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

Full Circle

Dear Friends,

Hope all is well? Many of you may remember the story of Sopeak. We first met Sopeak in the countryside outside of Siem Reap 11 years ago. We were delivering food, household supplies and clothing to her village, where some of the families were so desperately poor many kids did not have clothes.

While in the village, from the edge of the circle which formed around us, a woman pushed her daughter forward and told her to speak to us in English. Sopeak was very small and shy but spoke to us in very clear and accent free English, which was quite astonishing as she lived so far out in the countryside. She had learned some English from an American teacher who had taught her while in her village.
The short version of the last 11 years is that K.I.D.S. sponsored Sopeak's education from that point on to complete elementary, high school, English classes and university. Sopeak rode many, many kilometers in her 12 hour days to and from school on her bicycle through the choking dust of the dry season and the muddy, rutted, water filled potholes of the rainy season. After high school K.I.D.S. sponsored Sopeak to live in the the city, in a rented room, and we provided a small living stipend for her while she attended university. Through elementary, high school as well as university Sopeak received top marks in all her classes; all the while struggling with a 50% hearing loss, due to infection that was left untreated, as the family could not afford medication.

Last year we attended Sopeak's wedding, she married a gem of a man, they love each other very much and they now have a beautiful and happy 4-month old boy.

When Sopeak was young, being the eldest child, she and her father would hunt frogs and fish to try to feed the rest of the family through very difficult times. We are so happy to see the outcome of Sopeak's dedication to education and fight to improve her lot in life. She and her husband have bought a small piece of land behind her parent's house and are working on a simple basic house and have planted fruit trees to establish a future home.
We recently went out to visit her family, the family has improved their lot in life by working together. Inspired by Sopeak, in her quest for education, her 4 younger sisters have learned or are in the process of learning English and the two older ones have good jobs as well.

But the best thing of all is that Sopeak is now a school teacher in the very same village school that she went to as a child. She has truly come full circle in her life and is now passing on both the goodwill that all of you have shared by supporting Sopeak and the knowledge that she has received through education to other children. As well Sopeak hopes to teach English to village children.

We hope that Sopeak's story will bring some joy to your hearts and a smile to your faces at this time of year.

From Sopeak and the many students and families, under your collective wings, and ourselves we thank you and wish you all the best this Holiday Season and may you be surrounded in a circle of love of friends and family.

Till Next Time
Rick and Adrianne

Human Rights Day

Dear Friends,

Hope all is well? Today it is World Human Rights Day and a holiday here in Cambodia. Rather ironic as a vast amount of the people here still live without many of these human rights.

 

We have been busy since getting our feet back on the ground and trying to level the human rights playing field for more children and families here. We are expanding our Smart Kids education sponsorship program and the other day we visited some new students and families living in and around the brick factories. These families eke out a subsistence living by working incredibly long days fishing, making bricks or bagging and carrying rice. The resilience of humanity and these particular children and families never fails to move us deeply.

We know that education changes lives! We also know that having a decent and hygienic living environment improves the health, hope and well being of children and families. We are working hard to be able to improve the living conditions of some of the poorest families with new or renovated houses and bathrooms. After the home visits we have to assess who is in the greatest need and make difficult heartwrenching choices, not an easy job.

The families are all so grateful to be given a helping hand. One young woman, who is 29, and has three children, lives in a very poor house with her husband and kids, as we chatted with her, her daughter (who will be joining our Smart Kids program) came back to the house...after having to go to a dirty pond to bathe. Although we cannot afford to build them a house this year we are able to tell them that we can build them a bathroom/bathing room...the mother's face lit up and she was very grateful.

Another boy named E, who is in our sponsorship program, is now living in the city attending a training program. E was going home every weekend to carry and haul rice bags to help his widowed mother and family. E weighs about 42 kilograms and he carries and loads trucks with 50 kg bags of rice....about 150 bags a day. He is 17 and every weekend he returned from his home tired and sore and was having trouble concentrating on his weekly studies and training.

We were able to help E's family with a stipend of $50.00 a month so he does not have to ruin his body while trying to help his family survive. When E finishes his training program he will be able to will find a good job and help his mother and family again.

Thank You!! for supporting KIDS and improving Human Rights and changing lives for the better.

Until next time,
Adrianne and Rick