June 2007 Trustees' Report

June 2007 Report to Trustees by Dale Edmonds

Licensed!
On 13 June, we got our official license from the Cambodian government as a local non-governmental organisation, Riverkids Foundation. We're registered under the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation. This allows us to apply for more grants and funding, and makes it possible for us to file official complaints and so on.

Drug counseling
Many thanks to Hosea who arranged for regular drug-counselling for two addicted children in our neighbourhood.

Funfair Preparation
Riverkids and the SIA 5Cs volunteers spent a lot of June working towards the July 11th Funfair. The Get Ready girls and their teachers worked on props, skits and decorations, and Soklee worked to the point of fainting getting everything organised.

New site across the road
As part of the funfair prep, we rented a field near a building across the road from the slums. Talking to the landlord, and looking over how we could rework things, Sophon suggested moving the Family House to that building. We would have smaller rooms, but more of them, a big big yard for the kids to play in and it would be much easier for the families to get to the house.

Raffles Junior College volunteers
Discussions with some RJC teachers and students continued on how best to organise long-term volunteering, with three projects proposed. The students will develop a short introduction to child trafficking, guided art lessons for volunteers and DIY guides on producing classroom manipulatives with local materials.

Teacher training
In June, Jolene Erhardt trained all our teachers with in-room classroom coaching and extra guidance.

Kindergarten
Kindergarten went into full-swing this month with 40 children enrolled in two classes. Churten's House was fixed up quickly and the children settled in well. The teachers had some trouble adjusting to the child-centered style we want, but Jolene is working with them.

Grade School
We hired another Khmer teacher and added a second class for the Grade School programme with a further 25 children.

Child Labour and Food Boxes
Parents were still making their girls in the Get Ready programme work part-time or through the night as garbage collectors. We started with counseling, then Food Boxes which have worked well in cutting truancy with the Get Ready girls. They also seem to be in better health.

Central Desktop
We moved to using Central Desktop (www.centraldesktop.com), an online collaborative service with private project spaces and wikis to track to-do lists and so on. It's working really well except we don't have a reliable internet connection in Cambodia yet.

Abuse Reports
No specific abuse reported but one Get Ready student started skipping classes and has severe emotional problems. In June, we started advertising for a counselor and stepped up social worker visits and more interaction and work with her family.

New staff
In June, another Khmer teacher was hired for the Grade School programme, also from the state school where we plan to send the children.