Cambodia 2010

Life in Cambodia is hard and dangerous as we have described in our letter post visiting the Schools in 2009. Many children work from a very young age in the fields and lose out on education - many because they do not have a bicycle to pedal to school allowing their parents an easy excuse to keep them working. After visiting Cambodia and seeing the distance some of the children have to travel to get to school we wanted to help those really poor families who don't have bicycles. As we said in the report below - every child deserves the right to play and have an education. As such The ACF has bought 218 bicycles that are being given to the families who cannot afford a bicycle for their children. Although we know already which families will receive a bicycle, each of the 6 villages will be encouraged to decide for themselves via a committee who receives them (with guidance from the ActionAid team on the ground). As the pictures show, the children love bicycles!

Cambodia 2009

A letter from Cambodia

Erol and Guy Broadley visited 2 of the relief centers in Cambodia in October 2009. Read their report below:

Hello,

Just a quick line to say Broaders and I survived the typhoon, minefields, lack of roads, and crazy tuktuk drivers during our little jaunt to Kymer. The typhoon hit Vietnam and Cambodia and both have massive massive flooding. Siem Reap, in northern Cambodia, is totally flooded....the roads are 2 ft deep in water, but everyone just gets on with it.

We ventured NW into Banteay Mancheay province to visit 2 centres (this area was a Kymer Rouge stronghold...so has the highest number of landmines in the country, probably the world). We ended up driving 30kms offroad on little more than mud tracks, through villages that consist of a few huts on stilts .... children on cycles and mopeds (main mode of transport).

We left the storms and rain of SiemReap (well, the whole of Asia) and as ever on a "Coley Day" the sun came out. I am not kidding, it was sunny all day. Weird. Our driver and guide from action aid could not belive it! It had rained non-stop for 4 days. It remained sunny, blue skies all day until the black clouds returned later in the day, just amazing. I hope the photos come out well and do it justice.

We saw 2 centres that are used 7 days a week for teaching, womens health classes and as a safe, dry place for kids to play. We watched kids (aged 4-6) being taught in both centres - to see 25 smiling faces looking up & learning was truly awesome. They were all so happy and smile all the time, it is DEF worth all that fundraising we did. On a sunday morning they have arts classes to practise drawing (paper and crayons), all their pics are on the wall. At the 2nd centre the local chief came to see us, he was just awesome, he was so happy to see us and we felt very humble.

The centres are built on a field that has been cleared of all land mines (they hope) ... but the field behind has not been cleared. We heard a mine explode during the morning...you only hope it was a controlled explosion by one of the 2 mine clearing teams we saw close by. We were told not to stray off the path or where a foot print was not already visible - erm actually it was quite frightening.

A few highlights .... the truck getting stuck in a marsh and us all having to push it out (taking 1.5hrs in 30degree sun), the little 4 yr old boy hugging me, the smiles of the children, watching them play pass the parcel and the losers having to sing or dance in front of the class, seeing the class in the first centre read out from the whiteboard "adam cole foundation" after it was written in Kymer, seeing the boggy marsh field that in the summer allows them to kick a football and play volleyball (the closest thing to a national sport they have out here), seeing red flag after red flag saying danger land mines, but equally blue sign after blue sign saying "Field cleared of land mines", being given a bunch of flowers when we arrived at the first centre, did I say how happy they looked in our schools?, their smiles, all of the children waving good bye to us, their smiles.

Action Aid, with our help, have done an amazing job. It was awesome, they are SO poor (but well fed it seemed due to the rice, fruit, cows & chickens) it is unreal but no one looked unhappy. I dont think we, the West, needs to change their way of life..just clear the mines and provide every child the chance and the right to an education. Fundamentally, their society is intact and in order and they are very very happy. Talking to our guides they did say the government is on a knife edge and the feeling is the country either continues to grow and prosper and leave the Kymer Rouge etc behind, or there is a danger corruption and communism will return.

Cambodia is a beautiful place with amazing people. We hope this makes you happy you have given the ACF some money over the last 3 years.

Pakistan 2009

Following the tragic death in August 2008 of Jehan Baig and Meherban Karim, who lost their lives whilst trying to rescue stricken mountaineers at the summit of K2, the Adam Cole Foundation has agreed to sponsor the education of the mountaineer's respective daughters. With public education barely existent in remote parts of Pakistan and without the income of their fathers, the two girls would have not been able to continue their education. The ACF is proud to be supporting the two girls and allowing them to continue their education.

The daughters of Jehan Baig and Meherban Karim

School Students

The Shimshal School

Cambodia 2007

Before he died, Adam had been sponsoring, through the UK based charity ActionAid, a little girl in Cambodia called Ya Chea. As such, it seemed logical to initially concentrate the Foundation's efforts on Cambodia with ActionAid in our first year. After speaking with ActionAid, we agreed to work with them on their Reflex Centre projects.

The Foundation was delighted to fully fund a project being run by ActionAid in the Banteay Meanchey province in north-west Cambodia. The aim is to build six Community/Village Reflect Centres that will affect 1,500 families - nearly 7,500 people. The centres are effectively village halls that will be used for:

• Women's health screening/education
• HIV counselling
• Literacy programme for adults
• Pre-elementary school for 3-6 year olds

All six centres will be owned by the villages, and are built on reclaimed land. The villages will have responsibility for maintenance and will help with construction. The centres are fully sustainable once built.

Each centre cost £7,500 and the Foundation was delighted to present Action Aid with a cheque for £46,686 in October 2007.

The project is progressing fast and the first 3 centres are now either fully constructed or almost completed and are already benefiting community members in some of the poorest areas of Cambodia. Lots of women have already attended local village centres and have benefited from increased access to healthcare. Our project will go onto benefit so many more women like this in the future.

See examples of how the new centres are already benefiting community members  

The photograph above is a lady called Meas Than who is one of ActionAid's newly trained Health Workers. Meas Than has just completed her healthcare training and will then go onto train other women in the local communities on issues such as HIV/AIDS, reproductive healthcare, children's health and domestic violence. She says:

"Before I received the training I was not aware of my own body or how to treat the problems that were happening. My husband was oppressing and hurting me but before the training I didn't even know that was oppression - I thought my husband was educating me. Now I understand my body and how to treat those problems. When my husband gets angry we discuss things and now he treats me with respect. I used to be very shy when the workshops began but now I'm not afraid to speak out. I can help other women in the communities now to teach them about their bodies and to make sure that their husband treats them with respect."

This is Ung Sara who is another newly trained Health Worker. Here is what she had to say to ActionAid:

"When I heard that AA wanted to train women to become health workers, I knew I wanted to help. Attending the training sessions opened my eyes to the outside world. It helped me feel more confident and I knew I could use my skills and knowledge to help other people. Women are the most vulnerable and they suffer physically, mentally and sexually. This training and treatment helps women and I'm very excited that I can educate women and men to help this change."

The Foundation is very proud of what it has achieved in such a short space of time. The money you have all helped us to raise is making a massive difference to the lives of so many poor Cambodians. We will keep updating you with information directly from Cambodia. For more information from ActionAid's Sophereak, live in Cambodia.