Cleaning Our Teeth!

New teeth brushing sets.

While we have always tried to encourage good oral hygiene in our students by giving out disposable toothbrushes once a week and teaching how to use them properly, the reality of it is difficult. The majority of our children (especially those with very bad teeth) do not have running water in their homes, meaning the likeliness of them remembering to brush their teeth is low. They can also, most likely, not afford toothpaste, so once the small tube has run out, the brushing stops.

A new daily ritual.

A little bit of floss.

Getting a helping hand.

We have been able to change this now thanks to the kind donation of toothbrush sets by some of our recent visitors. These individual sets contained toothbrushes (good quality), egg times, floss, picks and individual boxes to keep them in. We have then bought a supply of toothpaste to go along with them. The children have each been given one with their names on, to be kept at school. Then when the children arrive for each session they know that the first thing they have to do is brush their teeth. It is early days but so far so good! Hopefully in the photos to come you will see hundreds of Hollywood ready smiles.

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Sports and Games

Over the last few months another organisation has being trying to start up a sports facility for all the children in Sihanoukville to use. We have been helping them to organize it with the aim to create a place for children without access to good facilities to be able to come and be coached in different sports and take part in different team games, helping to build confidence and self worth.

We were finally able to start a few weeks ago, opening with a football tournament between a few different organisations in the area in order to promote the new facilities and open up contact links between the different charities (obviously all children attending the sports club will be registered to ensure they are not missing school etc to attend).

It was very successful and the children really enjoyed themselves. Since then we have started taking our children along for private lessons. Thursday will now be our sports day, with the children coming for their first hour of lessons with us and then being taken down for the rest of their session to play different sports. Our staff go too as playing sports all together is a good way to break down barriers between staff and children and give the children the reassurance that we are people they can always approach with worries or concerns.

We are all really excited for this new opportunity, believing it will add an extra element to the services we can provide the children which due to the lack of space at the center we have never been able to do before.