Somath, our Librarian, is very busy. Here is his review of the children's activities taking place in the library at JWOC.

Since we have been running the Under Eight’s Program (English lessons for young children) more children come to the library every day. Even though they are able to read the books they also have chances to play and join all the activities in the library. We create different sessions for children to learn different skills. We welcome all kinds of people who are willing to read and play in our community library.

In the library there are many things to attract the children.  In the corner we set up the soft toys playing area which they can access easily. The children really like to play with the soft toys, they like cuddling and holding them. Soft toys are so popular with the young children and even some adults like to play with them.

During the paper folding time children gain more skills. Some children are really good at origami. For those who do not know how to make it they have to learn from each other especially, during the folding sessions they can build up their folding skills. I always make the skillful or older children teach the younger children. So in this session they can learn from each other, get to know each other and build  relationships in the library.

  

Children focusing on paper folding.

Over the last one and a half years our books have increased especially the bilingual books and Khmer books. Some of our books were donated by Room-To-Read and The Asia Foundation and other books donated by foreign visitors. So we think that it is a good time to encourage the students to borrow the books to read at home so that they can gain comprehensive reading skills. They are very excited to borrow the books and have plastic folders to protect the books from the rain or wrinkling. We have been lending the books since January. They always return the books on the due date. Now mostly they borrow Khmer written books and bilingual books but there are some students borrow English books. So we keep buying more books to meet their needs every month. We will also courage them to borrow more English books in order to make their English skills.

The children fill in the borrowing form to take the books out.

The building blocks are very popular. They like to build houses, bridges, robots etc. They like creating things. Besides the blocks we have more toys for them to play in each session every day. We also run writing competitions so the kids can learn how to write, trace, and color. We have had some books and toys donated by visitors which have really helped to improve the library.

This little boy really concentrated on tracing letters. 

These boys had great fun using their imaginations playing with the blocks.

Outside games or activities are so welcoming to the children waiting for class to start. It is good to do painting outside the library such as sponge painting, hand printing because it is easier to control the mess. The children get very excited when they paint as they don’t do this at school.  The children also play outside games like Octopus, Duck Duck Goose, Simon Says etc. Through the games and activities they can build their confidence for joining in their communities.

 

Children painting using sponges outside the library

I am very happy to see all the children have fun and come to the library. The library is a good place for all children and adults who want to learn and share ideas or knowledge with each other. I will continue to find books and activities to let them have fun. 

The sad side of voluntourism in Cambodia

JWOC believes in volunteering. At any one time we have over 70 local volunteers working with us to make our projects successful. However, as this article from Al Jazeera English explains there can be a sadder side to volunteering. If you are thinking about volunteering in Cambodia please do research the company you travel with and the organisation you are placed with. 

Cambodia's Orphanage Business

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/juliana-ruhfus/cambodias-orphanage-busin_b_1616255.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Susan Rosas is a young American social worker based in Cambodia. When I met her at the Harvard University Global Mental Health Program last year she told me about a surprising phenomenon: in spite of the fact that Cambodia had managed to overcome decades of conflict, famine and an AIDS epidemic, the number of orphanages around the country had doubled over the past decade. This, she said, was not based on the needs of the children but the growth of the global volunteering industry, which was hungry for placements.

Over 70% of the Cambodian "orphans" have at least one living parent, Susan said, but families were lured into giving up their children by the promise of Western education.

I started to research. "Voluntourism" has been described as the fastest growing sector of one of the fastest growing industries in the world. According to David Clemmons, founder of www.voluntourism.org, an estimated 11 million people traveled to volunteer in 2011 alone, proving that voluntourism has become a "multi-billion dollar expression of travelers' desires to find meaning and to make the world a better place."

Five months later I met Susan again. I had come to Cambodia with a colleague to investigate a darker side of voluntourism for Al Jazeera's People & Power current affairs programme. One of the first people we met was an Australian called Demi Giakoumis who has volunteered in Cambodian orphanages with three of the largest global commercial volunteering companies and grown increasingly disillusioned with the experience. From her we heard that commercial organizations, such as the UK based Projects Abroad, were charging volunteers up to $3,000.00 dollars a month whilst her orphanage director told her he only received $9.00 per volunteer, per week. Demi also claimed that orphanages were keeping children in deliberate poverty to attract more donations.

At Lighthouse Orphanage, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, we first encountered 'orphanage tourism' in action. We met a group of young Canadian high school students who had spent a week in the orphanage painting beds and digging up the vegetable garden until they got sunstroke. On their last day we witnessed how busy Cambodian orphans can get entertaining foreign visitors: after a traditional dance performance for the Canadians, lunch was scheduled with a group from South Korea and a group from Hong Kong was rotated through later in the day.

Whilst specialized voluntourism operators based outside Cambodia may make large profits through arranging visits, it soon became clear that there is plenty of money for the local orphanages, too. One of the Canadian teachers told us that thousands of dollars had been sent to the orphanage prior to the students' arrival to buy building material and other goods. The students told us they had raised yet more money through bake-sales and fund-raisers. Frequently volunteers become so attached to the children that they continue to send money long after they have departed.

