Riverkids Project

It has been another miraculous day in the cozy house of Riverkids Project. The children’s capacity to get skilled in a very short time is one of the human expressions closest to those events called miracles. And it has happened again. It has been about ten days since a group of four volunteers from Oxford stepped into the Riverkids Project community: Mark Rye, a teacher of photography, his wife Jenny, a nurse, Rachel Whitney, a social worker , and Anna Hayward, a teacher of music.

Thanks to the amazing job done by Mark and Rachel, who were able to provided the children with photography and chorus skills by means of warmth and enthusiasm, those present have enjoyed an outstanding performance of singing and a remarkable exhibition of pictures.

However, it’s not been just due to Mark and Anna. The whole Riverkids staffs have worked hard in order to develop the children attitude to different arts subjects. Indeed, the morning schedule began with the exemplary break dance executed by boys: time by time each of them tookthe center of the stage and performed a breathtaking series of leaps, bounces, somersaults, handstands and twists.

If you think it was a great moment, you are right, but it was only the appetizer. If you had attended to the rehearsals, you couldn’t have waited for the girls’ performance directed by Anna.

The girls, all white dressed, placed themselves throughout the stage and sang some hits such as “The lion sleeps tonight”, “Sunshine in my heart”, and “Jingle Bells”. When voices of many children join together to sing a song and become and unique voice is always an overwhelming experience, but it happens often that they get too excited and end up to lose the track. It has never happened today: the girls have danced and sung in tune with music played by the band.

After a deserved break enriched by delicious food, it was the time to be delighted by the beautiful pictures taken by Mark’s class. Almost thirty portraits hung on a thread depicted Riverkids’ children and staff: some of them could be exposed in a museum thanks to their color intensity, their accurate frame and their capacity to communicate characters’ feelings.

Afterwards, the schedule was completed by new performances of break dance and choruses. Unfortunately, it was the last act before joining altogether on the stage and then leaving with the heart fulfilled with emotions. AlessandroRizzi

I’m heading back up in a week for the first September advocacy trip! We’re almost completely booked out, so if you’re thinking about it, email me now. The dates are September 3-5 and September 21-23rd.

My two boys are heading up for part of the trip, and they’re both excited and very nervous. One has packed his fishing rod for the Ton Le Sap!

We’re expecting some funding to hire a full-time person for Riverkids in Singapore, fantastic news.

“There is trafficking cases in the (village). (Client), she is 17 years old work at Karaoke shop in Phnom Penh receive salary $50 per month. Lated one of her friends asks to find a job near Thai boarder. In fact, her friend has sold her to prostitution house. The police work together with authority to liberate and send her to World hope organization. World hope comes to cooperate with Riverkids to help her family especially two of her brother and sister to support them to go to school.

Solution
Riverkids agree to support both of her brother and sister to assist them to go to school for new academic year by assigned social worker work directly with her family to get further information.”

Other highlights from this month’s report:

• One staff member on maternity leave – more babies!
• A bunch of kindergarten children dropped out and were brought into weekly boarding for safety
• Our breakdancing class needs to be expanded because a bunch of the footballers have joined up!
• More shop orders from two micro-funded businesses some of our families are involved in.
• We helped arrange an emergency C-section – the baby is still in hospital, but recovering.

On August 15-16, 2009 a very popular English newspaper, The Cambodia Daily issued one article about the kids from Cambodia attend the Homeless World Cup in September.

Traditional dance class, originally uploaded by riverkidsproject.

Traditional dance is still incredibly popular in Cambodia, and I love how we got this class going.

It was partly a compromise to get a breakdancing class that attracts the ‘rougher’ kids, to have this as well. Then the teacher and musicians, from a private local business, when they learnt about our project, offered a lower rate. The girls in the class include Vietnamese girls born and raised in Cambodia. One of our boys ended up learning how to play the traditional drums after hanging out around the musicians and has – for a super shy kid – more confidence now. The dresses they’re wearing were sewn by our older Get Ready graduates who run a small business on our site. The class is funded by a grant from ArtAction who really get what these extras can mean to our kids.

Dance isn’t the same as food or medicine. But when you’re working with traumatized children, when trafficking=poverty+despair, dance and art are powerful weapons.

These will be posted out of order, but here’s the very latest! The Cambodia team has been working on making these reports more detailed and structured.

July 2009 was a busy regular month – lots of volunteers, and programs in full-swing. Most programs are going really well, but we’re over stretched in two key areas: after-school tuition, and our social workers’ home visits. We’ve prioritised visiting struggling families, but our aim is to visit all of them. We also don’t have the capacity to offer after-school tuition to all our students, or in some cases, the social workers haven’t been able to get them to attend.

We are able to expand our school program, but we’re going to have to think hard about different ways to reach out to families and kids, while we try to recruit more social workers.

But the best statistic for the month? No child trafficking incidents.

July 2009 Cambodia report, 14.4 MB PDF, 29 pages.

These will be posted out of order, but here’s the very latest! The Cambodia team has been working on making these reports more detailed and structured.

July 2009 was a busy regular month – lots of volunteers, and programs in full-swing. Most programs are going really well, but we’re over stretched in two key areas: after-school tuition, and our social workers’ home visits. We’ve prioritised visiting struggling families, but our aim is to visit all of them. We also don’t have the capacity to offer after-school tuition to all our students, or in some cases, the social workers haven’t been able to get them to attend.

We are able to expand our school program, but we’re going to have to think hard about different ways to reach out to families and kids, while we try to recruit more social workers.

But the best statistic for the month? No child trafficking incidents.

July 2009 Cambodia report, 14.4 MB PDF, 29 pages.

Ms. Teena Ingram and other four visitors visited Riverkids on July 17, 2009. Ms. Teena is a Founder of Blum Project. Her Family and friends support 50 vulnerable children from Riverkids Community along the railway in Phnom Penh to get opportunity for education and better care.

Teena and the visitors were so pleased when they saw the children were studying happily under support from Riverkids. According to her plan, she would like to sponsor other 50 Cambodian kids. So totally the numbers of children are under support from Blum Project will increase up to 100 children.

Riverkids warmly welcomes all donors for charitable donation to provide children with education, and a safe, alternative place to play, grow and learn so that they can grow up and live fulfilling, free of the devastation known to those children who are trafficked.

Your help is very important to our success. With your help, we can enroll more kids, hire teachers. We can fund health care to children and pregnant mothers.

I hope all of you will kindly support Riverkids. Your generosity can help us sustain our mission for the present and future generations of Cambodian kids.