Pete and Chon's Asia Vacation: Sunrise Angkor Children's Village in Siem Reap

Sunrise Angkor Children's Village in Siem Reap, Cambodia

This holiday we wanted to do something different. Having heard about some of our friends and families charity work, we decided to look into donating money directly to a charity and after looking into our destinations, we decided to visit Sunrise Angkor Children's Village in Siem Reap. We had never done anything like this before so we were not even sure how much to donate. Chon came up with the idea to add to the donation by making and selling curry puffs and spring rolls with her Mother's help and they also cooked for 10 people. We ended up raising $1,600 AUD where our donation was the cost of the ingredients and a little more so we didn't deduct anything from what we sold/raised. The preferred currency in Cambodia is US Dollars, so that left us just shy of $1,500 USD after the conversion but we just made it a whole figure.

Sunrise Angkor Children's Village (SCV) in Siem Reap is the second such centre set up by Geraldine Cox and her staff in Cambodia and is known as SCV 2. It is much smaller than SVC 1 (located just outside Phom Phen) but it is an amazing place dedicated to helping disadvantaged children in the area. We learnt that there are currently 67 children living in the centre ranging from 1 and half years old to 17 years old. When they turn 18 they are housed outside the village but are still supported by SCV and assisted with further education and employment opportunities.

In addition to directly looking after the 67 children, this centre also has additional children that are disadvantaged who study and are cared for by the staff but still live with their families. SCV 2 supports a near by school with what little money they can as a side project and they offer services to the wider community such as access to a small library. The children get a private education including English classes, the centre has a computer class to teach basic IT skills, there is a library, musical instruments and a teacher (including traditional instruments that I am not going to even attempt to pronounce), a theatre for traditional dancing lessons and performances from the kids, a court area to play volleyball or soccer, a kitchen/dining area with cooking classes, dormitories for boys and seperate dormitories for girls as well as admin areas and offices. Basically they teach the kids a variety of skills that will set them up for life and it was an amazing experience just to see this small centre in action.

We met the general manager Mr Sokheng Boun, his office assistant Mr Dy Vorn and a trainee assistant Mr Soky who is a very talented young 17 year old man who is in training to be a staff member but also one of the older children at SVC 2. Soky had recently won a traditional dance competition in Siem Reap against over 80 entrants and is a talented musician. Soky uses sites like YouTube to teach himself western style hip hop dancing and how to play the guitar. As SCV 2 is still relatively young, Soky is a perfect example of how much this place can help Cambodia's children.

Dy, with Soky in tow, drove us to a local office supply store to purchase a large amount of educational material using the $1,500 USD that we had. After buying enough to supply the kids with almost a year's worth of material they then drove us to the local market to buy things like school shoes, school bags, socks, thongs (flip flops as non-Australians call them) and mosquito nets. The results of our three hour spending spree can be seen below. They were so appreciative of our small donation and we felt so welcomed and privileged to be their guests. What Geraldine and the wonderful SVC staff are doing in Cambodia is amazing. If you want to know more, please visit their website www.scv.org.au (If anyone knows of somone who knows how to repair a piano and is travelling to Siem Reap, please contact SCV 2 so the children can use it again).

Thank you for everyone who helped raise the money, your support was well received by staff and children at Sunrise Angkor Children's Village.

The items we purchased with the $1,500 USD and some of the children. Mr Sokheng Boun is on the far right and the I.T. teacher on the left

The office supply shop.

Mr Dy Vorn ordering school books.

Bags of thongs we purchased at the market.

After unloading the van. The murals on their walls are designed by the children and painted by a proffesional. They would like to do more but paint is expensive.