We hope all is well with you and yours. Today is U.N. World Water Day and this year's theme is "leaving no one behind". "The Sustainable Development Goal #6 is water for all by 2030. But today, billions of people are still living without safe water - their households, schools, workplaces, farms and factories struggling to survive and thrive. Marginalized groups - women, children, refugees, indigenous peoples, disabled people and many others - are often overlooked, and sometimes face discrimination, as they try to access and manage the safe water they need"
Here in Cambodia six million people, mostly from rural and poor areas, go without clean water, it is hard to imagine that 12,000 more with clean water makes a "difference in the world" but for the students, teachers and family members that benefit from our combined efforts it makes a "world of difference".
One of the water projects is at the new and first floating high-school at Moat Klar (Tigers Mouth) Village on the Tonle Sap Lake, that K.I.D.S. just finished building in partnerships with Loins Club, Norway.
Thanks to Compassionate Eye Foundation, Canada we have been able to supply the school with a solar-powered clean drinking water system, which is a first for a school on the lake to be able to provide clean water for their students.
What is not a first is the sustained and combined efforts of K.I.D.S. long term and new donors that provided support for this project through management, construction supervision, transportation and the many extras that are needed in a project of this size.
Thanks to K.I.D.S. donors we have also been able to fund another water project at Tier Bhan Koumrou elementary school that educates 1,400 children who up to now did not have any access to drinking water at the school.
As always the challenges, logistics and hard work involved in putting these projects together dissolve when you see kids with cups and bottles in hand quenching their thirst and knowing they will suffer less from dehydration and stomach illnesses.
So here is a toast to World Water Day and a more even playing field for kids!!
THANK YOU
Till Next Time
Rick and Adrianne