top of page

Activities 2023

★ The latest article will be listed below.

January

We visit our foster children in Kratie. In the dry season, the water of Mekong has decreased and the sandy shore has spread.

 

We’ve introduced our children a foreign culture to send greetings and wishes each other at seasonal occasions. This time children made a new year greeting card to their supporting parents in abroad.

 

Whiting about their most impressive experience in the last year and setting a goal of new year. Decorating a card with seasonal pictures…

April

Right before Khmer new year holiday, our activity with children this time had 2 contents: ① to add a little more explanation to the composition that children wrote in January and ② to decorate a name panel that children carry at the time of photo-taking.  

 

For making a name panel, we used watercolors. It’s their first time to use this art materials. They decorated with paintbrushes, lumps of cloth, and stamps made from fallen leaves.  Children made many discoveries by using watercolors.   

We also prepared bread as souvenirs for the new year.

August

BBE implemented the health growth check for toddlers and preschoolers from about 1 year and half to 4 years old in a rural area.

 

We have started to introduce the health checks for primary school children, but it is also important to regularly check the health condition and development status for smaller children.

 

We visited villages and covered 50 children.  Exam contents include height, weight, head or chest circumference, dental condition, some simple cognitive skills, and gross and fine motor skills.

 

Although such tests are new to rural populations, we are glad if parents and other family members to become aware of what skills their children are expected to acquire at what ages.

September (1)

We had a word game with primary school children from 3rd to 6th grades, in cooperation with teachers.  

 

This is a game to find a specific picture card among many other cards. First of all, every child is assigned with some Khmer alphabets, such as ក, ខ, គ...  And each child tries to make up a sentences starting with the particular Khmer letter.  Then he/she draws a picture representing that sentence.  The sentence card and picture card are 1 pair.

 

After children make card pairs, all sentence cards go to teacher.  Picture cards are laid on the table/floor.  When a teacher reads out a sentence, children look for the paired card of that sentence and get it.

 

At the time of actually playing, the children are divided into groups and play with cards other than those they themselves made.  The game was very exciting, in all groups.  This program aims to enhance children’s vocabulary, creativity, expression, and concentration.  

September (2) 

We visited foster children in the island.  In Kratie province, the water level of the Mekong River has been still calm, and the people of the island was feeling relieved as they finished harvesting corn before the flooding caused damage.

 

This time, we made bookmarks together with our foster children.  There are 3 types: 1) a simple one folded with fun-patterned paper, 2) a heart-shaped bookmark that is a little difficult to fold, and 3) a creative bookmark with sea-themed collage.  We worried that cutting and gluing colored papers might be difficult for the children, but many of them did well.

Beautiful and fun-patterned paper, pretty ribbons, and sparkling glitter. This time, we wanted children to expand their artistic sensibilities with such things.

 

We hope they will enjoy opening their textbooks with those handmade bookmarks.

September (3) 

We'd been thinking about taking our foster children to the Angkor ruins for some time.  Those are the nation's greatest cultural heritage and the source of national pride, but many do not have an opportunity to visit there in their lifetime.

 

We are currently supporting 49 children thanks to the generous support of foster parents, but due to budget constraints, we were only able to take 9 from the upper grades this time.  In Siem Reap, we visited Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Ta Prohm temple with a tour guide. Afterwards, we visited a social enterprise founded for the aim of overcoming poverty, and learned how handicrafts are being made.

 

We believe that the children’s perspectives have greatly expanded as they have touched the deep history of their own nation and various ways of thinking.  We'd like to continue this program so that as many children as possible can have this experience.

November 

We had a medical service activity with a Japanese medical group.  We cooperated them in terms of recruiting local volunteer staffs to work with the group.  Medical professionals, medical students, and general social adults participated.

 

For those medical volunteers, we can benefit them to share or provide some medical experiences.  But most importantly, we can learn together how to help each other (even among the group not only helping patients) and work together with sincerity. 

 

The service in a remote rural area was for two days.  Some helped foreign doctors with interpretation and preparation of treatment, while a local pharmacist was in charge of our pharmacy, and a local internship doctor treated many patients.

December 

We visited our foster children in Kratie.  At the end of the year, we have them reflect their achievement of the year and think specifically about how they can grow next year. 

 

Next, following an introduction to foreign culture, the children made Christmas cards.  There were a lot of works involved, such as measuring the length using a ruler, folding, cutting, and gluing the paper.  In particular, dyeing folded paper was a new activity for them.  We also explained the concepts of primary and secondary colors, and children experienced how radially folded paper was dyed.

 

We wish peace for these children, and every innocent people all over the world…

bottom of page