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Cambodia Trip 2010
On this page:
- Getting ready and getting everything there
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Visiting the school, photos and videos
- Visiting Tabitha Foundation, Cambodian Children's Fund, Home of Peace
- Reflections on Cambodia
- How you can help
Click here to go back to first page about donations for Cambodia.
Special thanks to SIDS and Kids Australia, the kids LOVED the light up pens they donated - there were hundreds and hundreds of them!
Thanks to everyone for the fabulous donations. I never realised there were so many cool pens out there! The pens just kept coming and coming... started to get worried about how I am going to transport them all! My next step is to sort all the pens so that different year levels of kids get comparative styles of pens.
Early Jan:
So I have now sorted the pens into 3 groups, extremely cool, pretty cool and others! I am hoping that there are no more pens coming now, they may have to wait till next trip. Today was the first day with no pens in the mailbox. With almost 2500 pens have had to think carefully about how I will get them all there. I am concerned about putting them in luggage, have had lots of things smashed that way. So this is what I decided to do:
- - 900 of the coolest ones we will take to the school with the Room to Read library. My husband and I will each take a carry on bag with about 300 pens each, the most fragile ones. That way if we hand carry them they should be fine and not get broken. 300 of these pens weigh 7kg so should be OK. The other 300 have packaged up with lots of bubblewrap and double boxing and are sending to our hotel in Siem Reap for us to collect there. We will also take all the letters and cards and some books in our normal luggage. I have also bought some more books to take to the library with some of the money that was sent.
- - A friend of mine is on the board of a series of charity schools in India and was mentioning by chance how he was waiting for some people in Singapore to bring some pens for him to take to the school..... you can guess my response - I have too many to take over and I figured provided the pens are going to children in need people who donated them would be happy enough. So I am giving him a box of 400 of the pens to take over in March.
- - The last 1000 or so we have also packaged up and are shipping directly to Phonm Penh and we will take them with us when we meet up with Nin, the Head of Teaching for the Cambodian Children's Fund. They provide schools and education for children from the dump grounds. If you visit their site and watch some of the video clips and see the before and after shots of the kids once they are given a fresh start it is incredible. The guy who runs it Scott Neeson has a similiar story to John Wood from Room to Read. Scott was a big exec in NBC or CBS (can't remember) but has chucked it all in and lives in Cambodia making a massive difference. Got to admire people who can and choose to do that. Scott is an Australian guy - his brother is married to the sister of a friend of ours (they are filmmakers) and I met them when they made a DVD for me. I have great admiration for those who dedicate their lives to helping others - amazing personal sacrifice and dedication.
- - I also have multiple 'packs' and 'sets' of pens that people have sent that we are going to bubble wrap and put in our main luggage to take to the Sisters of Charity Home of Peace Aids Orphanage at Phnom Penh. One of my friends who lives in Vietnam adopted a Cambodian girl from here 7 years ago and another sponsored a Cambodian girl from this orphanage to come and study in Australia (and she has just got a visa to stay and continue her studies!). When she first came she was in Year 7 and spoke no English (we were called Mr and Mrs Scone for many years as I gave her scones with jam and cream the first time I met her and she had no idea what they were or how to eat them!). She is now starting Year 12 this year. Incredible. One of her brothers is still at the AIDS hospice and we will go and visit him on this trip as well so will buy things in the markets to take with us. We were told to buy lots of fresh fruit 'because we never got nice fruit to eat'!
Less than a week till we leave now.
Mid January.
Stopover in Singapore the day before we arrived in Cambodia was a major panic as the web tracking was showing that the two boxes we shipped of pens to Cambodia had been attempted to be delivered but rejected twice by the hotels. Major panic, they only try a couple of times then ship things back. Both hotels deny that any attempt was made to deliver the packages and that they had not rejected them. Multiple phone calls/emails between me in Singapore, Mark who was leaving in a few hours and Australia Post and the hotels in Cambodia – challenging as their English is not the best. In Phnom Penh the guy rang the courier company directly, found out where the package was, found they were holding it as $4US tax had to be paid, went down the street, paid it and got the box, how lovely was that. Siem Reap one not as straightforward, but after that we could at least ask them to ring the local courier (once I rang Aust Post in Australia to get the numbers) and find out the story – also emailed the room to read contact who contacted the hotel to try and sort it out for us too. Fingers crossed, they are telling us the box will be collected/delivered? tomorrow. We don't arrive till 6pm Fri night and leave for the school 7am Mon morning. Without that box we don't have enough pens for each kid in the school. So am hopeful will be sorted tomorrow.
