From an email from Lyna: This morning, one father said to me: “If it were not for you, we would not know what to do for our kids because we are much too busy with eking out a living.” I’m so thankful that someone is able to see the best interest we’re intending for their kids to appreciate our efforts and correspond well to it.

Kindergarten children
At the start of September, we had eight children enrolled in kindergarten, Kindercare. Ten were slated originally, but one child was old enough to be promoted to regular school. The final numbers in October, with all the 51 kids, are eleven in Kindergarten.

State school children
State school started on the 10th of October this year, but it was the ‘tuong bah’ festival, so school was delayed a week. For September and the start of October, the children went instead for regular tuition at the church compound room. An Assembly of God church (I think called Chey Choo Meah) with a mostly Vietnamese congregation offered to let us use a room at the church for the tuition. We pay the cost of utilities which is about US$20-30 a month.

We were able to arrange for transport for the kids. Most of them come from the same village, and picking them up in multiple tuk-tuks was more expensive and tricky. The truck had to be set up to carry children and get some kind of license - we didn’t pay for it, but it delayed the start of the regular transport, so in September we paid for tuk-tuk transport for the first part of the month. Now the truck makes about four trips, picking up and dropping off children from home to school, then school to tuition, and tuition to home. There are two shifts because of the afternoon and morning sessions at the school.

For Cambodian state schools, most children go for extra lessons with their teachers after class. They pay the teacher a daily fee, about 500 Rial which comes to around 13000 Rial each month, around US$3.50. They also pay for extra English lessons. We’re grouping the children together for tuition with a different teacher because the River Kids need extra support for their Khmer, as it’s not their mother tongue usually and they have lower literacy in general.

The children have tuition six days a week, either in the mornings or afternoons depending on their school timetable (a lot of Asian schools have shift sessions to maximise space).

One of the teachers is Vietnamese, but they haven’t started Vietnamese tuition yet, concentrating first on Khmer and basic English for now. In the future, we’d like to add Vietnamese, especially written Vietnamese, as well.

Project
Lyna has been training the new social worker, a Vietnamese man living in Cambodia. He’s had two months of training with her, and she’s confident about his abilities. He will be handling things for November when Lyna’s away on work outside Cambodia, and it should be a pretty calm month. He is putting together the forms for the children’s backgrounds.

Costs
Gas prices went up in Cambodia, so we had to recalculate the amount for transport, originally pegged at US$6 a month per child. It’s now US$10 a month.

A cupboard was made for the church compound so we could safely keep materials for the classes. It cost US$90, and I’m expecting photographs next week, along with enrollment photographs of the children. Check the photos page to see them.

The childrens’ school uniforms were bought from a wholesale dealer, so instead of US$640, they cost US$420 - that’s 138 changes at three uniforms per child.

About US$300 was spent on stationary, which was lower than the US$552 budgeted. The remainder I’m probably going to authorise for school bags, some english books and art supplies for the kids.

We also spent US$195 on the chairs, tables and furniture for the room. A big chunk of that was actually transport.

The state school enrollment fees (unofficial but required) came to US$300. I’d budgeted US$360, forgetting that six of the kids were already enrolled.

Lunch meals for all the kids, plus milk for the kindergarteners came to US$460, which was US$100 higher than I’d expected. I thought the kindergarten children had meals at the Kindercare centre, so I need to doublecheck that. On checking, they do, but they also get milk tins. I’m not entirely happy with the way meals are organized, but we don’t have the resources yet to cook food for a large group. This is something I’d like to sort out by December.

Kindercare fees came to US$144, close to the US$150 budgeted.

The full-time social worker is paid US$150 a month, while the two tuition teachers who work half-days were paid US$156 together. They are now getting about $120 a month.