NGO's working together

Boxing

We receive donated sporting goods from time to time, the boxing equipment gets well used by the boys.

Strike a pose !

Getting stuck in !

They really enjoy using it and are well supervised by Teacher Lungdy.

Haircuts

We managed to get the boys free haircuts thanks to the contacts of Teacher Sambath who teaches the new evening English classes. Many thanks to Pheng Ny who is the head trainer at the Sihanouk Province training center and all of the trainees.

Teacher Training Day

The three full time teachers from the center attended a  training day organised by Mr Ti, the Child Protection Team Leader of M’Lop Tapang. The training was to provide teachers with knowledge concerning provisions relevant to children in the penal code, especially useful for anyone dealing with vulnerable children.

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NGO’s working together

Boxing

We receive donated sporting goods from time to time, the boxing equipment gets well used by the boys.

Strike a pose !

Getting stuck in !

They really enjoy using it and are well supervised by Teacher Lungdy.

Haircuts

We managed to get the boys free haircuts thanks to the contacts of Teacher Sambath who teaches the new evening English classes. Many thanks to Pheng Ny who is the head trainer at the Sihanouk Province training center and all of the trainees.

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Teacher Training Day

The three full time teachers from the center attended a  training day organised by Mr Ti, the Child Protection Team Leader of M’Lop Tapang. The training was to provide teachers with knowledge concerning provisions relevant to children in the penal code, especially useful for anyone dealing with vulnerable children.

 

USNS Mercy and Twitter

USNS Mercy

After a disappointing no show for the USNS Mercy concert at M’lop Tapang, we were thrilled to be contacted to visit the ship itself.  Thanks to Casey from “Maybe Later Bar” and Lt Colonel Kristin Means of the USNS Mercy.  We could only take a limited number, so all the staff and several of the children went.  It was a wonderful experience for those from the Centre that could attend. We put together a little video of the event here

The staff from the ship are off doing great work all over Cambodia.  If you are interested you can follow them on twitter @PacificPartner

Twitter

Speaking of twitter, we have added a twitter account as an experiment.  You can follow us @GWC_KOS For those of you wondering,  KOS is the three letter international acronym for Sihanoukville (or Kampong Som as it’s known to the local Khmer people).  You can also see we have embedded our twitter feed into the right hand side of the blog.

Mechanics Class

This is like one giant big “How stuff works” course.  It shows the children how many of the things we take for granted in modern life work.  You have to remember most of them have no electricity at home, so to them it seems almost miraculous.  Last week we showed them a toaster, mine and one donated from a local business.  of course, the best part was the toast… they loved it !

Mmmmm toast and JAM !!!

 

Children at Play

The focus as always of the centre is on the children

The arts and crafts have been coming along, we found a recipe for home made play dough, using flour and food colouring.  The children were very creative

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educational games, this is a favourite for learning numbers.  The teacher calls out the numbers in Khmer, the children run up and collect the numbers (in “English”) from the stack and then run back and put hem in order on the stools.  Great fun, good exercise and educational !

One of the confronting parts of working at the centre is the poverty that leads to the inability of the parents not being able to afford medical care for the children.  Recently we had a mother with a baby that had been badly burnt from boiling liquid spilling from an over turned pot.  HTCC came through and paid the medical bills.  The child would have been badly scared for life otherwise and it is quite confronting to have a baby so small held up in front of you in such pain.

On the up side, she is healing nicely and even start to smile again

You can see the pot that spilled to on the right hand side of the door way.  This is the house for the family.

Families House

 

Busy days

Updates

Apparently the EV71 virus outbreak is under control.

The outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), which is caused by enterovirus 71 (EV-71), is under control in Cambodia, Minister of Health Mam Bunheng said Thursday

More information here

and I came across this interesting Study on the benefits for children of being bilingual.

Bilingual children outperform children who only speak one language in problem-solving skills and creative thinking, according to research led at the University of Strathclyde

which adds emphasis to the good work we do at the Center in providing free English classes to the surrounding village.

More information here

Head Lice

We have been doing a head lice program for the last few days, we have done many of the children over the last few days. We run a session in the morning and another in the afternoon, using a chemical and comb strategy which has been going really well. Nearly all of the Children have head lice unfortunately.  We followed a system they have been using successfully at the nearby Otres School and we’re confident after a little research that we can get on top of this.  For anyone interested here is some research from James Cook University of Tropical Medicine, in Australia.

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Lego

What young boy doesn’t love LEGO..  We have had some donated in the past but many of the pieces had gone missing so the children have been restricted with what they can do.  On a recent trip to Phnom Penh (during the enforced school closure) I managed to acquire some more and the boys love it !

New LEGO being put to use

Village

A recent walk through a poorer part of the village reinforced the need for the Centre, here’s a typical family home.

 

New Teacher and computer classes

Sambath

The new English teacher, Sambath’s profile is up on the Staff page, the classes are well attended, as you can see from the photo

English for young children

Computer Classes

The Computer classes are always popular, unfortunately the computers are starting to show signs of age and two of them can no longer be used.  We hope to find replacements somehow.

Two unused computers are no longer working

The computers are not connected to the Internet, they are used for learning to type and educational games etc.  We aspire to become connected at some stage, as it’s a vital part of modern life but we don’t have the budget necessary to install routers and pay for on going internet connection .  Of course we suffer terribly from power outages, spikes and brown outs, something electrical equipment like computers do not like, so often the classes need to be cancelled postponed.

 

English and Art

EV-71 Virus Update

We reopened officially on 30 July after being closed due to the EV-71 virus scare.  It’s been quite tumultuous with some acrimonious press stating the closures did more harm then good, due to the scare the communities faced.  Still, the death of young children is something to be sad about.  A New Khmer TV campaign will be aired in an attempt to educate locals.  Not sure of it’s effectiveness (most don’t own a TV but they are in all the local Khmer eateries where locals often congregate to watch)  but a start.  It was particularly difficult to get up-to-date information, as the Minstry of Education never published anything officially on their website, their Facebook account or there twitter account.  The only real upside was we managed to give the Center a good cleaning!

More News articles can be found at the links below

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012073057697/National-news/tv-to-play-key-role-in-campaign-against-hfmd.html

 

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072657646/National-news/doctor-slams-who-for-causing-virus-panic.html

 

Daytime English Classes

The new English classes have started,  Sambath is a popular teacher with the students and the classes are well attended.  HtCC and Help Cambodia have committed to a years worth of funding at least.

New Daytime English Classes

Psst! Wanna buy an “E” ?

Lee Verlander from Monkey Replubic, one of our local business sponsors, raised his hand and donated the 60 school books and associated stationery we needed for the kids, so a huge thanks to Lee.

Art and Craft

Art and Craft are always popular with the children and always well attended.  We make use of whatever materials we can get our hands on.

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Newspaper Cubbyhouse !

As in this case, donated old newspapers become a building !