Sunrise Ream Children's Village

A third and new Sunrise Children's Village is due to be built on a 5 hectare site that has been donated to us through the First Deputy Governor of Sihanoukville following a request from the Prime Minister to help Sunrise.

The land is situated on the fringe of the Ream National Park and is less than 1 kilometre from the National Road Number 4 and close to the newly reopened Provincial Airport. It is about 20 kilometres from the town centre of Sihanoukville and about 200 kilometres from the capital Phnom Penh.

The land was uninhibited and we have already cleared the scrub, fenced it and put guards in place to stop squatters taking over.

A Master Plan has been prepared and the architects are now working on the detailed plans. The Village will comprise 10 family houses grouped around a Village Green and there will be a communal Kitchen/Dining Room, Classrooms for English, Sewing and Computer Studies, a self contained Meeting Room/Dance School/ Theatre, a Medical Clinic with a Sick Bay, an Administration Office and Staff Accommodation.

Each family house will be approximately 100m² and will have 4 children's bedrooms 2 shower room/toilets, a sitting room and a House Parent’s bedroom with en-suite bathroom. Boys and girls will be moved from their family home to a single sex house on reaching 12 years of age. The planned capacity for each family house is 12 children and this envisages some bunk beds being used. The single sex houses are planned to be limited to 10 per unit to allow space for private study and some element of privacy. Each teenage house will be supervised by a live-in House Mother and House Father (married couples) to give a real family atmosphere.

When we are ready to advertise for these house parents we will be asking for husband and wife teams who do not smoke, drink, gamble, swear or hit each other! Good luck! Some say we would not get many responses if we were advertising in Australia!

Oh, and we will also request that they are Buddhist so that they can teach the children more about the religion of their country.

We also envisage a working fishpond with a wooden gazebo, a small kitchen garden and orchard, as well as a playing field for sporting purposes and a playground for the smaller children.

It is anticipated that construction will start in the second quarter of 2008 and the likely building contract term is 12 months. We should be able to take our first children by the end of next year (2009).
We have been fortunate indeed to have an amazingly generous major sponsor come forward with a promise to fund A$500,000 towards this project – Computershare, a Melbourne-based corporation, but more funding is required to complete this project.