just go to the tap and drink to our heart's content; however, here, people often have to buy water, especially in the rural villages. Even in the nicer city homes and businesses, people still buy large containers of clean water.

As many of you know, one area that K.I.D.S is dedicated to helping is to bring clean water to those in need. Thanks to K.I.D.S. donors we have once again been able to bring villages and schools clean water.

This past year alone we were able to put in six more clean drinking water systems. We put five at rural schools and one at the Department of Education in the city, hard to believe that the administration staff had to buy their drinking water while at work.

It is also hard to believe that in rural areas families do not have access to clean water and have to buy water. Thanks to K.I.D.S. donors all these people and communities now have access to clean water and everyone is so grateful. The gift of water improves the lives of many and we thank you for your support and bringing health and well-being to thousands of people every day. The provincial school district office gave K.I.D.S an award, for its dedication to improving the water situation at so many schools in Siem Reap province which we share with you.

With this year's new projects, your generosity has brought a total of 37 clean drinking water projects to many thousands of children and families.

We are raising a glass to you and to those we have all helped.

Cheers,
Until Next Time,
Adrianne and Rick