WILL YOU BE THE DONOR OF OUR 1,000th WELL?
Only 40 more wells to go to reach this incredible milestone!
Get in on the "Game of Wells"! Put yourself or someone special on that well sign.  
  
Who's name will be on that sign?
A family with a donated well!
Water & Sanitation Tracker
Wells needed : 40 to reach our 1,000 well.
Latrines needed: 16

                     Jan  Feb Mar Apr  May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct  Nov   Dec 
Wells Built      8      5    6     5     12    15   4    18
Latrines Built  7      4   15    6       2    16   9     4
Calling all West Coast Volunteers
West Coast Volunteers invited to join our California Volunteer Mission to Cambodia in January 2016!

A group from San Francisco will be leaving on January 16th for two weeks of cultural immersion and volunteering in our village schools shaded by the temples of Angkor Wat.  If you want to be part of this special experience, see the details here.
Reports from the Ground
A Surprise Visit by Jenni in August
 
Flying in to Siem Reap and arriving at the office to see the staff hard at work at their desks was a lovely surprise all around. We had two volunteers leaving and one arriving, so a personal welcome was indeed welcome. A few days of personal attention coincided with the start of some new important initiatives.

The Clean Village Initiative
 
To encourage cleanliness in villages, the CCDO is running a "Clean Village Initiative". Initiated by our local staff, this plan is aimed at improving the health of our villages. We are supplying 829 families in 5 villages with big bio-degradable plastic bags and hand held trash pickers. The cleanest house each month receives a CCDO wicker basket.
A family receiving the CCDO wicker basket prize!

The Well Maintenance Program
The ladies maintaining a well!
We have been diligent in fixing our broken wells as well as tackling other NGO's abandoned wells. But as we know: An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure! So, we are implementing a new program of regular well inspections to replace worn moving parts or seals before they can cause a collapse.  Our WASH team has an ambitious schedule to inspect as many wells as possible this summer and fine tune the program by Fall. Hats off to our female community workers that quickly learned the ins and outs of the hand pump mechanics and joined our male colleagues on the WASH team.
  
Summer training for English Teachers and Sports Coaches

Our teachers and sports coaches juggled our summer school program with training opportunities. Our English teachers had hands on training with LRTT (Limited Resource Teacher Training) coordinated by our local partner ABOUT Asia Schools.

They not only participated in the workshops,
but proudly displayed in the classroom  
Teachers training with a small class
what they have been taught over the years at our own teacher training. All the volunteer trainers were impressed with our staff. Our two sports coaches were trained once again by the Coaches Across Continents Team coordinated by Globalteer Sports and they are continuing to improve their game.

Thank you to our staff for always coming out tops!
Annual Fundraiser at Slate NYC

 

A reminder to save the date of 2 November for our annual fundraiser.  This event will be held at Slate NYC at 54 W 21st Street from 6 - 9pm. Our Asian market is back so you can stock up on your Holiday Gifts with beautiful handicrafts from Cambodia and Thailand. Our live auction with amazing travel prizes as well as restaurant vouchers to whet your appetites should make for an exciting evening.  Bring your friends and make it a fun evening.
 
Thank you to all Scholarship Sponsors!
Scholarship 2015

Thanks to our generous sponsors all our scholarship school students got support for the next school year.
A shout out goes to  Pavel Kadera, Silvie Motejlkova,  Mirek Motejlek,  Sally Swanson, Merrill Petrow, David & Eileen Peretz &  Mary Virginia Christakos. A big thank you to our continuing sponsors Daniel Chiong, Starr Moore, Sue Griffin and especially Maxine Marron. We were very pleased with the end of the year school results. 

Our scholarship students are amongst the best in their respective classes, with many placing in the top 10 slots!

Thank you for your generous donations!
  
A big thanks for Daniel for his continued support!
Daniel Chiong and Jenni met in a hotel elevator 2 years ago.  Since then, Daniel has been an avid supporter of CCDO.  

He has been proudly sponsoring 4 high school kids for the last two years as well as collecting and sending us 40 lbs of new or used clothes for the kids each month.  We give out the clothes to the poorest students as well as the ones that are the best or the most improved in their class.  It is an added incentive for them to do well and Daniel soon found out that jeans are in the highest demand. He has also donated used computers, and is always willing to step in when a need arises. He is a great ambassador for our cause in his hometown of Singapore. Thank You Daniel!

Celebrating Volunteers
Goodbye Trin & Jake and Hello to Amanda!
 
Sadly we said goodbye to Trinetta Chong, our amazing Forgotten Intl Fellow, who for 3 months worked day and night to complete some mammoth tasks. We got statistical proof that our students who participate in English and Sports have a better BMI (Body Mass Index) score and better school results.
Jake Seamann, in his quiet way, worked with our English students and made learning fun with various games that he developed. Watching some of his teaching techniques when the kids would smile and shout the answers to a word BINGO was a joy to see.
 
Our new long term volunteer Program Director, Amanda Simpson 
from Australia has hit the ground running. She not only got down on hands and knees to really deep clean the office, but has organized files and set up some new processes and reporting in the office.  She has made some wonderful videos and is in charge of volunteers, visitors, Facebook as well as our Women's Workshops. She recently adopted a little puppy and we hope that this will be an added incentives her to stay a while.
Say Hello to Amanda!

School Construction Update
Computer safety cages have been installed in our new Computer Lab.  This is done so that all the computers remain in place with no chance of having them walking out the door. Our solar panels are now installed and our teachers are putting the final touches to their computer curriculum with the help of our friends at the Ponheary Ly Organization who are guiding us through the early stages.
 
We will be ready for the grand school opening in November.

Computer cages to house new laptops
Solar panels on the roof

Remember: Ordinary people can do extraordinary things that make a difference in the world, ONE CHILD AT A TIME!

Cambodian Child's Dream Organization