The pens all arrived whoo hoo! I did a dance in the lobby when we arrived to the amusement of the reception people.
We hired a car and driver to go to the temples the day before we went to the school. But first we went to buy some paper to take to the school. We were thinking, in our ignorance lined paper, but Lai said we should get each child their own exercise book, a 200 page one it lasts at least a year. The books they use look a bit like grid books for Maths with brightly coloured covers. 700 exercise books and 10 soccer balls later, the car was really loaded up and the suspension was struggling. Had to move some of the pallets of books into the front seat as the back of the car kept slamming against the ground.
Borin and Chetra from Room to Read met us in the foyer the next morning, luckily they had a van which meant we could fit everything into the car. Two young Cambodian guys, very enthusiastic, both from poor families who believe in the power of education and want to do all they can to help other Cambodian children have these opportunities – one of the guys was saying he can't give money but he can give service. They told us the number of kids in the school had increased so we stopped and bought another 50 exercise books.
We passed lots of little villages along the way. Mark has been surprised at how much the Cambodian countryside is similar to that of North Qld. The same sort of scrubby bush with a touch of tropical, lots of poinciana trees, banana and mango trees, even some gum trees. Lots of the Cambodian houses have the same look as a queenslander, built up on stilts, quite open to catch the breezes – although houses in QLD have front doors unlike most of the houses here.
The houses out in the villages, while obviously poor with no electricity or running water, just access to a village well, seem well-kept with people going about their lives setting up small shops or farming rice or herding cattle. This was in sharp contrast to the area around the back section of the river in Siem Reap where the tin and wooden shantys were very depressing with garbage and plastic bags everywhere and everyone crammed up on top of each other in squalid conditions.
When we arrived at the school the children were lined up along the entrance and we had to get out and walk down the guard of honour with all the children bowing to us which was a lovely gesture but embarrassing.
The school consists of two long yellow buildings at right angles to each other with maybe 4 classrooms in each building. The library is a pink building that stands separately.
In the centre of the playground 3 tables were set up with bright green and blue cloths. We were ushered into a seat and given a fresh coconut and a straw which was just delicious. We were then introduced to each of the 10 or so teachers through our Room to Read translators and the Principal gave a speech which he had written out in an exercise book just like the ones we'd bought for the children. The R2R guys translated and then we had to give a little speech in return.
We then gave each of the teachers a little koala and presented the picture books we had brought with us to the librarian - they liked the one with Australian animals in it! We then presented the soccer balls to the Principal.
We gave the teachers all the letters from the Australian children and that caused great interest. They are going to use this in their foreign language lessons – a great way to get the kids enthused about learning to read English. Lots of the little kids were clustering around to see what was happening and the teachers kept shooing them away.
Then Mark spread out a whole heap of photos. One of his colleagues had come to the school himself when in Cambodia and they had then gone into the village and been invited to a local wedding. He had taken photos of everyone there and blown up copies for us to give to them. The teachers could not understand how we had all these photos of local people but they knew everyone which was great and were happy to give the photos and a letter Anthony had written to them.
Then we were ushered into the first classroom. We'd suggested the school could distribute everything but no they wanted us to do it. Nor could we go around and put a book and pen on each desk, each child had to come out individually. So we began, they would come to Mark first, bow, he would give them an exercise book, they'd bow again, and then they'd come to me and repeat it again to get a pen. Borin and Chetra had our cameras and were taking lots of pictures. I tried to give the girls the girly pink pens but I don't think it really mattered. We repeated this over and over with each class, the pre-school kids were funny, they didn't even have chairs in their classroom and they all clustered in the middle of the room like he might eat them and then came out and got their pen and book but I am not sure if they really had a clue what was going on and Mark was so big I think they were a bit scared. Then in each room the R2R people had to explain how the pens worked (and perhaps that they were pens!) and that they had to remove the cap to make them work. They were funny comparing each other's pens and getting excited when some of them lit up. The principal was standing nearby in each class and if any of the children snatched the pen (probably out of shyness more than anything) he would bark at them and they would turn and say thankyou.
