Q2 2024

Life is precious. In view of our transient time on earth, we must make our life meaningful. We do this by cultivating ourselves to realise our highest potential and in transforming ourselves into the best version of ourselves. Even by improving ourselves 1% a day, we would be more than twice as good as a person by the end of 2024!

It is with the same life transforming philosophy that we constantly exhort to our staff to follow by using the acronym of ‘INI’ where the first ‘I’ stands for taking the Initiative when we see a problem or if there is a way to do things better, it is our responsibility to rectify or make the change. Secondly, ‘N’ stands for No Excuses that we would give ourselves while the last ‘I’ stands for seeing the Improvement as a result of our actions.

The principal of our community school in Anglungkuki Village recently encountered an unexploded bomb in the village and took the initiative to secure the safe disposal of the ordinance. 

The rest of this newsletter will show a cross segment of improvements that BLCP has made possible for the children and the wider community in Cambodia.

WASHH

While the WASHH Team continue to assure the availability of water for drinking; sanitation and hygiene received added attention so that students are able to have a positive school experience. In addition to the construction of new toilets, we also undertook renovation to existing facilities.

Before renovation to toilet

After renovation

The improved facilities have an added positive impact on especially girls who would otherwise miss school during their menstrual period due to otherwise poor sanitation conditions. Recognising the dire need of improvements in both sanitation and hygiene, we have sought greater cooperation with school staff by providing guidance on maintenance including setting up cleaning timetable rotations by various classes and setting higher level of expectations for our continued support including funding facilities improvement.

Before

After

Noticeable improvements include a cleaner school environment have come about following our guidance on waste reduction and support including providing waste segregation facilities. The installation of our water purification systems in schools have brought dual benefits of a reduction in plastic waste bottles and cost savings to the children in not buying bottled water.

Dental Program

While continuing to treat more than 30,000 students a year through our four dental clinics, we facilitated technical training to our key staff in order to maintain the high standard of our services. The hands-on training was provided by CIPO, a local NGO based in a leading university in Phnom Penh that works closely with the Cambodia Health Ministry to focus on children’s oral health.

We continue to engage our key corporate sponsor, Colgate which donated over 50,000 toothbrush kits worth USD30,000 annually. This contribution is significant as we distribute the kits during Oral Health Education sessions at various target schools which receive direct dental care from our clinics.

We organised an Oral Health Awareness Day which brought together officials from the Ministry of Health and Colgate Country Head, Dr Keang Seng to be involved in the campaign.

Education Program

While we continue to provide English classes and support classes for other subjects, we also reach more than 40,000 students in over 200 schools via our 5 mobile libraries and one permanent library. This followed the donation of an additional mobile library by our significant doner, the LUFF Foundation of Australia.

Anglungkuki Community School (ACS)

ACS continues to emphasise holistic development of its students with activities including cooking, gardening, art and craft, moral studies and environmental care. Recently, a youth club was formed to enable the teenagers to receive guidance on self development and peer support especially in view that BLCP assist in looking after the welfare of orphans from three families. Leadership and team dynamics learning opportunities were made available through a recent cooking competition.

Cooking competition

Youth club planning session

We organised a debate and public speaking competition amongst the schools where we provide English lessons together with CLS and Kep Gardens which are NGO schools that we support. The event provided the students the opportunity to improve their communication skills while building confidence. It was also the first time that students from ACS participated.

Principal committed to set example

Community Development (CD)

Our community development program continues to widen its activities to support the welfare of families in the vicinity of our community school.  We facilitated the construction of a home biogas facility which now provides gas for cooking and lighting while producing fertilizer for growing crops. This was made possible via a three way funding approach comprising the department of agriculture, the homeowner and the LUFF Foundation.

The Cow Bank has also started with two families. The scheme involves the first family taking care of a cow with an agreement for the same family to give away the first calf to another family. This program would enable target villager families to each own a cow and have a steady supply of manure for crop farming while enabling continuous giving by starting with only one cow for a family. It would be very interesting to see how many families we are able to help from this new initiative.

The team is grateful for the opportunity to do work for the betterment of lives of children and the wider community In Cambodia made possible by the many supporters like you.