Sakka Foundation visits Cambodia October 2015 - Here's our trip report

Date: 10-12 October, 2015
​Participants: Eugene, Carolyn

Day 1

Meeting with Dr. Callum and Dr. Huy Ly of One-to-One Cambodia

• We discussed about the main source of funding for 1-2-1:  mainly visitor’ donation, ie., dental students, as well as voluntary dentists from other countries; private sponsorships from Taiwan and New Zealand.
• 1-2-1 would like to link up with HK dentists or dental students for a one to two weeks dental program.  Dr. Callum would pass over the contact links to Sakka.
• At the moment, there are 4000 kids/ year being treated at Happy Clinic. They also treated kids with clefts.
• There are 15 different programs running simultaneously at 1-2-1, including dental program, medical program, health program, and sport program, etc…

Empowering Youth Cambodia (EYC)

• Currently, they have 700 students in their 4 different slum schools, with 3 different levels. With 40 part time / volunteer staffs and 8 full time staffs.
• The average salary of the teacher in EYC is around US$190/month, with 6 hours /day work, 6 days / week; compared to US$150/month, with 4 hours / day, 6 days / week for the teachers at public school.
• EYC has 8 main donors for their slum school, and Sakka is one of them

Day 2

Who Will Village

• Currently, there are 37 children staying at WWV.  However, 3 of them will be leaving in October 2015 as they will move to Phnom Penh for further studies. One of the girl had gotten a 100% scholarship to study at University for Finance and Business Administration; another girl also has a 100% scholarship to study Biology and Chemistry at the University (she wants to be a pharmacist); the 3rd girl will be heading to vocational training in the field of design.
• There will be 6 more of them (1 girl and 5 boys) graduating high school in 2016 and they will be leaving WWV after graduation.
• Since the number of kids will decrease tremendously in coming year, their new Director, Ms. Sarah Cheav, is currently reviewing their admission criteria in order to accept more kids into the community.  They are discussing the possibility of admitting only 100% orphan only, instead of economical orphans who still get their parent(s) around.

Day 3

Watopot Children’s Community

• Currently, they have 42 child residents at WOCC. Among these 42, slightly more than half of the kids are HIV+. Slightly more than 1/3 of the kids are 10/- years old, with another 1/3 of kids 13/- years old.
• The decreased number of child residents was due to the fact that there were around 10 of the kids who left WOCC after high school graduation.  These ex-residents are now either studying or working in Phnom Penh.
• Samorn (whom we had sponsored his University program – Nursing had recently graduated from his Master Degree (health communication) and is working in Phnom Penh. His younger brother Samet (whom we had sponsored his University program – Law), is also working full time now.
• WOCC is now only sponsoring one university student and he is now in his last year to study architecture.
• WOCC is trying to be more self-sustainable, with their own fish pond (5000 catfishs), corn field, and hydroponic garden. However, with all the residents which required a lot of intake for development and growth, Food is still a major issue there.
• As for the recent shooting up on prices of AIDS drugs, it might be an issue in future.  Currently, Partners of Compassion is donating all the drugs from India but it was heard that the price of the Indian drugs are now under pressure to raise to similar level as the USA drugs.  If this is the case, WOCC might be facing a huge problem in stabilizing and maintaining the health of the HIV+ kids. We will get update on this issue if this really happens.
• WOCC is looking for sponsorship to rebuild their kitchen.  Right now, they are burning charcoal as fuel but this is seriously polluting the environment and health of the residents.  They would love to rebuild a better kitchen but that would cost them around US$3000.