We were so glad we had bought them an exercise book each as we saw no evidence of books or paper in the school and it would have been horrible to show up with all these pens only to find they had nothing to write on! After we had given out the pens and books, we were taken on a tour of the library. R2R has its own publishing division and it creates books in the local language to educate the children about sanitation, land mines etc. There is a timetable for classes to come to the library and the teachers also use it as a research resource to plan lessons. By the door are a number of plastic jars and cut up straws, green for boys, red for girls. As they enter they take a straw section and put it in the jar for their year level. There is also a jar for the community and for the teachers. At the end of the month R2R gets a report about usage of the library.
The kids were real cuties, obviously not a lot of water in the village available for clothes or face washing and some of the uniforms had seen an awful lot of wear but they were really nice little kids. So tiny though!
At this school the kids come in the morning for school and a different set of kids in the afternoon (the school will distribute the afternoon kids pens and books). When we said that our kids were at school from 9-3pm they wanted to know but what do they do for lunch?
After lots of thankyous on each side and a parting speech by the deputy, we were back in the van and off we went as the kids left to go home.
As the school is near a famous 1000 year old sacred bridge they then took us to see it. The Khmer Rouge had tried to blow up the bridge but the villagers had defended it as they believe it was sacred and powerful. The naga all along was the bridge was almost perfectly intact.
Back in Siem Reap, we said goodbye to our lovely Room to Read guides, Borin and Chetra. Lovely guys and great English.
VIDEOS FROM SCHOOL
In Phnom Penh we visited Tabitha Foundation, an amazing organisation that helps the poorest of the poor and trains women to make silk goods then allows them to take a sewing machine back after they have received training and orders goods from them. There are many different silk outlets in PP and many of them are linked to NGOs but this was one AIS Singapore had worked with and a friend had lent me the lady's book who started it and it was an amazing story. The tuk tuk driver got lost a few times so in the end I worked out where we were on the map and directed him how to get there. We went in there with the intention to buy stuff even if we didn't like it but it turned out they had a fabulous showroom, with amazing things and it was easy to spend up there.
CAMBODIAN CHILDREN'S FUND
We went from there to the Central Market, bought some things for the orphanage for the next day, a rice cooker, towels etc then back to the hotel. Goodbye to our crazy driver who just found us hilarious all day and laughed and laughed at the end when he said goodbye. A quick turn around and then we picked up our box of 1000 pens and headed off to CCF for a 4pm meeting with Nin, the head of teaching.
Cambodian Children's Fund provides housing, schooling, medical treatments etc for around 400 children. It is sort of like a cross between an orphanage and a shelter, some of the students basically sleep and eat there, have their own room, go off to local school in the morning then come back to CCF for extra English classes, computer class, extracurricular activities like Art, Drama, Karate. Some of these students are orphans, some of them are abused, some of them even go back to families at night to sleep there. Nin is the head of teaching and Patrick a short Scottish man with a heavy accent who came for a visit 2 years ago and ended up staying and working. They showed us around, told us what they needed (see bottom of page), and off we went.
Next stop was the supermarket where we bought more things for the nuns, coffee, tea, short breads etc, stuff for the kids like biscuits, milo, lollies. We also stopped in another shop and bought drawing paper (as we had heaps of pen sets and coloured pencils with us for them) a badminton set, skipping ropes, basically anything we thought they might like.
We got back to the hotel and they found us a big box so we could separate out the stuff for the nuns from the stuff for the kids.
HOME OF PEACE
Up early the next morning as when I rang the orphanage/hospice the day before the nuns had been very insistent that 10.30am was too late, we needed to be there by 10 at the latest. The car arrived, driver had a rough idea of where to go, so off we went. In Siem Reap our R2R guides had told us that SR was a much richer province, after seeing these areas we could see why they said that. The rubbish out in these areas was horrific obviously no garbage collection out there. Driver rang to get directions, and before we knew it we were pulling in the gates. We had planned on buying lots of fruit and a friend had told us there were heaps of fruit stalls on the way but we didn't pass a single one (saw them all on the way back though, obviously we came in a different way). Didn't really matter as we had heaps of stuff anyway. Pulled in the gates and 2 little open air classrooms of tiny kids all stared at us. Not really sure where to go we walked up the drive and passed a classroom of nuns getting a theological lesson. We rang the bell and one of the sisters answered, we gave her the general stuff for the orphanage and she pointed us down towards the children.
