Hi All,
In January 2014, Sunly & I fundraised for the Angsatha Primary School in Cambodia in the province of Kampong Speu being Sunly's parent's hometown.
Sunly's father Ear Kay Heng (Kim) and mother Hor Boury (Mary) built a block of classrooms for the school in 2006.
Before than the children would study underneath the shades of trees and or underneath the temple building next door where it is coolest in the summer months. Sunly's father and mother were one of those many children growing up, he was always inspired to help the community in his hometown and give something back and the school was his inspiration. Kampong Speu is one of the poorest province in Cambodia.
This inspired Sunly and I to make a contribution to the school and bring others along with us on such an incredible and rewarding journey.
Our fundraising appeal for coin donations raised $1,540.15AUD amongst generous friends and colleagues at the Council of the City of Sydney and Architectus Sydney.
We raised much more than we ever anticipated or hoped for and are forever grateful for all the support, kindness and generosity towards the children at the school.
Sunly and I together contributed $250 towards building the fencing around the temple to help them start up gardens to grow vegetables for the children in the school and the residents of the temple who help look after the children. Sunly's parents Kim & Mary also contributed $250 towards the fencing to keep the cows away, which has been a real problem for the temple to keep the cows away from the crops.
Sunly's father Kim has also previously planted 100 coconut trees and 50 mango trees in the grounds of the temple so the children and the residents in the temple can enjoy those fruits of labour.
We have promised to find the best way to communicate the outcome and share the amazing experiences with everyone who is in much anticipation and creating a blog was the only way we could do so. Being very inexperienced with blogging and technicalities of working a blog and compressing photo sizes this took us much longer than expected, so we sincerely apologise for the delay and anticipation :), we hope that you will enjoy the experience as much as we did by journeying through this blog.
Thank you again to all the amazing people who have supported us in generous donations and also beautiful words to help us make this dream come true!
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Picture with staff at the School: (from the left) Kim, Mary (Lee's parents), Ju (Lee's eldest sister who resides in Cambodia with her family), Sunly (Lee), Jess, a student at the school and teachers)
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Students receiving their stationery kits, each kit contains: a book, a pencil, 2 pens, a multipurpose scarf (can be used as a scarf, towel, blanket), some lollies (of course :)) and 50c US for lunch.
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Students manually pumping water out of the well beneath the ground. The system is the only drinking water supply for the students, this was kindly donated to the school.
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Lee (Sunly) found himself a ride home, this beautiful little girl was willing to ride him home on her big bicycle knowing he is much bigger than she is haha!
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Students head home with their stationery kits, excited and happy to show their parents at home. Many of the students were bare foot. Bicycles have been kindly donated to the children at the school, they all seem to share them.
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Lee and I handing out stationery packs, a fun exercise :) lots of excitement and a buzzing atmosphere.
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Picture of the school yard and classroom building.
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This is the amazing view behind the school and the temple. You can see people working, there is a man in the pond picking lotus flowers and a man with a cart carting them away to the markets.
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Stationery kits were packed in these bags and loaded onto the van to transport to the school. We also bought some noodles as this was a morning staple for the children.
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