Cambodian Community Dream Organization, Inc.

Dream Journal – September 2022

Happy Back to Real School Everyone

We wish a great return to school to our supporters in the Western Hemisphere. We hope you also feel its good to be back in the classroom and not on Zoom.  

At the start of this school year, will you consider making a small donation towards preschool equipment? 

We are finishing building our sixth village preschool and would like to make sure our preschoolers have some learning, play, and handicraft supplies. Our teachers are well-trained and very creative using rocks, leaves and plastic bottles, but having some real toys and colored paper would be a great treat!

Women Empowerment Program Home Visits

In the month of August, our indefatigable ladies, Salorm & Sovoan together with local authorities visited 200 families from 10 villages in 3 different communities. The follow-up home visits after community workshops are important for families of women who are unsure about receiving public services at a health center, and/or at commune hall. The team explains and encourages them to apply for the service as well as to get the women and the local authority to be connected so that the women know where to ask for the service and get help when they have problems. 

Women are also encouraged to take action and start small village businesses.

Mrs. Makara is a prime example of the success of the program. Read about her story & watch the video on how she has started raising hens and ducks and making baskets. The impact of the program indirectly has improved the lives of over 19,000 people.

Thanks to Soroptimist International who are funding our Life Skills & Women Empowerment program with over 2,400 marginalized women and girls in the project.

Our Newest College Graduates 

We are very proud of our newest twelve university graduates. We are ever so grateful for the support of their sponsors, who with their long-standing generosity saw these village children first attend high school and then go to the big city for four years of university. We hear often from our scholarship students that they want to give back to their community once they graduate. Here are two prime examples of our graduates doing just that.

Meit Soum studied Environmental Science and now she returned home to help in her community by working for HALO Trust Cambodia. HALO trust is working on Mine clearance in Cambodia. She is working as an Environment Project Assistant. The Environment Project in HALO Trust is one of the Projects of HALO Global Environment. She provides environmental lessons to the communities and schools around the Monk’s Forest.

Khoeun Kamsot studied Social Work and now he works as a social worker for UNICEF’s Case Worker and Family Reunification program. He promotes planning for permanent placement of orphans and abandoned children, through foster care, kinship care, and facilitating domestic adoption. He works closely with the Commune Committees for Women and Children to identify vulnerable children in the families, in order to prevent unnecessary family separation.

Donors 

A special thanks to Cordelia Chang who donated $5,000 to install a latrine and washstand in one of her two sponsored preschools as well as supplying equipment for the two preschools.

Thanks to SE Asia Foundation who donated $8,000 to continue our Mobile Library program for the year. 

A huge thanks to the Katz Foundation who continue to supply significant funds for our breakfast program and allow us to move to a second district with their $50,587 donation. Thanks to Gail Uilkema of Lantern Projects who facilitated this grant.

Staff News

Welcome Mariny Potatah, who has joined the CCDO team as the new computer teacher at Ta Brok Primary School. We have 240 students who love their digital lessons.