Sunrise Children's Village

Continuing on an annual basis for desktop computers for 50 students with 'the lot'. The children are doing Word, Excel, web design, Power Point, Access, AutoCAD, Photoshop and they need the same space and memory that we do. It would be wonderful to be able to upgrade these every year. When I beg, borrow or steal new computers each year, we in turn, donate our old ones to poorer orphanages who can still make good use of them. In the past I have got computers from Chase Manhattan Bank, Cathay Pacific Airlines, a Hong Kong International School, ING Insurance in Hong Kong and Hewlett Packard in Singapore. Recently the boys of Prince Alfred College in Adelaide raised over $5,000 to buy our children new computers and Mitcham Girls High School in Adelaide another $900 for new computers. I have written several proposals to the Gates Foundation over the years, but not even a response. What we teach in our Computer and English classes has been able to produce 3 boys and 2 girls so far that are making us proud. One boy has started a law degree in Sydney University this year, and the others are studying at private colleges in South Australia. We are negotiating with other educational facilities for them to give scholarships to those Sunrise students who work hard and pass here with high grades. For the children to know that this is possible for them is so motivating. They have seen Sunrise Graduates fly out and they are working, the girls too, even harder. We teach them continually that we will give them a good education here or abroad, so that they can return and do something to make Cambodia a better place for them and their children. Some of the children have already told us they want to be human rights lawyers, teachers, doctors, judges, pilots, architects, engineers, journalists, businessmen and women. They have ambitions, like all children. The only way they can achieve their dreams is through education. We do not know the cost of this of this on an annual basis but are counting on generous corporations to continue donating computers to us as they have done so far in the past.

English Classes. We give the children English classes five nights a week at Sunrise One, but because of the distance from the city, we cannot get really well qualified teachers to come all this way at night. So the level they learn at, is not that high. So we send our brightest ones to the Australian Centre for Education (ACE) in Phnom Penh 3 times a week and this is where we get results. Four terms a year with books and tapes costs around US$700 for each child and we would be looking at 80 students each year attending. But the rewards for this amount cannot be measured in dollars!

Garage. We have 15, 25 and 45 seater vehicles that are used to get around 130 children to and from school and to other regular places of study and play. We also have a Nissan pickup truck, a 1993 Toyota 4WD, a 1993 Mitsubishi 4WD and about 3 other staff cars and a handful of motorbikes, all needing to be housed from the sun, which is not happening at the moment. A new garage for our vehicles would cost around US$50,000.

Irrigation System. A South Australian Riverland Rotary Club offered to supply the irrigation equipment required to water our lawns, gardens, crops, footy field, etc. and they were going to come up as Rotarians and install it all. It is mind-numbing watching our poor farmhands in the dry season, carry buckets of water on poles across their shoulders, and drag old hoses around pumping water from our ponds to try to keep our lawns, gardens and crops alive. If we had automatic irrigation this would free them up to do real farm work! However, when the new Rotary President came in, he did not like the plan and so it all fell through. The cost to do this on our 5 hectare property is around US$48,000. The local Australian plumbing company here knows how to work with Rainbird, but it would be wonderful if we could convince Rainbird to donate their equipment. We have already received around US$7000 worth of equipment for this project.

Beach Trip. At Sunrise One we try to take the children to the beach in Sihanoukville at least once a year and so far we have had a generous sponsor from the German Embassy who has done this for us annually, but she has now retired. For say around 160 people including children, staff and carers, to have one night in a guest house and two days on the beach, with cheap meals organized through local restaurants, and various other sundry expenses like hiring beach equipment for the children and so on, would cost between US$5–6,000, taking into account that we are accepting new children all the time.

An extension for our small playground would cost around US$20,000 to come from Bangkok.

A purpose-built building to house our English and Art Classes would cost around US$80,000. At the moment these classes are held in the dining room and the music and dance school.

A small Cambodian style wooden house is required to hold our couselling sessions with traumatised children and to conduct family group meetings on the weekends. Currently this all happens in the dining room and the office where there is no privacy and they would be much more successful if we could provide somewhere quiet and private for the children.

Well, that’s about it for Sunrise One.