Gardening Again

Growing our own seeds

Our pumpkins have taken off! Whether we will get any vegetables growing, or whether it will just remain purely for decoration and shade is yet to be seen. The concrete environment of the playground is already far more refreshing with all the greenery, so it is enough of a result by itself.

After this collective effort we decided it was time to give the children a go by themselves. We had a lesson explaining the importance of plants and how they grow (never touched on in schools). Each child was then given a pot and earth to plant their own seeds. They got to pick between tomatoes, lettuce and radishes. Each child was told they would be responsible for their own individual plant to see if they could make it grow.

Digging the soil.

Preparing their seeds.

Keeping an eye on them.

They were all really enthusiastic, from the youngest members right up to our oldest, everyone wanted a turn. We watched the children remember to water their plants carefully each day, and so far they are coming on really well. hopefully enough of them will last into proper plants, so the children can really see the process. Fingers crossed!

Starting to grow!

 

Football Competition

The starting line-up with Morng our coach and Henrik who had come along to support.

The Goodwill football team have just finished competing in their first tournament (held by M’lop Tapang). There were 11 teams (each of 8 players, plus substitutes) taking part from organizations all around Sihanoukville. Players had to  under 14 years of age and matches lasted 20 minutes.

Shaking hands

All in position.

Official referee.

Getting ready to start.

Loads of people turned out to watch and combined with the noise of the commentary over the microphones their cheering made for a great atmosphere. Our players really got to feel like they were part of something important.

Everyone enjoying their day.

Considering it was their first time playing in front of a large crowd (so nerves were kicking in) the team did really well, drawing their first match 0-0, loosing their second 2-1, drawing their third 0-0 and winning their last 2-0. While they didn’t get enough points to qualify to the finals the team came away feeling they had done themselves and the center proud. It was a great few days!

GWFC!

 

Khmer New Year

The center has just been closed for the week for the Khmer New Year Holidays. The official days of the holiday are the 13th, 14th and 15th of April but everything closes down for the week as everyone heads to their family homes around the country. It is a very important time in Cambodia to share with family.

Gathered for the games.

To mark it the center holds a huge party the day before the holidays begin. The party this year was great fun, all the children from the center, our older students and families in the area, all came along to watch and play the games. All the games were traditional party games so we had sack races, tug of wars, musical statues, flower and egg races, water carrying races, dances and many more.

Sack race!

Showing off some dance moves.

Dance performance.

Pinata time.

Some visitors were kind enough to donate 2 huge cakes which we divided up and gave out to the children, along with the huge table of fruit. So they all ate well and went home with big smiles on their faces and on a sugar high! It is always nice to bring the community together for evens like this and everyone really enjoyed themselves.

 

Gardening

Recently we have been doing up our garden. Reviving our plants and growing some new ones. The children have been getting involved digging the earth and planting the seeds. They have been very diligent with watering them each day (it is very hot here at the moment). They have enjoyed getting involved, especially our younger members who thought a chance to get really dirty was a great idea! We are growing pumpkins, so hope we should have a crop in a month or two.

Helping to plant seeds.

We are also (after our Khmer New Year holiday) hoping to start some individual planting, giving each of the children their own “pot” (the plastic cups which are always littering our playground) and seed which they have to be responsible for. Watering it and seeing if they can get it to grow. This will go hand in hand with a basic lesson on how plants grow and why they are so important. To go with this we will be conducting a group experiment, keeping natural waste, plastics etc…in separate sealed bottles so the children can begin to learn about decomposition  Littering is a huge problem in Cambodia with no real rubbish collection and environmental issues rarely being touched upon in schools.  We hope this visual experiment will have a positive impact on our childrens attitude and understanding of rubbish.

 

Time for an Update

So to keep everyone up to date on a few things I though I would do a round up of our activities over the last month or so.

