Little by Little...

We are only hours away from boarding our first flight on our way home from Cambodia. Though our work continues year round, which we will up date you on, we will send along this last post from Cambodia for now.

K.I.D.S. has purchased over 160 bikes so far this year, with more to come. Just before we left we went out to Kauk Chrey School to distribute 40 of them to students from three schools who will soon be moving on to high school.

When we arrived at the school there were many children and family members waiting to greet us.

Though a simple one-speed bicycle might seem like a little thing it brings a lot of benefits to the children and families receiving it. Aside from getting the child to school it gives the family access to markets to buy and sell goods, travel to clinics and most importantly, as in the case with these bikes, enables a child to continue their education which would surely stop after elementary school as the children need to travel to distant high schools. During this trip K.I.D.S. has been able to bring many other benefits to children such as: education, healthcare, transportation, computers, housing, improved hygiene, family support, clean drinking water and many little things too numerous to mention.

From K.I.D.S. and from us we would like to extend our most Heartfelt Thank You to our dedicated Cambodian partners, private donors, foundations, companies, volunteers, board members, young fundraisers, schools and students for all of your contributions both big and little.







We would like to close with this Tanzanian proverb.

" Little by little, a little becomes a lot. Every act counts, no matter how small"

​In Honour of ​our Beloved ​Danielle 

Jan ​14​,​​1979 to March 26​,​2000​ 

Till next time....
Rick and Adrianne

Keeping Education Afloat

Hello Everyone

Hope this finds you all well? Back in December we wrote about a small school that was sinking in a floating village called Peckchekry in a small fishing community on the Tonle Sap Lake.

We took out some badly needed school supplies and helped decorate the school thanks to K.I.D.S. donors. We also promised to buy bamboo for this school that was barely afloat so it could continue to stay above water and bring education to the kids living in the village.

 

Thanks to Compassionate Eye Foundation www.compassionateeye.org ​we ​were able to buy and ship 750 pieces of large bamboo. We needed to wait until the water of the Tonle Sap Lake dropped due to the dry season and the school sat on the lake bottom. Then the villagers could remove the old bamboo and place the new bamboo under the school...no easy feat as you will see in the attached video and pictures. However in true Cambodian fashion nothing is too difficult for these amazing resilient people to accomplish. A big thank you to Compassionate Eye Foundation, who continue to support our work and so generously support the children and families living in very challenging situations.

Together we continue to overcome obstacles to keep kids in school and change their futures and the futures of generations to come.

Akun Cheran (Thank You) from all of us.

Adrianne and Rick

Back to Otasak

Dear Friends,
We recently finished renovating a very poor primary school in an isolated area in Cambodia. A Big Thank You to Sarah Gilks and the Healthy Role Models (HRM) program participants, who raised funds to assist the children and teachers at this school that serves 125 rural children. We first visited this school a couple of years ago. After taking van​s​, motorcycles and boats to get to the school what we found was an amazing principal who travels difficult roads to teach these children and at one point lived at the school for two years as there was no accessibility by road. After making this trip many times ourselves we have a true appreciation of the the dedication of the principal and the staff.

We asked K.I.D.S Cambodian builder and team if they would go there to work on the school and he said yes so they traveled with their gear down there and lived at the school for one month...now that is dedication.

The children at the school had no access to clean water and had to drink from ponds or the river, both very dirty. Now the kids have access to clean drinking water every day and can drink as much as they want.

 The children also have access to the World Food Program which provides them with breakfast however there was not a real kitchen or eating area. Now they can eat in in a comfortable outside building and enjoy their meal.

The school was very run down and needed some help so we had it painted and bought book shelves, desks and tables for the teachers.

Some of the children have to walk on dusty roads an hour to two hours each way to get to school. Thanks to HRM we were able to make sure the the children who did not have bikes received bikes and now they can get to school without being exhausted.

Together we continue to bring relief, hope, education and good health to kids here. Thanks to all for your support and for making such a difference.

The best,
Rick and Adrianne

Building Houses with Lush Charity Pot Project

Dear Friends,

Last post we talked about partnering with Lush Charity Pot to build six houses, install six bathrooms, rain water catchment systems and provide 33 solar systems for our Smart Kids sponsorship program. We are incredibly grateful to Lush Charity Pot for not only providing funds for this project but also for bringing some of their North American staff over to build the houses and connect culturally with the families living in poverty and mostly working for the brick factories. Twenty-three Lush staff including Karen Wolverton,

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the owner of North American Lush, joined us for a great experience that positively changed families lives forever.  The closing ceremony was incredibly moving as families stood up to thank Lush and to say how much this meant to them. One woman, with tears in her eyes, said she never dreamt that she would ever live in a good house outside the brick factory. Although these houses are very humble they are a huge improvement from what they lived in before. We were also able to visit some of our other projects and have some fun with the kids. Do check out Lush Charity Pot and see the inspiring and compassionate work they do for our world, they definitely are a company with a vision and a commitment to social justice. Thank you Lush!!

All the best to you and yours,

Adrianne and Rick