Bikes and Books

Hello Everyone,

We hope all is well with you and yours. As many of you know, one of K.I.D.S main focuses is education and helping students get to school. Recently we went out to a rural school and delivered 87 bicycles to children living in the countryside.

 

For most of the kids in this area, bikes are needed so they can continue to go to school. As they often live long distances away from school and their families do not have the means of transportation. The delivery of these bikes is life changing, not only for the students but also for their families as they can use them to go to the market etc. when the kids are home from school.

When we arrived, all the students, teachers and many parents and grandparents were there to meet us. They were all smiling and so happy to receive the bikes. We have also helped this rural school build a library, which they are all so grateful for. This trip we also bought lots of school materials; such as books, pencils and reading materials for the students, as well as first aid kits. With these schools being remote the teachers take care of any cuts and scrapes the children may get in the playground.

 

The principal thanked K.I.D.S for helping their school, the students and the families were all very grateful. We explained that the funding is a team effort and many people contribute to make this possible. Before giving out the bikes, some of the students did their traditional dance for us, as always it was very beautiful and then we got to watch as all the kids received their bikes and rode off to their homes. (see the link to the video attached below)

One girl was standing there and holding a rag against her eye. When we asked what happened her parents did not know but they could not afford to take her to the village doctor. Many villagers only make $300.00 to $500.00 a year through odd jobs. They try to grow their own food, as well as forage for fish, frogs and snakes, and if they can raise chickens to help them eat. We made arrangements with her principal for her to go to the doctor and KIDS supported them to get some care for their child...their daughter is much better; needless to say they were all very grateful.

If anyone would like to contribute to the projects, please click the link -->  https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/8908 

Click the link below to see a short video of the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63IoEdOKx7Y 

Another heartwarming and life changing day.

A Big Thanks to You too,
Our Kind and Generous Donors.

We will be in touch down the road...

Until Next Time,
Adrianne and Rick

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