News from Aziza’s Place – October 2010

Dear Friends,

October has been a month of comings and goings at AP.  The month began with the children enjoying a week-long holiday at home with their families to celebrate Cambodia’s Pchum Ben festival.  Loosely translated as 'Festival of the Dead', Pchum Ben is a traditional Buddhist festival when people remember and pay homage to the spirits of their ancestors.  The roads were busy as people travelled far and wide to visit their home provinces to see family and to enjoy spending time together in celebration and festivities.  Many Cambodian families also followed the Pchum Ben tradition of remembering the spirits of their ancestors by visiting pagodas and giving food and gifts to the monks.    

     After a week away, the AP residents returned back ready and raring to jump into a new school year at Toul Tompong public school.  We are very proud to announce that all of our AP students are advancing into a new grade, with three students moving two grades ahead to come more into line with grade levels for their age.  We ask you to join us in wishing our students all the best as they study hard in the year ahead.   

     In this issue of the Courtyard, we celebrate new opportunities being embarked upon for the wider AP community.  We welcome a returning student, 14-year old Chantou, into our daily education programme.  Removing her from a harsh factory job, we have once again been reminded of the vulnerabilities and difficult realities that our children face. Our Community Outreach programme also helped crystallize a new income-earning opportunity for the family of one of our residents.  We are looking forward to seeing how a sewing machine will make a positive impact on their social and financial circumstances.  

With Gratitude,

The AP Team 

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This month we give a special thanks to:

 Lauren Seaver • The GE Foundation on Behalf of Erik Granskog • Anand & Anita Gangadhran 

Six-year-old Srey Nak Joins Aziza's Place

SreySros (left) pictured with the newest AP resident,

her sister Srey Nak.

We are excited to welcome six-year-old Srey Nak to Aziza's Place. She is the younger sister of two long-time AP resident children, Sreysros (pictured left) and Roth. Srey Nak is extremely shy and timid but the younger girls at AP are taking her under their wing to make her feel at home.  As with most new residents it will take a couple of weeks for her to adjust and feel healthy.  Her previous living environment left her malnourished, with a vulnerable immune system.  Her recent doctor's check-up suggests that in the coming weeks she will be able to begin karate and dance classes.  Sreysros, age 11 and Roth, age 13 have both been at AP for almost four years and have been eagerly asking for their younger sister join them.

 

Roth, Sreysros and Srey Nak have a difficult family background that does not allow them to visit their mother very often. Their mother recently became unemployed and no longer had the means to support Srey Nak to go to school, as she is the sole income-earner. Due to the family stresses and the requests

from her brother and sister, APs Community Outreach program planned for Srey Nak to join us once she reached school age. Due to an uncharacteristically long rainy season, the road out to her house experienced severe flooding. Therefore, the AP team could not reach the family in order to bring her in before the beginning of the school year. Srey Nak is excited to sport her new pink backpack when she begins 1st grade this week. We look forward to watching Srey Nak grow strong and healthy at AP.

AP Welcomes Chantou as Part-Time Student

Fourteen-year-old Chantou.

Chantou first joined Aziza’s Place in 2007. She is the sister of Chanthy, one of the first four residents of AP. In 2008 she left the program and went to live her aunt in a province outside of Phnom Penh where she was able to attend school. The AP team was troubled to find out in August that Chantou had moved back to the city to live with her older sister and had begun working in a garment factory. As a 14 year-old, she had borrowed the birth certificate of an older female in order to obtain a job ironing and cutting fabric. She worked in a stifling hot factory for up to 12 hours a day, seven days per week. Her sister (also a garmet factory worker) did not want her young sister to work, but could not support Chantou on her meager income.

Chantou’s conditions were unacceptable and AP worked out a system to bring Chantou into the program for the full school day. Now she will attend public school and takes part in AP's supplementary classes - English, Math, Khmer and Computer Studies. AP currently does not have the capacity for another full-time resident and so at the end of the day, she returns home to live with her sister. The older sister is working with the AP team to ensure Chantou stays in school and has a safe place to live while she is not studying. 

Community Outreach Program Begins New Income-Generating Venture with Family of AP resident

This AP family will see the benefits of a new

income-generating project.

As discussed in previous issues of Courtyard newsletters, AP’s community outreach initiative involves working with the families of our resident children to help them pursue opportunities and connect them with resources that will improve their quality of life.  Program Coordinator Yi Makara and Intern Mick Johns have been strengthening the relationships with our families by maintaining regular and open communication, working with individual families to establish goals and to find avenues for making positive changes to their living situations.

This month an initiative suggested by one of the families has evolved into an entrepreneurial venture that could also be emulated in other areas.  After seeing a neighbour using a sewing machine as a means of creating an income, one of our families asked AP whether it was possible for them to secure a sewing machine for themselves.  Makara and Mick worked together with the family to investigate the feasibility of the sewing venture and were excited to see the many positive attributes and possibilities it could engender.  The concept itself was very simple: a local seller making regular visits to Steung Meanchey delivering pre-cut fabric then commissions the garments to be sewn together (using the sewing machine) and then returns to collect the completed products at a pre-determined price.  This simple enterprise resulted in the seamstress receiving approximately 15-20cents per sewn garment, which then could translate to incremental weekly revenue of at least $20 for the seamstress which is a significant supplement to the family's meagre income earned by picking trash from the dumpsite.  

In order to facilitate and support this project, AP has agreed to purchase the sewing machine to be used by the family to begin their venture and effectively lease the machine to the seamstress and her family (for a minimal lease payment) for an initial six-month period.  After the six months, the family will make the evaluation whether they would like to buy the sewing machine outright from AP, or continue leasing the machine, or return the machine and replace it with an upgraded one.  If the family chooses to return the original machine, AP will then lease it out to another family on similar terms and conditions. We look forward to beginning what we hope is the first of many creative initiatives that support business ventures of the families of our AP residents without the risk of an unfair debt burden on the family.  

Thanking Mick & Kepi for Six Months of Service to the AP Community

Everyone with Mick and Kepi before they

headed by to Australia.

The AP family extends a huge thanks to volunteers Michael Johns and Kepi Roberts from Tasmania, Australia.  As an Intern, Mick contributed valuable insight and ideas for our Community Outreach Program.  He undertook extensive research into micro-finance opportunities for our families and inspired the AP residents and staff to think about their futures by setting up a program for savings bank accounts.  Kepi's knowledge of marketing and communications ramped up AP's efforts to share more news with our dedicated supporters worldwide through increased Facebook updates and more effective newsletters. Furthermore, she passed on her knowledge to our film students with animated weekly tutoring sessions.  Mick and Kepi were also instrumental in connecting the work experience internships for our older students as well as teaching our intermediate, advanced and staff English classes.  We thank Mick and Kepi for their invaluable support and inspired ideas over the last six months.  Their Australianism’s and humour will especially be missed by us all.  Good on you mates!

AP Kids Compete in Karate Championship

Sengkry takes centre stage to perform his

karate routine.

AP students had the opportunity to show off their karate skills and techniques in their second competition for the year, on October 16th and 17th.  Competition was serious as pairs of students took to the floor, presenting their individual routines to be judged and compared against each other.  The crowd cheered loudly and with the shrill cry of the whistle the judges raised red and blue flags to indicate the winner of each round.  AP students competed against children from various NGOs and private karate schools in Phnom Penh.  Congratulations to Sreyphea and Chanty who both made it to the finals. Sreyphea achieved second place, winning a medal and boxes of snacks that she gladly shared with her friends.

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