Kids started to cluster around seeing a massive big box of obviously exciting stuff. We asked to see Channa. 7 years ago a friend adopted a baby (Apsara) from this orphanage and 5 years ago another friend sponsored a girl from here to come to Australia to live and study (Sopheak). Sopheak's brother Channa was at this orphanage. The kids immediately realised who were we linked to, 'Sophek's friend?' and we started sharing out the goodies, we had sporting equipment, lots of coloured pen sets, paper, biscuits, little koalas, all sorts of stuff. Was shared out in a flash with everyone clutching something.
There was a young girl from Melbourne there, on her uni break she has taken a month to volunteer here. Wow, who thinks of doing stuff like that when they are in their 20s, volunteering at an AIDS hospice, we felt very humbled by the amazing work we saw so many people doing. Mark said one time 'I used to think I was a good person', the stories you hear and the people you meet who just give up their time to help others is absolutely heartwarming. I can't imagine at 20 deciding to go and work in an AIDS hospice for a month in Cambodia in my summer break.
Anyway, was lovely to spend some time with the kids, meet Sopheak's brother and friends and film a video message for her from them. It was actually quite a nice facility - friends tell me it is one of the better ones.
REFLECTIONS ON CAMBODIA
Now I accept my understandings of Cambodia are very surface given we spent only a week in the country. So these are really just my personal impressions from that week based on my experiences with the knowledge that I really know very little about the country, the people, or what is going on behind the scenes.
My expectations of Cambodia was that it would be dangerous, full of people begging and hassling you, lots of thieves, pickpockets and a generally unsafe place to be.
All of that turned out to be totally not the case. I am sure there is a dodgy criminal element like in any country, but we felt safe the whole time – it felt very tame, almost lame, after our preconceived notions.
The Cambodian people are lovely. A Buddhist culture breeds a really different way of thinking compared to places in Asia where a more Chinese approach to life dominates. The Cambodians were just lovely people. Happy, smiling, calm, accepting, even more unbelievable when you reflect on what the country has been through the past 40 years or so. The evidence of the Pol Pot regime is just horrific, brutal and unbelievable that people could act in such ways towards fellow human beings.
Cambodia is a poor country with a corrupt government. Yes Pol Pot is gone although it was only ten years ago that there were still guerrillas left in the jungle. Many of the principals from the regime now just have a place in government. It seems as if there are 3 parties to vote for but doesn’t matter which party you vote for as the same one gets in – the same one that has been in power since Pol Pot was overthrown.
The government does not seem to be able to cope with the needs of the country at all. It is the work of NGOs and foreign aid that is building roads, increasing educational opportunities and taking care of those in need. There are a huge amount of people there providing aid but it feels like it is only touching the surface. Still, talking to a friend who was there 10 years or so ago there have been massive changes and massive improvements. One of our drivers told us that it used to take 12 hours on the road from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, now with the new road (one big straight line) it only takes about 3 hours.
The whole time you are there the contrast between the “haves” and the “have nots” is continually emphasized. So much of how your life shapes up is determined by the pure chance of where you were born. People born in Australia certainly start with a huge head start in just so many ways –it just seems so unfair that an accident of birth determines this. We have the basics, food, shelter, water we have education, roads, schools, hospitals, garbage collection, the list of what we have is endless. The things we don’t have, well they are just material desires that we are conditioned to want.
So you feel a lot of guilt in Cambodia. Really we should just sell our apartment, keep enough to live on, and give the rest to those who are less fortunate than us. But we are not going to do that. So there is guilt around this. I like my life, I like having things and money to travel, we give to charity but how much is enough? We could give so much more, but we have selfish desires, all very well when you are in a shop in Australia you don’t think about it and just hand over the credit card, really different when you are confronted with the poverty in front of your eyes. So you have this continual sense that you are not doing enough, that you are selfish for living such a comfortable material life and even worse because you know you will not change that and don’t want to change that.
Aside from the financial guilt, there is also service guilt. Mark said ‘I thought I was a good person until I came here’. You meet people who are doing the most amazing things. They have given up their lives, sometimes their homes and are spending their life helping those in dire poverty or need. And there is not just one or two of these stories, you meet endless people doing this. A young girl from Melbourne spending a month of her uni break in the aids hospice – my god I was not really even aware Cambodia existed at that age. Another 23 year old who came over and set up a shop in Phomn Penh selling goods made by women in extreme poverty. Again, who leaves their country at that age to go somewhere so challenging and do such meaningful work at that age? We met a Scotsman who had come for a visit and ended up staying to work with an NGO. All of these people say they felt compelled or called to do this, like they just had to there was no choice. I was saying to Mark ‘man I hope that doesn’t happen to me, I do not want to feel driven or compelled to give up my life’ – his reply ‘you’d better not!’. But you feel guilt a) that you are not doing this and b) that you don’t want to do it. You realize that there are some REALLY amazing people out there, lots of them, doing incredible things for others with great personal sacrifice. And your little contribution is so measly in comparison to these people although it may seem large in comparison to what many Australians contribute to charity.
