Cambodian Community Dream Organization, Inc.

Dream Journal – April 2024

Happy Khmer New Year

In mid April, our Cambodian team will be celebrating the start of a new year with cleaning and decorating their homes to usher out bad luck and bring in good for the next year. They will be visiting their families and paying respect to their ancestors in pagodas and temples. 

As we celebrate the Khmer New Year, we would like to pay respect and say a big thank you to our generous donors and sponsors.

Scholarship Sponsor

Imagine our utter shock and joy when in response to our last month’s plea for not one but two scholarships we got a quick and the most wonderful response by a very generous sponsor who stepped up to advance $8,000 to ensure the university education of our two boys Rithy and Chak! The tidy sum so very kindly also provides extra funds for food supplies for their hard working, but struggling care givers. The boys are over the moon to know that their dreams will be realized and they promise to make their sponsor proud.

1000 School Uniforms

What a wonderful New Year’s gift 1000 disadvantaged Cambodian children will receive! Uniforms for Hope has generously donated $10,000 to buy uniforms for 1,000 children. While public school in Cambodia is free, each child is expected to have a uniform and school supplies, which can be difficult to purchase for some rural families. 

A huge thanks to Maureen Maloof for her continued effort to ensure that kids are proudly able to go to school with their new uniforms and feel like they belong. 

English Literacy Program

Child’s Dream Cambodia has been supporting our work to improve Cambodian education and ensuring that rural children have the opportunity to learn English. They have reviewed our detailed reports and generously funded $250,000 for our English Literacy Training Program (ELTP) for the next 3 years. CCDO has started training teachers in two new districts close to Siem Reap, Anlong Veng district in Ordor Meanchey province with 141 teachers and Sotnikum District on the outskirts of Siem Reap with 206 teachers. A total of 347 teachers will be trained to provide a much higher and more engaging level of English teaching. 

Our team is working in the field with 114 schools and spreading our English Curriculum methodology. 

Rotary Toilet Block

Our very active and hard-working partner Rotary Club Sentosa is on a roll. They have successfully processed another Rotary Global Grant of $35,694 to build yet another 5 toilet blocks in rural schools. Hopefully by the end of 2024, we will have processed another 2 grants each with 5 toilet blocks. That would make a total of 44 toilet blocks for 44 schools. 

Staff News

Our Social Enterprise Coordinator Uon Bou got into a motorbike accident when he swerved to avoid hitting a dog. He had various injuries including broken ribs and a broken clavicle. He underwent surgery and is healing well but is not allowed to drive the motorcycle for a month which prevents him from doing his field work. A big thanks to our team who have taken on extra responsibilities to work his schedule while he recovers fully. We truly have a Dream Team who look after each other.