September was a busy month for Riverkids, with our staff and volunteers tending to the needs of our children, meeting with parents, organizing training and coaching, looking for resources, looking after our infrastructure, introducing new volunteers to Riverkids, and visiting the many families that are part of the Riverkids network.
Of these families, there were a number who were leaving their children without care for all or part of the day because the parents are out working or looking after younger children. Three siblings in the riverside area were being left on their own while their father collected scrap and their mother tended to her baby. During the rainy season this area is prone to heavy flooding, and children left unattended could easily get into a nasty accident, so Riverkids has taken in these children.
At Phsa Touch village, one girl who attends Riverkids in the afternoon was being left alone at home in the mornings while her mother went out to collect scrap, and a boy had been sent to a rural province because his mother had just had a baby and couldn’t care for him and the baby. His parents can’t afford to bring him back to the city either, so he is stuck in the province. Riverkids will be able to keep the girl all day and provide an afternoon meal, but for the boy a solution is still being worked out. He is not the only child in this situation—two other children are stranded in their province, of Kampong Chhang,as their father there is ill and doesn’t have the money to send them back to Phnom Penh, where the mother is living with a newborn. She is getting help with the baby from Riverkids.
Several children in the Riverkids network were down with a range of illnesses. Two children at Phsa Touch had fevers, but fortunately their parents were able to get treatment for them. Another child who had a fever was taken to Khuntak Bopha hospital by Riverkids, and a HIV+ child was brought to Medecins du Monde to check her CD4 count and get medication. And at Doem Khvet village there were two more sick children, one who is being treated in hospital for an eye infection and another who is at home recuperating. Minor illnesses sometimes drag because of lack of treatment, resulting in a child being away from school for an extended period. For instance, one boy at Steven House was away for a week and wasn’t receiving medical attention, and Riverkids had to advise his parents to take him to the hospital to speed his recovery.
A few children had stopped coming to school; a regular occurrence in communities that live on the edge. Over at the Japanese Bridge, two boys had dropped out of school because their fathers stopped working—Riverkids is now helping to pay their school fees—while at Phsa Touch Riverkids were able to persuade the parents of a child who disappeared from school, to return. Sometimes even if the family is supportive of a child attending school, the child doesn’t show up, as is the case of a girl at Steven House who Riverkids is now talking to personally.
Poor families living with HIV are especially vulnerable. A HIV+ woman in the Riverkids network had her support from an NGO stopped about a week before Riverkids visited, which left her in a lurch financially. Without the money that she had been receiving, she was unable to repay her mounting debts, couldn’t buy enough food for herself and was deteriorating in health as a result. In response, Riverkids is giving her noodles, dried and tinned fish, and our director Phy Sophorn is kindly paying her rent out of his own pocket. Another HIV+ mother with two children is short of food and is receiving supplies from Riverkids.
Motorcycles accidents are not uncommon, and treatment for injuries and support for the patient and their families can be hard to come by. A Riverkids student got hit by a motorcycle as she was on her home with her mother from an afternoon of collecting scrap. Knocked unconscious, the girl was left with head and feet injuries while the driver abandoned his moto at the site of the accident and ran away. The moto now sits in a police station but it is unlikely the driver can be traced. Treated by Kuntak Bopha hospital, the girl will fortunately be okay and Riverkids has lent the mother money to visit her daughter, which the mother has said she will repay.
Trafficking is an awful reality that is close to the lives of many Riverkids’s families. And in mid-September one of our children was involved in a situation that sounded suspiciously like an attempt at trafficking. Taken to a hotel room by a foreigner, this child was given a bath and then handed new clothes, flip flops and three dollars—which Riverkids staff noticed when the child came to school the next day. Apparently this was “all” that happened, but Riverkids is taking no chances and are working with another NGO to investigate this incident.
Riverkids takes care of many of the daily needs of its children attending both state school and Riverkids’ schools, from providing books to stationary to uniforms. And as 1 October is the start of the Cambodian academic year, Riverkids has been busy preparing for that. Getting uniforms for our state school students is a big task—there are 136 students to clothe! This includes 75 students entering state school for the first time, and 61 returning students. Uniforms for all these children will add up to US$561, not a small sum of money. Fortunately though we have enough stationary for these children. For Riverkids’ schools: Blum has enough uniforms and supplies but Steven House is short of note books.
Social and recreational activities are an important part of Riverkids life. Break dancing classes, which proved hugely popular with our students, will be held again; and we are still trying to find a dance school to give lessons in traditional Khmer dance. The children that are taking part in an Australian football program are training extra on Sundays, have got their passports and looking forward to when they get to go Down Under! However, getting the children to and from training has been a problem—sponsor Football Cambodia who is paying for this always sends their money late and what they send isn’t enough, so Riverkids is now making up the difference.
Transportation is often an issue for children trying to attend school—the cost or lack of transportation can prevent a child from getting to, and thus, staying in school. So Riverkids is providing transport for our Get Ready girls who have enrolled in Pour un Sourire d’Enfant, and will also give them full meals.
Nutrition and hygiene also play a big part in the welfare of Riverkids’ children (and all children!). To improve the diet of Riverkids’ children, we are, for instance, planning to serve them fruit and not cake for a snack. And we have emphasized to the house mother, who is in charge of the kitchen, that cutlery must be kept clean. New plates, bowls and spoons have been bought, but we are in need of a new gas stove. We get our students involved in helping to keep Riverkids clean—every Thursday, for example, is cleaning day for the Get Ready girls. We also provide towels to our children, and the weekly boarders got new ones this month. Mosquitoes have also been a problem, and on top of using repellent and nets, we are asking the Ministry of Health to fumigate Riverkids’s premises again.
Meeting with parents regularly helps Riverkids support its families. During these meetings we impart skills in relationships, communication and raising children using activities, games and talks. For the month of September there were several of these, both with groups of parents and individual couples.
Riverkids has to attend to its own staff too, in addition to looking out for the many families in its care. Sometimes there are internal issues; for instance a kindergarten housemother who simply doesn’t show up for work sometimes. She’s been told to please come to work unless there’s a good reason not to. Unfortunately this month there was a seriously incident involving a male member of staff who behaved very inappropriately towards a student. He was instantly dismissed, and the student is receiving medical and psychological care.
Training is an essential part of growing Riverkids’ staff. Gecko and Garden Pre-School has been helping to train our housemothers, and the Russian Medical University and some Khmer volunteers will also be extending them some training. Our kindergarten teachers are getting training from the Department of Education and one of our volunteers, Heli.
Looking for resources is a continuous challenge. Currently we are looking for a house to rent, to use as an after school care centre for our children in grade 2 of state school. Fortunately we get a steady stream of volunteers, which helps on the human resource front. This month we had volunteers from I to I, a company that specializes in meaningful travel, three visitors from Singapore, and three medical students who brought note books and who plan to return to conduct hygiene training for our housemothers.
Last but not least, many of our children and their families went back to their hometowns for the big Phchum Ben holiday. To ensure their return to Riverkids, we had their parents sign an agreement before leaving. This is a time of feasting and celebration, and we hope that they all had a happy holiday.
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[...] The full report at our website – but here was one incident that was kept off the blog until it was sorted out: [...]