Q2 2023

Is it any wonder that half a year has gone by? Words spoken, time passed…are all but irretrievable. What this means is that we have to be mindful of what we say and the things we do with our precious time. Our every endeavour in life would therefore have to be meaningful and beneficial to both ourselves and others. It is no different with our approach in what we do at YourAid and BLCP. We constantly remind ourselves that much remains to be done and to always extend our services so that we would have a wider reach to do more in transforming lives.

Education

For the last six months, our three mobile libraries made 180 school visits to enable 33,000 children to enjoy reading books and to participate in other activities such as storytelling and games. In May we purchased a new motor tuktuk with donation from Luff Foundation. This enabled us to start a new mobile library in Batie district, Takeo province.

While we continue to provide supplemental classes in English and other subjects including computer skills to about 2,000 students every day, we have initiated Dharma lessons in our program.

We consider it to be equally important to inculcate human values to especially the young. This would lay the foundation for them to become useful human beings guided by a moral compass to always do the right thing. The lessons including the Four Noble Truths and Five Precepts are taught by a novice monk who also attends our English improvement classes.

Model Schools

We have five Model Schools that we sponsor under our Education program. These schools were chosen to enable us to focus our resources to build adequate classrooms and well designed gender separate toilets including disability access. We provide guidance to school staff and students on safe canteen foods including waste reduction and love for the environment by way of growing vegetables in garden beds funded by us.

We hope that the local education authorities are able to recognise the high standard of our Model schools and duplicate the establishment of similar schools in their education system.

Health Care

While our programs provide significant support to students in schools, we are also mindful of the needs of children from the marginal segment of the rural community. We supported 6 poor children  to have health checkups at Sonjakill Hospital and found that 3 children had gut infection. They also suffered from medium acute malnutrition with one child having an epileptogenous ailment (or twisted body condition) which required monthly medical attention.

We know that by continuing in our efforts to improve the lives of especially the children in Cambodia, we are also bringing meaning to the lives of our supporters and doners who play a significant role to make all this possible.