By Geraldine van Dijk
It started in November 2013, when I read in the
Canadian International School’s WAG (Week at a Glance) that CIS families could
participate in a family house building trip to Cambodia.
The info evening organized by the teacher in charge,
Lennan MacDonald, convinced me to join with my 2 boys.
The joining group had to raise money to fund the
building of at least 10 houses. Since the houses were $1100 each to build, one
of the parents came up with the brilliant idea to have a weekly bake sale at
the Tanglin Trust School during netball training.
And it took off… every week we had families selling
the baked goodies, coffee, tea and cold drinks.
Every week, our funds accumulated. In the mean time there were
collections of clothes and stationary and we each took 10kg per head extra to
Cambodia.
Tickets and hotel were booked well in advance of the
trip to make sure we were all in the same hotel in Phom Penh’s “the Plantation”
and in total, there were 37 adults and 31 children.
Day 1. Visit to
the NHCC - New Hope for Cambodian Children.
Orphans are 80% HIV infected! The
individual care, accommodation, love, education, medication and support they
receive, felt overwhelmingly warm and we only saw happy children.
We joined them for a home cooked lunch and although
the weather was piping hot, the CIS boys played soccer with the orphan boys,
while the girls danced together. It was
here we donated our 700kg of clothes!
Day 2. We started the day with a briefing on the
upcoming house-building day at Tabitha.
Janne Ritskes has committed her life to Cambodia since her first visit
in the 90’s and now runs Tabitha Cambodia.
Our next stop was the PIO school (People Improvement
Organization) – which is better known as ‘the school built on the dump’. It started with 1 teacher and 1 classroom
built next to a landfill site and now provides education to 2000 children who
used to roam the landfill sites to find stuff to sell or eat. We donated our
old school uniforms and stationary and teachers and children greeted us
enthusiastically and showed us around.
Day 3. At 7:30am we began the 2-hour drive to our
house building project. The homes are on stilts and the foundation and roofs
are already built. Our job was to hammer the floors in and place the tin walls.
The weather was hot and humid, but it felt so unbelievably good to do something
for these people who have so little.
The children were very engaged, enthusiastic, open
minded and helpful and at the end of the day we presented a beautifully quilted
blanket from Tabitha to every family.
The whole trip was overpowering, overwhelming and
emotional. We met amazing people who
have started these wonderful projects to help the Cambodian people.
Thank you CIS for organizing this journey!
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