Thank You To All Our Donors and Supporters 

In Cambodia, we’re lucky to be able to create a daily impact on the lives of disadvantaged children – through providing them with an education in English to open up more opportunities for them. Additionally, thanks to the support and donations people so kindly gift us when we fundraise, we’re also able to take on projects that our partners and the community have expressed to meet their other needs. Recently, we have been working towards two goals – which thanks to your help we’ve been able to achieve and couldn’t be more grateful to those who donated, shared the link, volunteered their time towards these goals and all other support we’ve had along the way.

                                                                                     (The original counselling room)

 Our two goals that we’ve been working towards have been creating a counselling room for our partners at BSDA to ensure the children they work with have a safe and comforting space to discuss any problems they’re experiencing or simply for a conversation. With our partners at Cheung Kok we have been raising funds to provide the girls we teach with laptops and IT skills. Both of these decisions were made based on communicating with our partners and listening to their needs, you can’t help a community by assuming what they want or need – as this form of “help” won’t be accepted or used as they don’t want it or aren’t prepared for it. BSDA came forward with the counselling room when we approached them about our fundraising, and the students at Cheung Kok were asked what they needed once we told them about our plans to fundraise. The girls don’t have easy access to computers or the skills needed for them, making it important for them to be given the opportunity to do so in our technology reliant world.

                                                                   (All hands on deck for the scrubbing, cleaning & then painting of the counselling room)

To get the ball rolling with the counselling room, back in October for King’s Coronation Day we challenged our volunteers at the time to complete a scavenger hunt around Kampong Cham. We were lucky enough to gain a lot of support and sponsors for all of their hard work and sunburn!! As soon as we knew that we had enough funds to be able to make genuine improvements, we sat down again with BSDA to discuss what their expectations of the counselling room and how they pictured it. Since then we’ve been working hard on design plans, buying materials and costing up the project. We had a few bumps along the way including – needing to re-level an uneven floor and our initial tiles becoming discontinued (with great timing of 1 tile left to go!). But with thanks to those who donated, the volunteers that completed the initial challenge, the volunteers and staff that have cleaned/sanded/filled and decorated the room, the tiler, the knowledge and great help from our Community Liaison Officer Kimyi, and BSDA for taking us around Phnom Penh to get the perfect furniture – all of you have made this room a reality.

        (The beautiful new renovated counselling room!)

In order to get money for the laptops, we had a festive fundraiser over the holidays which reached its peak on Christmas Day, where after running Christmas activities at the pagoda our volunteers had an afternoon of bringing board games to life. We wanted to celebrate our volunteers generously giving their time on a day that would usually be spent around family, close friends and lots of food. Through this and lots of kind donations we were able to purchase 3 laptops for the girls at Cheung Kok. Our volunteers have created a great photo step by step guide for the girls to be able to keep and help them navigate their way around a laptop and the internet. Thanks to those who gave up free time over the festive period, donated and created the guide, we can help empower the girls at Cheung Kok by improving their IT skills in this technological world. As well as helping to benefit our students, these laptops will also be used by other people in the village. We are so happy that we have been able to provide such a useful resource for a whole community!

(Guide to use their new computers)

Once again, we’re so grateful for everyone’s support – in all shapes and forms. It’s incredible to know that no matter where you are in the world you can create sustainable and positive impact to those in need. Be proud of what you’ve helped us at GVI Cambodia achieve, because we certainly are!