Just in time for March! A bunch of personal things happened and while RiverKids events - donations, reports and meetings - went on, the website report was delayed a lot, for which I apologise.

I’m now canvassing for volunteers with that arcane skill known as Organisation. I’m great at getting stuff started and done, but terrible with calendars and appointments. Fortunately, two people in Singapore are pitching in, more on them when that’s confirmed, and hopefully a couple of people overseas. This is great for RiverKids because it means that if something happens to me, knock wood, RiverKids can still manage that month. In a year, we’ll start looking into long-term issues.

To sum it up: won’t happen again with the delay in reporting, as other people are sharing the load, yay.

Children
The children were all back at school through January and February, except for over a week off for New Year festivals.

In January, one of the project boys ran away from home. The social worker went and helped search and eventually Lyna helped track him down. Family issues involved, and the social worker is keeping an eye on him.

Two children, ones we’re particularly worried about from neglect and abuse, have been removed as their family has left the community. This has happened before, and they’ve returned, but the school is increasingly unwilling to allow the kids to stay as they are rarely attending as a result.

Finances
Financially, we’re still scraping by the skin of our teeth. Without securing some steady funds for July-onwards, we will not be able to take in the next group of children. Several people have expressed interest, and for March, that is my biggest aim.

I’m pretty useless at formal fundraising in that I am just not quite that organised, so a friend of ours who is on sabbatical, has offered to do a March-April fundraising event for RiverKids. Organising that begins as soon as we return from Cambodia.

If you’ve read this far, please do consider donating! $10, $100 - all the money gets used for maximum effect and goes directly to help vulnerable kids with very few resources. Help us help them.

Trip to Cambodia March 4-11
My family will be in Phnom Penh for a week. My plans for RiverKids things will be to:
• Check out the pro bono doctor
• Follow-up on medical treatment for three particular kids
• Figure out if/how to set up a kitchen in the building and hire at least 1-3 of the kids’ parents or siblings to cook.
• Meet with an NGO coalition person to find out more about registering as a Cambodian NGO.
• Follow up on the two abused kids who’ve been pulled out of the program by their parent.
• Follow up on the two really bright kids and extra tuition
• Meet the new social worker aide
• Go over all the new documentation and protocols
• Work out the final staff salaries and responsibilities, with Lyna coming on board.

I’m bringing some toys over with me, a mixture of new and old, all donated. Looking forward, I would particularly like to ask for donations of brand-name Lego and Brio - the seriously sturdy stuff that can be played with by a whole group of kids, but unfortunately costs way too much to buy new in quantity. I’m avoiding soft toys, things that require all the pieces to be played with (they inevitably get lost) or things that require literacy to play.

We may also check up on toothbrushes - some families do brush teeth, while others don’t. If it’s practical, we’ll get toothbrushes etc. and get the kids to brush their teeth at the school.

Reports and paperwork
All the children’s reports are in and translated. I’d like to put them into a database and track them, but for now my aim is just while I’m in Cambodia, to run over the statistics with Lyna - figuring out ages, family structure and so on.

We sent the January funds over and they were received on the 25th. We have a surplus in the January funds of US$146.10. Because we’re travelling to Cambodia near the start of the month, we’ll be bringing February’s funds in cash to save the bank transfer fees. New paperwork! We’re trying to keep paperwork to a minimum, but it is important to record each kid’s progress, problems and so on. We have a biographical form when they enter the project, and a monthly tracking form, and now we have health booklets for each kid. Sok Lyna has prepared some more and we should have them sorted out by the end of March for the next year plus.

Hospital Visit
The children went to the National Pediatric Hospital on February 9th for a general check-up, including dental. Five of them had teeth pulled immediately, and most of them need follow-ups for dental care. The children who hadnt been immunized had blood tests, results pending, to decide what immunizations are needed. Out of 52 children, almost all had medicine prescribed, while two snuck away because they were afraid of injections! All the children got health registration books, and after the long morning at the hospital, they went to a cheap Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. The entire hospital trip cost in total US$152.

An unknown NGO has been down to the river since December for some healthcare, including immunizations. I’m going to ask around to see if anyone they’ve treated has paperwork so I can contact them.

New Year’s Eve party
New Year’s is a big event in Cambodia (Tet, Khmer New Year and Chinese New Year occasionally overlap but are basically all early spring events) We had a small party for the kids before their school holiday. The New Year’s Eve party was burgers, oranges, snacks and drinks, and of course, a little hong-bao for each kid, an Asian tradition where people give red paper packets with some cash in them, usually to children or unmarried siblings, sometimes staff.

Sok Lyna decided to also give a hong bao to the nine school teachers at the state school. We’re opting for blatent favouritism, because apparently the teachers are still unhappy about having ethnic-Vietnamese kids attend their classes. I’m going to tactfully follow up on this as well.

Training
One of the teachers attended three training sessions from World Vision Cambodia on Children’s Rights, another by Chab Dai Coalition’s on child sexual abuse prevention and one by Legal Support for Children & Women on legal issues and support for children’s issues. Two of the training sessions took place while the kids were out of school, but for one, a school teacher temped and was paid US$44.

Sok Lyna: “Many of the boys among our kids approached and told us how they experienced sexual abuse from foreign tourists who offered them $5 or more to fondle their genitals after the Khmer teacher using the toolkit to teach them on their rights and how to protect themselves whenever they would experience that again.”

We’re now looking to hire another trained social worker for the hoped-for second group in July. Finding someone with experience is hard, as there aren’t many in Cambodia who aren’t already working for NGOs. In the meantime, training and mentoring our current staff is helping. It’s still routine and mainstream to hit children violently (not spanking, more) and there are limited resources for domestic violence and sexual abuse. Children are often seen as exploitable property, by both locals and foreigners.

New Hire: Social Work Assistant
He basically accompanies the kids on their trips to and from from school, tuition and home, and helps the Social Worker keep track of them. He began work officially in February or March - I need to confirm this. He’s still a tentative hire, because I would rather hire a woman, so unless I can rework the schedule so one of the female teachers accompany him, he may not stay on.

Name: Nguyen Minh Son, M.
Date of birth: 00/00/1975
Place of birth: Viet-nam
Nationality: Vietnamese
From 1975 to 1992: In Viet-nam
From 1992 to present: Cambodia
Formal education: Up to 5 /12
Reads and writes in Vietnamese, speaks fluent Khmer.
From 1992 1995: Various odd jobs
From 1995 2000: Carpentry work
From 2000 2005: Construction work
From Dec / 05 present: River Kids

Building
The building’s rent is US$160 a month. The church that has been renting the building has bought one nearby, and plan to move out sometime in March. This would give us enough space for a small RiverKids office for the staff, and access to the kitchen, etc.

Legal registration
We’re unable to register RiverKids as a tax-deductible charity in Singapore because of a requirement that at least 80% of funds raised go to benefit Singaporeans. We can register as an NGO in Cambodia and apply to raise funds publically in Singapore, but that is again fairly complicated. We’re looking into NGO registration in Cambodia so we can apply for grants, but I’ve been warned that the process is tricky and expensive (well, compared to how big we are).

Instead, I’ve registered a sole proprietorship business in Singapore, RiverKids Project. The GST registration is: M9-008879-T. I need to get an official letter thing and apply for a corporate bank account, which will be at least US$10 a month in bank fees. However, this does give RiverKids some legal existance, and means people can donate to RiverKids, rather than me. It cost S$65 (about US$40) to register RiverKids Project. Donations are NOT tax-deductible as a result.

We will still continue to publish our finances online, and we will not have closed books. Any questions on finances will be answered and accounted for.