Football:

Our football team continues to train hard, they are playing the local school regularly but are waiting until the start of the next school league to join (our coach believing they were not quite ready for it this time). It’s great that the kids, especially the older teenagers (who have very few ways to occupy their spare time here), put so much effort into it and get so much enjoyment from it.

Team practice.

Morng is still doing a great job as coach.

Soap:

Our fist finished soap recipe (lemongrass and eucalyptus) is now in some of the local businesses around town and is selling really well so far. Our later 2 recipes will be joining them soon. We are also working on our packaging, hoping to get a weaved basket to hold the soaps, allowing us to market them towards the really expensive hotels in the area as well.

In the last week we have had a trained chemist arrive as a volunteer. He is here to help us to train the women to make coconut oil and eventually some essential oils as well (we have all the equipment). That way we will be covering all steps of the production process. These oils will then (if all goes to plan) be used in the soap, as well sold separately.

Art and Craft:

Foam Animal Safari

Our art lessons are still going strong. Recently we have been doing some larger group work, creating larger pieces to add some more colour to the corridors. We tend to have the older kids do the bulk of the tricky stuff and our younger ones get to add their pieces to it after. Its a lot of fun and the children get to feel proud of seeing their work look so good up on the wall.

Brightening up our corridors.

We have a volunteer with us for the next few months who is going to work on some murals outside with the kids which we are all really looking forward to.

Young ones:

The lessons for our younger members are going really well. We had a shop for supplies and got some new chalk boards and flash cards to help with their language lessons. Some of our recent visitors also brought some great first word books which are coming in handy. I have been sitting in on some of the lessons hoping to pick up some Khmer writing – I am definitely bottom of the class!

Some new hairstyles.

Tea party!

 

Visitors!

The children have played host to a number of visitors over the last month. The most notable being Vall, one of our founders and continued fundraiser. It was her first trip back for a couple of years so the kids were really excited to see her. It was lovely for her to be back at the center again and get to see the fruits of all her hard work in the UK. As always when visitors arrive it was games all the way (the kids being too excited to concentrate on their lessons).

Henrik (our other founder) also had a group of guests from Sweden staying, who came up to the center bearing hundreds of gifts! The kids were very excited so we have had to gently stagger the introduction of the new toys to make sure none got broken or went missing. They have gone down really well, the kids love them and it is great to see them playing with something new. A huge thank you to everyone who donated.

A new puzzle.

Our guests gathered to watch a dance.

Most recently we have had Ayumi and Roland here volunteering. The have been taking a few of our children aside at a time to take part in some more challenging art and craft activities. They have done some Origami and model building. It is nice to have them here to help, often with only 4 staff members in the day we do not have time for such small group activities. The kids have really enjoyed it.

Oragami

 

Carnival

It was M’lop Tapang carnival time this week, so with costumes on and whistles in mouths we joined the march. M’lop Tapang (the biggest Non Governmental Organisation working in Sihanoukville) hold an anual 3 day carnival in Sihanoukville. It involves street parades and performances and every year is designed to promote a different message to the comunity. The theme of this years carnival was road safety.

Getting ready at the center.

Waiting to start the walk.

Road safety is a huge issue in Cambodia, with people being killed in traffic accidents on an almost daily basis. The majority of people do not wear safety helmets regularly (often only carrying them to slip on their heads if the police are about, who fine drivers without them). This is also true of traffic lights, with lots of people completely ignoring them unless there are police. These things in combination with little access to proper medical attention make for a really dangerous mix.

Cooling down.

Road safety signs to hand.

The possession worked it’s way around the local area, with huge floats, performers, loud speakers playing music and issuing safety messages and of course, a lot of kids! Ours really enjoyed themselves, soaking up the atmosphere and waving to the crowds. We had taken a nice mixture along of our children and the young adults who come to our center for evening classes. It was great to have their extra help and get to spend some more time with them.

As always the children behaved extremely well and represented the center excellently. We are all looking forward to next year!