Unsurprisingly, accountability of Cambodian orphanages is a thorny issue. No qualifications are needed to set up care homes for children and during our stay we met orphanage directors who had been a bodyguard, an actress and a business woman. Worse still, out of an estimated 500 orphanages in Cambodia, only half are registered with the government.

It was when we met the investigative NGO SISHA that things began to look much more serious. SISHA had been contacted by volunteers who were concerned about the way the Children's Umbrella Centre Organization (CUCO) was run. The volunteers complained about the living and sleeping facilities for the children, including an open sewer right in the centre of the compound, the director's constant request for inflated donations and worst of all -- his offer to give up children for adoption. (Adoption is illegal in Cambodia). After sending in their own undercover investigator, SISHA alerted the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, which carried out two inspections and found that on both occasions the orphanage was failing to comply with their minimum standards.

So my colleague and I decided to go undercover. Equipped with hidden cameras we went to CUCO hoping that things had changed -- but found the conditions the same. On our arrival director Sineth Sok explained CUCO's financial difficulties and asked for a donation so we bought some food for the children. Without ever asking for any identification he put us in front of a class of children to teach. At times we were completely abandoned with more than twenty children and nobody to translate. We -- and the children -- were left to our own devices.

When we returned to follow up on the most serious allegation -- that some children had gone missing -- we found a new volunteer, a young Dutchman, at CUCO. To our surprise he told us he had been sent by Projects Abroad, the organization whose volunteers had first raised alarm bells about what was going on at the orphanage and whose complaints had triggered SISHA's and the government's inspections. Yet Projects Abroad was still sending people on placements at CUCO.

To test how serious the director Sineth was about looking after his children we asked him if we could take some of them out of the orphanage. We had brought a Cambodian social worker with us, but told Sineth she was a friend and interpreter. He lined the children up against a wall for us to pick our favorites -- and a few minutes later we were allowed to drive off with four of them. Never once had we been asked for identification, never once had our credentials been checked. It was deeply shocking, not least because Cambodia is one of the world's sex offender's hotspots and children are especially at risk.

Back in the UK we checked the most recent Projects Abroad company accounts and found them to have an annual turnover of $24 million for 2010 with $3 million profits. When we contacted them they pointed out that CUCO receives $50 per volunteer per month and that they believe it is better to have volunteers in orphanages than leaving them unmonitored. They also explained to us that the Dutch volunteer (who was in his twenties) had not been asked for a background check because this was only required for volunteers over thirty, whereas young volunteers could bring school or other references instead.

David Clemmons predicts that as voluntourism matures as an industry it will receive greater scrutiny. The hope is that as a result commercial volunteering companies will become more rigorous in implementing some basic standards such as conducting criminal background checks and sending young volunteers into orphanages where they are supervised by qualified staff.

But for many that is not enough. They question the very idea of traveling volunteers working with vulnerable children -- after all -- it is something few of us would accept in our own countries ...

"Cambodia's Orphan Business" was produced by Matt Haan and reported by Juliana Ruhfus for Al Jazeera English.

To learn more about responsible voluntourism you can take a look here- http://www.concertcambodia.org/ and here- http://www.childsafe-international.org/index.asp . 

To read JWOC Child Protection Policy and Code of Conduct take a look here- http://www.journeyswithinourcommunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/JWOC-Child-Protection-Policy.pdf and here- http://www.journeyswithinourcommunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/Child-Protection-Code-of-Conduct-May-2012.pdf 

A letter from our Founder

When we first started Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC) it was partly in response to the lack of commitment and caring we saw from the Cambodian government. That’s why the following news is so exciting! JWOC has been approached by the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport to provide a Clean Water Solution for all Siem Reap District primary and kindergarten schools.

 This commitment from the government to develop a safe water solution for their students is a huge step and the fact that they have asked JWOC to partner with them on this endeavor is a true honor. Not only has the government spearheaded this project, but they are dedicating man hours and monetary assistance to it, following the guidelines that JWOC has been founded on…to facilitate change with the help and empowerment of the community!

 Starting this month our Clean Water Project will focus on 32 in-need schools identified by the ministry and JWOC. This means that 13,143 students in 317 classes will get access to clean water! Of course, as with all our villages, just having access to clean water isn’t enough. Part of the reason the Ministry of Education wanted to partner with JWOC was because of our incredible training and hygiene focus. This strong commitment to education is the cornerstone of the Clean Water for Schools initiative. We will be training the schools and ministry on well maintenance as well as making sure each student is trained on health and hygiene by the wonderful JWOC Scholarship Student teams.

 With your help thousands of children will no longer dip a communal cup in a bucket to get a drink of water while at school. Each student will have a personal water bottle and each classroom will have a water filter and each water filter will be filled from a functioning well. We want to make sure that just coming to school doesn’t make our kids sick, that school is a place for learning - not just reading and writing, but also the lessons of health and hygiene that are so important for a long life.