And then you start to think well really is any of this aid even making a difference? Cambodia has such a long way to go before all the basic needs of the people are met. A country where many people do not have a roof over their heads, do not have enough to eat, have to walk miles to get to a village well for water. Much less sanitation, rubbish collection (my god the rubbish, in some places it was horrific, entire rivers covered with plastic bags and other waste), education, electricity.. all those things we take for granted. The little you can do just seems so little, you question is it really worthwhile or is it just a tokenistic effort - something that makes you feel better perhaps but doesn't achieve much. But then rational thinking returns, every little bit helps, I saw with the pens, lots of people sending just a few pens means I had 2000 pens to give away. So yes every little bit does make a difference. It just feels like a drop in the ocean of what is needed though, this is not a quick fix situation, it is a good 50-100 years I would think before the basics are in place for the majority of the population.
Cambodians seem to lack the ambition you see in other Asian countries. One of my friends tells me that in the older generation who have lived through Pol Pot, there is not much hope, not despair either, just a sense of acceptance of what is. The younger generation is apparently becoming more ambitious, but it will never be with the same single-mindedness of the Chinese. The Buddhist way of thinking is just so different – it is almost like there are a different suite of emotions in place. For example, you don’t see excessive gratitude, just an acceptance of aid that is given as though this is just something that happens and is accepted. It is a much more level calm approach to life – although if you don’t have the great lows maybe then you don’t experience the great highs?
I have been reading a book by a Buddhist monk about meditation and mindfulness. And while I do appreciate that living in the moment only, not thinking of the future creates a calmer more accepting approach to life, it is all very well to not think about the future if you are a monk sitting in a temple. But we choose to live in the social world which means that there has to be a certain element of planning to make things happen in life, to direct your life the way you want it to go. If you take a total ‘live in the now’ approach, there is no striving for better conditions – this way of thinking is not what is needed to transform a country, as lovely as this way of thinking might be.
Perhaps this is why we found the beggars not as aggressive as we expected. And this was another dilemma. We came across a few amputees where we gave money unhesitatingly. But do you give money to every beggar? Do you pick and choose? Should you give the money to an agency instead? It is really hard, more so with the children. You read that you should not give money to children begging and maybe not even buy from the water sellers and post card sellers as often they have a ‘pimp’ of sorts who sends the kids out, locks them up at night and basically keeps all the money. You certainly don’t want to support this practice, but how do you tell if this is the case or if it is just a kid helping his family? And if you don’t buy them and then their handlers beat them for not making enough sales, well you don’t want to contribute to this either. Plus I know I wanted to give to the kids who were cheeky and smart whereas the whining kids just annoyed me - how unfair is that, I would be whining too if I was in their situation. There are no easy answers.
The other issue that troubles me is imagine you take a country and basically eliminate the brightest and most intellectual people - basically what Pol Pot did. What does that do to the gene pool of a country? How do you recover from that? And how long does it take?
So it was a full on experience, we really enjoyed it, we were saddened by what we saw at times, we felt guilty and inadequate, but I guess in the end you do leave the country with a hope that next time you return the country will have taken more steps forward to meet the basic needs of all Cambodians.
Really, these organisations need cash. There are people doing great things, but they need money to do it. Here are some of the organisations I know of and like, but there are hundreds more great causes out there.
Underneath are some specific things you could buy and post to Cambodia if you wanted to do something tangible as opposed to a cash donation.
