Newsletter, November 2003

The Orphanage Project has started with the help of foster parents

Hello to all the friends of Children of Cambodia and greetings from Phnom Penh!

This month we have concentrated especially in the Orphanage Development Project because of the poor situation of the orphanage. Although we don?t have official funding for the project, we have been able to start helping the children with the help of foster parents and volunteers. Special thanks to them!

The Nutrition Center - orphanage is located at the heart of Phnom Penh, on Monivong Boulevard. The orphanage is a home for 118 children, who are mostly under 5 years of age.

Currently there is another organization, Italian CIAI which sponsors food and milk for children under 2 years of age. Unfortunately the children who are older than 2 years old have only rice for food. Because of that we have focused on children who are more than 2 years of age.

Unfortunately we can not yet help all the children of the orphanage as we would like to, but with the help of the foster parents we have been able to improve the nutrition and wellbeing of the sponsored children, and to provide them more personal care and attention.

Our first volunteer Kirsi Lankoski started to work in the orphanage in the beginning of November. Two more volunteers will join her in the beginning of December and again two more in the beginning of January. The volunteers will be able to get to know the children as individuals and help them to learn and develop skills appropriate for their age. With the help of the foster parenting program we have been able to open a new world to the children by taking them outside the gates of the orphanage.

Few days ago we did our first bus trip with the children. We rented a small bus together with CIAI and took some of the children and their caretakers for a picnic in Phnom Penh. It was intriguing to see the expressions on the faces of the children as we drove around Phnom Penh. Silently and amazed they stared through the windows of the bus: traffic, monuments, river, in a word - life. Many of them saw their home city for the first time. At the picnic the children ate the food to the last crumb. Thank you for your support.

Pihla Muhonen
Children of Cambodia