Swing

When CFI's co-director Andrew came back from his latest fundraising-trip to America, his luggage not only contained children's clothing, schoolbooks, puzzles and boardgames, but also a assortment of hooks, screws and carabineers reminiscent of his mountain-climbing pastime.

Cambodia being a very flat country this did seem rather strange at first sight. However, this perception was soon corrected by what Andrew, Seang and Thomas were soon to constructed with the help of those simple tools, some chains and an old tire.

In our yet-to-be-beautiful garden, the tireswing is by far the greatest attraction. Its capacity to carry and swing large amounts of children at once is continually tested and not even virulent swingsickness can prevent both boys and girls from swinging to and fro, again and again.

After class, children would flock into the garden, playing with skipping ropes, hoolahoop, footballs, badminton rackets and, obviously, the tireswing – making the garden the most important meet-play-and-have-fun area for all children.

Yesterday, Sarah, who had been living in our house for the last three months, had her farewell party. On this occasion Justin, another housemate, taught us all a different way of swinging - without a tire, but following the rhythm of music. As sad as the occasion might have been, it was a nice little party and certainly a valuable lesson.  

A beautiful day

Yesterday, it was only hunger that made me leave the CFI center in the evening.
It had been a perfect day. Happy children playing all over the muddy garden, active participation in the English lesson. Enthusiastic staff.
The whole place was permeated by an incredibly positive energy. And even those children who otherwise might tend to cause trouble were sweet, helpful and playful.
Almost every time visitors come to the center, they say that there is a unique feeling to it, something even residents of Cambodia have not experienced in other places. It is hard to put your finger on it, but it is this feeling which makes CFI special. Yesterday, it was particularly strong. It is days like this, which make me believe in what I do here and motivate me even further.

An Appeal

A little P.S. to the last post:
I'm trying to support CFI in whatever ways I can, so I set up a fundraiser on razoo (an online platform that allows people to promote NGOs they support and handles transactions free of charge).
If you are somehow affected by my enthusiasm (which I hope) and feel, after checking out CFI's website and blog that they are indeed worthwhile supporting, you might just want to take a look at the fundraiser ;)


http://www.razoo.com/story/Giving-Vulnerable-Children-In-Cambodia-Access-To-Education

Even if you don't feel like donating yourself, please share the link and get the word out there!

Back up again

Hi everyone,

It has been nearly 6 months now that you haven't heard from me and if some of you have abandoned this blog for that very reason, I'm not going to blame. After all, I abandoned it myself.
Needless to say, A LOT has happened in the meantime. The most important in short:
I nowadays work only part-time for Youth for Peace, where we still do some great activities with youths in the communities (we just had a really cool event on Child Rights Day - 1st June), but we struggle with getting permissions from authorities etc.
Most of my working hours are now spend on Children's Future International (CFI). A really young NGO founded by an American teacher and a Swiss woman who both started out teaching in Cambodia, but soon realized that there is more to providing children with an education than just teaching, so the two started their own NGO.
CFI's Children's Center just opened in January and serves children in a variety of ways. Firstly, we (I'm really involved with CFI so I use the 1st person plural) make sure children's basic needs are covered - providing rice, school uniforms, school materials, basic health-care etc. to actually allow them to go to school instead of having to work and earn money for their families.
Secondly, the school at the center provides reintegration courses to get children prepared for going to public school, as many have never had the chance to go to school before CFI started supporting them and have to catch up. For those who are already in public school, there are informal education programs: English (I have an English-in-English class with 15 students), football, music (I teach guitar), drawing etc.
While we want children to stay in their families, sometimes that's not possible, be it because of abuse, neglect, alcoholism, danger of trafficking or any other reason. These children have the chance to live at the center, or, in case of older girls who have to access education facilities in town, in the newly founded Girls' Home in Battambang City. Generally, CFI is a lot about simply providing a safe, respectful, trustful environment for all children who come to the Center - an environment many children never experience at home.
Alright, that's it for now on CFI. As you might have noticed, I'm really excited about what CFI does. Within the last 8 months I have seen many, many negative emanations of charity work - ineffectiveness, corruption, wasted or ill-spend donor-money - but this is really an exceptionally positive case, where great work is being done (it's not only me saying this, but other insiders of Cambodia's charity-world who have visited share this opinion).

Besides teaching English and Guitar, I'm involved in all kinds of administrative work around the center, which is great, as I feel that I have found something worthwhile putting effort into. Thanks to CFI, I'm having a great time in Cambodia and I hardly want to leave the country and those wonderful children!

In the picture, you can see me with Tiengy and Chong, two of the 15 children currently living at the Children's Center. The picture was taken on my birthday, hence the nice hats. It was a great day, with about 100 children singing "Happy Birthday".

I will do my best to keep you updated from now on for the remaining time I have in Cambodia. If I don't, I give you every right to pour shame on my head.