Harnessing Opportunities through Play and Education

Wow stepping off the plane at 8pm and the temperature  must be over 30 degrees but boy was I glad to be back in Cambodia, some 14 months since my last visit.  Greeted at the airport by my dear friend Bunthoun complete with his tuk-tuk and family.   It only took half of the journey to town for his little 2 year old girl to get comfortable with the white barang (foreigner!)

Am staying with fellow HOPE trustee Jo, who is based in Siem Reap on a semi-permanent basis.  She sends me regular emails so I was well prepared for the vast changes to the town.  More new hotels and bars and even two shopping malls.  Ok so they’re not quite Bluewater – but to the Cambodians, just the moving stairs (escalators to you and me) are a great novelty.

Within 18 hours of my arrival I was visiting Sangkheum, the orphanage I taught at and which HOPE supports. No fear that the children won’t remember me the internet enables to stay in regular contact with the Project Leaders there.  They particularly liked the photos of London in the snow which I sent earlier in the year.

While I was on "holiday" there were a number of meetings lined up; checking existing projects backed by HOPE, considering potential projects we may back in the future, and general talking to people working for other charitable causes out there. I'm a firm believer in learning from mistakes, but it’s even better if you can learn from others' mistakes!!  And frankly it’s nigh impossible not to make mistakes in a country like Cambodia.

One day we had meetings from 9.30 through to 7 that night - it was busy!  But the best meeting of the trip was standing in front of the Young Adults at Sangkheum Centre, 11 of them in total and telling them all about why we have set up HOPE, how we have decided to help them, including the launch event -  my crazy cycle ride to Paris.   The kids were really interested and we may even have inspired them to do their own sponsored cycle ride (we are just working on the logistics)

Another major highlight during the trip was securing a permanent web page on the UK Global Giving site – an international organisation that describes itself as grassroots philanthropy.   http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/pr/2700/proj2602a.html

Having got through the vetting process in March,. HOPE had been invited to enter the April Challenge – basically raise £1,000 from at least 50 unique donors.  We did lots of marketing, bugged (or was that begged!) lots of friends and watched daily (sometimes hourly) to see the totals tick up.  On the eve of my birthday we had 49 donors so I was delighted to wake up and find we’d cracked it and reached 52. At the time of writing we are at 63 donors and raised just over £2,000 – THANKS to all those wonderful supporters out there.  We are now the only Cambodian project on the UK site.

But best of all I can report back from my trip that the money we have raised is really reaching the people who need it and preparing the young adults we support to have a significantly better future.    A number of young adults are on work placements, learning about job opportunities and others are enjoying the extra curriculum classes which include English, computing, health issues and social issues.

My last morning was spent as I started my holiday, at Sangkheum talking and playing with the children.  Many of them have grown a lot and I couldn’t leave without a few more photos!   Leaving Cambodia is always heart wrenching, but each time it does get easier as I know with greater certainty that I will be back again.   And this time I leave feeling very positive, after a very affirmative trip.  I am delighted with HOPE’s progress to date, and while it may be slow we are here for the long term so no great rush!