Q3 2024

Besides money, there are many ways to still give. There is the gift of time, our energy of love or of being present in the moment when in the company of others. There can also be various gestures of kindness or even the simplest form of a gift, which we are all capable of, the gift of. a gentle warm smile.

The Wise One has said that attachment is the cause of suffering. Attachment means the inability to let go. By practising generosity and giving, we are lessening this desire and hence reducing its potential to bring us suffering. Another benefit of giving is that we would be able to derive satisfaction or joy of seeing the happiness that our actions have brought to others. We have not even started to talk about the good karma of such noble actions but does it really matter especially if the giving is unconditional? So, we now know what “giving is receiving’ really means. In this newsletter, we will get to see what others have given to enable us to bring happiness to the people of Cambodia.

*Smiling faces heading to our dental clinic*

Both the organisations in Australia, YourAid and in Cambodia, BLCP owe their existence to the kindness of our founder, the late Paget Sayers. This was through his selfless love and kindness to especially the children of Cambodia, which started almost 20 years ago where he saw that schools did not have water supplies, and children with no knowledge of English to communicate with him (and the outside world). He loved children, even though he did not have any of his own but was saddened to see the sweetest smiles marred by tooth decay. Paget was blessed to experience the happiness of giving.

Through the legacy of his actions then and what he left behind, we are now pivotal in supplying drinking water to over 600 schools with about 150,000 students and in providing oral care to 40,000 children from our network of four dental clinics. There is much more that we are doing which includes providing education to 2,000 children every day and running a village school of 250 students while helping the families of the local community where the students come from. And, we are not stopping, because with your continued giving, there is more that can be done.

Dental Program

We are now able to increase our reach by an additional 6,000 students in more schools with BLCP taking delivery of a new Toyota wagon which would be used full time as a mobile dental clinic. In identifying with our social cause, Toyota was kind enough to give us a discount on the price of the wagon. BLCP remains as the only NGO in Cambodia with the widest network of four dental clinics treating over 40,000 students a year. Our service is critical as dental care is not widely available and too costly for most people to afford.

Paget, however, knew that oral care was not only important for overall health but that the smiles he saw could also be enhanced further if their teeth were well taken care of. He also appreciated what a difference beautiful tooth would make to the confidence of the children.

WASHH

The WASHH Team while continuing to assure the availability of water for drinking; are also highly focused on sanitation and hygiene (waste management) to enable students to have a positive school experience.

We have begun the annual roll out of the first batch of the 60 Water Purification Systems (WPS) which would enable over 10,000 students to have access to safe drinking water essential for health. To date we have installed over 200 WPS at a total cost of about USD200,000. Children are not only able to save money which would otherwise be spent to buy bottled water but also, the environment is less polluted with less plastic wastes generated.

Education Program

To enhance the effectiveness of our classes, we are undertaking several initiatives which include revising our syllabus with the use of Oxford Phonics World which is easier to teach and learn. Additionally, we have introduced weekly English conversational lessons so that the students have dedicated time to practise speaking in class.

We continue to explore various ways to improve our education program including the use of a popular mobile phone app whereby English lessons are regularly uploaded into the Telegram channel. We have begun the use of multimedia through the trial use of a projector which we made available to one of our teachers at a school. By this new lesson delivery method, we hope to make our classes more interesting and effective.

Our mobile library now reaches 50,000 students a year with the latest contributions of two motorcycles by the LUFF Foundation.

Anglungkuki Community School (ACS)

Most of our students have achieved outstanding academic performance in their studies which is reflected by them receiving awards from their state school. The children’s parents are pleased that their children are able to learn English and improve in their schoolwork.

Supporters led by an Australian, Jim Pollock visited our school recently and funded a concrete pavement and pathway to improve access which was always muddy especially during the rainy season. A generous act of giving by Jim and his team who also extended financial help to ten poor students as a pilot project of making them model students.

With a strong emphasis in English, the school regularly organises English-speaking and debate competition. Students are encouraged speak on various topics to the class.

With such an approach and the strong capabilities of our teachers, the school is very popular with a growing waitlist of over 50 students. However, to maintain the high standard of the school, we are mindful on how we can resolve this challenge.

Community Development (CD)

This program is essential as the focus is on the wellbeing of the families of the children of our community school when they are at home. The primary sponsor of this program is the LUFF Foundation which has supported its activities for the last two years.

We had a team led by the Head of Agriculture, Mr Chaemroeun of Karuna Battambang Organisation (KBO) who visited us and provided advice on good farming practices to these families who are mainly farmers. We appreciate this generous assistance by the KBO team.

Recently, we partnered with a veterinarian from the neighbouring village of Mean Rith to provide guidance to four families on proper vaccination techniques for their chickens and pigs.

With this, the farmers have gained additional skills to improve on their farming methods and as a result are better able to increase their income levels. The outcome is that children are happier because they do not have to stop their education and begin looking for work in places like factories or doing odd jobs in construction while in their teens. Most important of all, we are able to keep families together and making their future brighter. And all this is made possible with your continued support of the work that we do.

Q2 2024

YourAid