By Sita ter Horst | Program and Communications Manager
Home is where the heart is
After the move and official opening at the beginning of August, we have been able to really make our new school feel like HOME for all of our staff and students!
It has been difficult to say goodbye to our old school site, but we take with us all of our memories in our hearts AND we wouldn’t be in Cambodia if we didn’t think about ways to creatively re-use and recycle everything and anything that we could from the old location!
Our students happily helped to get bricks, woods and other materials from the old site to be re-used on our new site. No matter how young or old, all students were eager to help in any way they could.
We've also had some wonderful help with decorating the school by our volunteers from Durham University, who have spent some time painting a classroom wall and our toilet block. Our students love the result, which is colorfol and education at the same time!
Running for our school
On the 25th August, to kick-off this new chapter for Helping Hands in a fun and interactive way, Helping Hands organized the very first Helping Hands Temple Run!
This fun and sportive challenge, in which teams of Helping Hands students competed against each other in a relay-race around the Prasat Char Temple in the village, was organized FOR and BY the Helping Hands staff and students, in order to raise much needed funds for our programs.
Not only did we raise over US$700, that will go towards our much needed running costs, it was also an amazing and fun day for our students to get active, have fun together and to unite for the future of their school.
Another BIG Thank you to all who sponsored our running teams!
Watch the in-action video of the Temple Run 2017 here.
Hard work pays off.
We are very proud of our teachers, who have all worked so immensely hard in the past months to ensure the new school got up and running, doing extra tasks in coordinating additional building activities, all besides just running their normal class schedules and doing lesson planning too!
At Helping Hands we find it important to celebrate successes, but also give our staff opportunities for growth and professional development.
That’s why in the next academic year, starting for Helping Hands at the beginning of December, some of our teachers will be taking on new and exciting responsibilities. Thorng, Khmer Basic Teacher, will start teaching some English Basic Classes and Sopheap will take on more responsibilities in coordinating the Education Program.
On World Teacher Day we celebrated these successes with the teachers and supporting staff, who work just as hard, by cooking together, and Project Coordinator Nang organized a fun Lucky Draw game. Even the students contributed to celebrate and honour their teachers by helping cook and donating some food & drinks for the occasion.
Celebrating wonderful achievements
In October, at the end of this Academic year, 11 of our eldest students graduated from Helping Hands and their Secondary School with great success.
On the 20th October their parents, teachers, brothers and sisters, other HH students, Scholarship students and Village and Government school representatives witnessed the celebration of success of these 11 champions, who successfully completed Helping Hands’ English Pre-Intermediate Program.
It is indescribable how immensely proud we are of each and every one of them. It feels as if it was yesterday that they were just learning their ABC’s, and now look at them - they are strong and independent young adults, ready to embark onto their next exciting adventure: High School.
We let them go with a smile and a tear – but are 100% positive that they will succeed in all that the future may bring them. And we never say goodbye forever, as we will keep up to date with their where-abouts and some of them might even come back to volunteer at the school for a few hours per week!
Help us reach our goal – Helping Hands End-Of-Year Giving Challenge
The end of the year is coming up, and so is our very exciting 2017 End-of-Year Fundraising Campaign.
In order for Helping Hands to continue doing great work at our wonderful new school and optimizing our site by installing solar power and a plumbing system, there are still many funds to raise!
That is why, for the 2017 end-of-year campaign we will be taking on the challenge of raising our total remaining running costs for the year PLUS the costs for these two additional projects – the total of which will be announced shortly - in the form of monthly giving.
If just 150 of our followers and supporters would sign up as monthly givers for, for example $25 a month, we can already run sustainably for a whole year!
Will you help us achieve this wonderful goal? You can already start helping by signing up as a monthly donor.
Keep an eye on this space and our Facebook Page as we will announce more detailed information on this truly exciting End-Of-Year Campaign for Helping Hands.
A big thank you from the team for all your amazing ongoing support, we couldn't do all the work we do without you!
Sita, Nang, Chris, Sopheap and all the teachers, other staff and students!
By Simon Hare | Development Director, Globalteer
By Simon Hare | Development Director
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