Hi
All,
Hope you
had a great summer. Over the summer K.I.D.S continued to have many irons in the
fire in Cambodia, including: supporting our ongoing programs such as: Samnang
Home for Girls, Smart Kids rural education sponsorship program and the Women's
Weaving Center preschool/kindergarten.
We have also been working on other needs including the following:
A Resilient Family
One of the students in our rural
sponsorship program is 16 years old and the main supporter of her family. This
lovely, reslilient girl works very hard to care for her disabled father and her
two younger sisters as well as keep up with her studies. K.I.D.S provides funds
for all her educational needs as well as a stipend for the family to survive
until their fortunes change. We were able to buy her father a basic wheelchair, as he cannot
walk and it was difficult for the girls to help him move around. He spent all
day, every day on the floor. They are relieved and extremely happy to have the
wheelchair and this has made their day to day living much easier.
For a couple of years now this family has been living in an open fronted community hall right beside the road. Their housing situation has been very difficult and we have been trying to rectify this for some time but with no luck. The problem is that they have no land and we have been unable to help them due to lack of space and availability of land, but we have recently made a breakthrough. We now have permission from the village chief and commune to build them a house, so we are working on plans to build one for them when we return. Needless to say they are really happy that they will be able to have a home of their own.
Improving Family Homes
We are also working on providing several of the other Smart Kid's families with descent housing, as most are living in extremely poor living conditions. So once we get back to Cambodia we will be improving their housing situations as well.
Bikes
Soon it will also be time for children to return to
school in Cambodia. We are working on getting as many bikes as possible into the
hands of the children that are heading off to high schools. When the children
leave elementary school, if the family does not own a bicycle, the child might
not be able to make the usual long trip to school and that is effectively the
end of a their education. Thanks to our donors and Compassionate Eye Foundation
we have secured 90 bikes so far and the families and students are extremely
grateful. A big thank you to Kim Thol (in Cambodia) for his efforts to get the
bikes to all the students at a number of schools.
K.I.D.S is doing it's best to make sure that a
simple bicycle does not stand in the way of a child's education.
Thank you very much for your support and for
improving these children's lives.
Wishing you and yours the very best,
Rick and Adrianne