Room To Read Want to get involved locally? Help out with fundraising etc? Room to Read Australian Chapters are now in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. For more info, contact Jennie Orchard:
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Room to Read partners with local communities throughout the developing world to establish libraries, create local language children's literature, constructing schools, and providing education to girls. In 2008, Room to Read established a library every 4 hours and distributed a book every 3 minutes. John Wood, founder and executive chairman, launched Room to Read after a trek through Nepal where he visited several local schools. He was amazed by the warmth and enthusiasm of the students and teachers, but also saddened by the shocking lack of resources. Driven to help, John quit his senior executive position with Microsoft and built a global team to work with rural villages to build sustainable solutions to their educational challenges. |
Cambodian Children's Fund http://www.cambodianchildrensfund.org/ (looking for people to sponsor children) |
Cambodian Children's Fund was founded by Hollywood film executive Scott Neeson (we know his brother here in Australia) , who travelled to Cambodia on holiday in early 2003 and found his life changed by the desperate circumstances and unlikely courage of Phnom Penh's most impoverished children. Scott exited the industry to establish and oversee CCF. CCF was originally developed as one shelter providing a safe haven for 45 children in critical need. Within four short years, the CCF has grown to incorporate five separate facilities, where nearly 400 children receive nutrition and housing, as well as medical treatment, dental services and vaccinations. CCF children are given a comprehensive educational program that includes local language reading and writing, as well as multi-level classes in English, social studies and math. They also attend evening classes at the rooftop cultural center, where they learn traditional Khmer music, dance and drama. CCF is also expanding its community relief programs to provide suffering families better access to education, health care, food assistance and safe drinking water - essential in an environment where an estimated 80% of illnesses are water related. Only through self-sufficiency can the generational cycles of poverty and abuse be broken. |
NepCam (looking for people to sponsor children) |
NEPCAM began in 2005 with the sponsorship of one child in Nepal. This child, Sunita, was nine years old and was in a class where Dr Colin Woodley was teaching English, on a voluntary basis, in a school in Nayabazaar, Kathmandu. One Friday afternoon, after school, Sunita took Colin home to her tiny crowded room to meet her family of ten. They were very poor indeed and from that time on Sunita has received support with her education. Returning to Australia, Colin told his family and friends about Sunita and then wrote an article in the local Manly Daily. After this article was published, NEPCAM's sponsorships grew quickly. As at 1 January 2009, NEPCAM has provided assistance to over 400 children, mothers, teachers and adolescents in communities within Nepal and Cambodia. NEPCAM is unique because it delivers every cent to the children, their school or their families. The organisation is a totally voluntary organisation. It has no paid employees. |
Tabitha Foundation http://www.tabitha.org.au/cms/
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Tabitha Foundation is a non-profit organisation seeking to help suffering families in Cambodia. Tabitha's aim is to reach out to the despairing in their communities and help them to address their own needs in a holistic and sustainable way. Community development is achieved by encouraging personal savings, providing employment and income by teaching and selling Cambodian handcrafted items, building wells, and house-building by volunteers for families who cannot afford a home. Thereby transforming lives to fruitfulness with dignity! 100% of donations are applied to the programs in Cambodia - ZERO overheads! Tabitha now supports more than 33,000 families (representing over 264,000 Cambodians) in their journey to a better life, including food and income security, safe water, housing and education for the children. Tabitha Cambodia was founded in 1994 by Janne Ritskes, a dual citizen of Cambodia and Canada. |
However, there are also other things needed and other ways to contribute:
Cambodian Children's Fund |
1. They are looking for educational software, CD ROMS. Anything aiming at Primary School level, in English. Can be simple things like learning to count, learning the alphabet or things like geography or science, anything in English at a not too difficult level. They have beginners through to more advanced language learners there. You can post it direct or post to me and I will send as a package (PO Box 9 Neutral Bay NSW 2089). 2. If you know of any ESL/TESOL teachers, Nin is looking for ESL teaching programs, not so much resources but an actual program they could follow. Any materials gratefully received. |
Room to Read Offiice (for distribution to schools like Wat Chi Kring Primary School) |
Anything that would make school more fun would be appreciated - the R2R guys say the hardest thing is getting the kids to come. Posters to put up on the walls, craft materials, things to colour in, they really do not have a lot of resources here. Best if you post these direct to R2R. |
Home of Peace |
The kids here would appreciate fun stuff to do like crafts activities, nice things to eat (preferably some of it healthy nutritious stuff). Best if you post this direct to Home of Peace. |
My next plan is to take a group of friends to do house-building for Tabitha Foundation in Dec 2011: http://www.tabitha.org.au/cms/house-building.html
Thanks again to everyone for all of your support. The kids were just thrilled to have their own individual pen and because there were so many sent we were able to distribute them to lots of other groups as well – it was great to see how individual contributions can make such a difference.
Cheers
Prue