We can’t make the change alone. To make this possible we need to raise $20,000. We are asking all our JWOC Family to donate so that over 13,000 students can have healthy and safe drinking water while at school. Together we can show the Ministry of Education that their idea is the impetus for change in their community. We need to show them that their caring has created a better life for their kids. Please donate to the JWOC Clean Water Project today and help us support Cambodia as they better their world!

With very best wishes

Andrea

JWOC Founder

To find out more about the Clean Water for Schools initiative please click here. 

If you are a school or club and would like to support a school here in Cambodia take a look here to see some of the schools in need. 

To find out more about the main Clean Water Project click here. 

Clean Water for Schools

On the 12^th June 2012  JWOC signed a partnership agreement with the Siem Reap office of the Cambodian Ministry of Education Youth and Sport (MoEYS) to provide primary and kindergarten schools with a clean water solution. 32 in need schools were identified, totaling 13,143 students in 317 classes. The initiative will give easy access to clean, safe water for each child while they are in school.

The Partnership

For this initiative with the ministry JWOC is following its tried and tested approach that has been successful in working with partner villages. This means that contracts will be in place with both the ministry and individual schools, that the ministry will make a financial and time contribution and that there will be a strong commitment to training.

By asking the ministry and schools to invest in the initiative we will see a stronger commitment to the maintenance of the equipment put in place and continuation of the changes made.

What is involved?

For each school JWOC will ensure they are two functioning wells- one for supplying water for drinking and one for supplying water for the bathrooms for flushing and hand-washing. In many cases this will require drilling new wells though whenever it is possible JWOC will repair any existing but broken wells. JWOC drills its wells to a minimum of 25 metres to make sure that even in the driest part of the dry season the water still flows.

Each classroom will been given a locally made water filter. These filters make the water pumped from the wells safe for drinking. The filters are easy to maintain and require no chemicals or precise measurements. We will also supply a water filter for the teachers’ room.

Each child will be given a personal drinking bottle so they do not need to share cups. This will reduce the chance of spreading illness. Using permanent markers the children will personalise the bottle so they can be sure to always find their own.

Each child and teacher will receive a ‘hygiene pack’ of a toothbrush, toothpaste and soap to kick start their improved hygiene habits.

The Training

Throughout the initiative training sessions will be held to increase the impact of the material support given.

Someone from each school plus a representative from the ministry will attend our well maintenance training. This session will give the participants the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to do routine servicing and carry out repairs, increasing the longevity of the wells put in place.

For filter training two teachers and the director will attend from each school. They will learn how to set up and maintain the filters to ensure a safe supply of water. The attendees will then in turn train the other teachers at their school.

All children and teachers plus representatives from the ministry will attend hygiene training sessions. These sessions cover the benefits and best techniques for hand washing and teeth cleaning plus why it is important not to share drinking bottles. 

How you can help

A donation to our Clean Water for Schools appeal will make a big difference for the health and wellbeing of children in Siem Reap.

$14 will provide a filter. 

$350 will provide a well. 

$100 will provide hygiene packs for 150 children.

If you would like to sponsor a school please take a look here to find out more about some of the schools in need. We would love to match up overseas schools with schools here in Cambodia- if you are a teacher or student contact us for more information.

Update from Vannak and the Clean Water Project

In this post Vannak, the new project manager describes working with his first partner village and tells about the new initiative soon to start in the project. To learn more about Vannak take a look here. 

I have been working for three months with the new village- Antangkun. Specially, I am so glad to learn new things and working with JWOC and moreover I enjoy to see the villagers have enough clean water to improve their health and to gain their basic hygiene knowledge in better future.

In Antangkon village, the people are poor, low of hygiene knowledge and many do not have enough water in the dry season. Most of villagers are farmers. After mapping activity we found there are 108 existing wells including 66 pulley wells, 31 family wells and 11 hole wells.

GPS is used to create a map of  the water sources in the village.

 As the solution, we provided basic hygiene training (hand washing, teeth cleaning) and filter training. In the training activities, they were very happy and they could practice as the correct steps, which we trained them.

Children's Hygiene Training Session

Sokie and Seng conduct a tooth-brushing training session

Villagers posing with their new filters

We drilled 10 new wells to provide backup water supplies across the whole village and we fixed many existing wells- 58. Then we gave out 678 hygiene packs, and 146 filters for families after the training. Also we did 10 water testing sample from wells and 10 from filters to make sure all beneficiaries use safe drinking water. We will get the results very soon. 

A well in need of repair

Now villagers are very satisfy because they have water for washing and vegetable growing and safe water for drinking.  Wells are located in the center of groups of houses, so they can share with each other if they still lacking of water in dry season or their own pulley wells break. I am very happy and passionate to help and see the big change that our clean water team made by working their best to help beneficiaries. The whole village can change, helped by your generous donation we are working together for sustainable development in the poor communities.

In near future, our Clean Water Project are going to work with primary schools and kindergarten schools in Siem Reap City, in partnership with the MoEYS ( Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport) they is very keen to cooperate with us. I look forward to writing next time to tell you more about the work with the schools.

To learn more about the Clean Water Project, take a look at this page of our website.