Disability Rights Cambodia Project #13106

Music Training Therapy Blind Youth Cambodia

by Khmer Cultural Development Institute

Project Report | Jul 7, 2021
Reaching out to our Community

By Catherine Louise Geach | Founder

Happy days when we could perform for the public.

Dear Kind Donors,

Although Covid has become very bad in Cambodia and in fact Kampot, where our school is, has the highest number of cases, yet Thankfully everyone at our school is doing well.

We thank you for your wonderful and continuous support, despite the challenges that our world is facing.

Our Blind Students are well and since I last wrote, two have graduated. One student took a place at teaching college and the other student having finished his short-term music course has returned to Phnom Penh.

Our children living in residence are carrying on with all their artistic activities and doing their school work at home, i.e. at our school, because all state schools are shut for the time being.

Cambodia is very badly affected economically by the continued shut-downs and in Kampot, many vulnerable people are on the brink of starvation. We have been given funds by Unicef and by Dak and we are providing food, cooking utensils and helping to pay basic amenities for 75 very impoverished families including nearly one hundred children, some of whom have disabilities and HIV.

Additionally we received funding from the Child Safe Alliance to provide fifty cooked meals and essential items to all homeless people in Kampot every day.

We cannot at the moment teach students from state school at our school, but we so hope that this will be possible soon and we wish upon the world much healing.

Thank you for all your support,

May you all be well!

Catherine Louise Geach (founder)

www.kcdi-cambodia.org (official website)

www.Facebook.com/KampotMusicSchool (official Facebook page)

Photographs taken by Steve Porte with permission of KCDI students and teachers.

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Mar 9, 2021
Report for GlobalGiving from Khmer Cultural Development Institute/#13106

By Catherine Geach | Founder

Chapey Dong Veng Lesson with KCDI blind students

Title: What Our Blind Students Have Been up to !

Dear Kind Donors, I hope that you are all well and safe? On behalf of our school, I wish for you and your families good-health and for the World, Healing!

Thank You all for so much for so kindly and generously continuing to support our School despite the pandemic. We are immensely Grateful!

In January of 2021, we began our Chapey Dong Veng Program for our Blind Students resident at our school. Their Teacher is himself blind and is a well-known Master of the Chapey Instrument in Kampot Province.

The Chapey Dong Veng is a Traditional Cambodian Instrument, which looks similar to (but is unrelated) a guitar. The Chapey Player learns to play chords with a special rhythm and harmony sequence as a base…then they learn to sing over that…but it isn’t just singing, it is in fact telling a story. Often Chapey players observe what is going on in their communities or in their country and sing humorous but quite pointed stories about the things that they perceive are unjust, funny, or the idiosyncrasies of their fellow human beings . It’s quite an art to first learn how to play the chord sequences and rhythms and then add the story. People love to listen to Chapey players (although there aren’t many left in Cambodia and most are elderly) because they can tell wonderful,relevant stories.

The Chapey instrument is particularly suited to blind people, because it is for a Solo Musician and there are no limits imposed.

Our students began learning with their Master in January and have started to make good progress…and get on very well with their Teacher. Learning this new instrument, is not just great fun and helps boost confidence, it is also a form of vocational training, adding to their skills as Mohori and Yike Musicians and Physiotherapists. Interestingly and fortunately, those students who have done best in Mohori and Yike have done less well in physiotherapy and one student who did less well in both these areas, is excelling in the Chapey, so that there is something for everyone!

With Best Wishes from Everyone at the Kampot Traditional Music School (KCDI)

Report by Catherine Louise Geach : (Founder)

Location: Kampot Town, Cambodia

Photo: Some of KCDI Students having their Chapey Lesson:

(Photo Taken with permission of our students and teacher/KCDI.)

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Nov 6, 2020
What Our Blind Students Have Been Up To

By Catherine Louise Geach | Founder

Physiotherapy training

Dear Kind Donors,

Thank you so much for your wonderful support through these difficult times.

Actually our school has stayed open and running, because we take care of very vulnerable children full-time, who have nowhere else safe to go. We take every safety precaution and we do not have visitors to our school in order to prevent Covid-19 infections from entering.

Our blind students who are mostly adolescents and youths, do have parents, although in their remote villages they have no access to education or rehabilitation. Some have also experienced unkindness and cruelty on the part of extended family or locals in their village because of their disability.

During lockdown in March, out of concern that our blind students, (some of whom have asthma) might be at risk of Covid 19, we organised that they stay with their parents until such time as was necessary. However by mid-May there were fewer cases of Covid in Cambodia and our students had started telephoning our school director Mr Sothy to say that they were bored and could they please come back to school!

Our blind students therefore all came back to school in mid May of this year. First they returned to their music studies at our school, then when state schools re-opened in September, they returned to their school lessons.Two of our youth who are blind have been accepted at the local university and we are supporting them as they stay at our school and study higher education. During high school and middle school blind students receive assistance from their Braille Teacher to get through their lessons. Our school supports the Braille Teacher. Once they get to university or college, they are autonomous in their skills at rapid Braille transcription and can manage without a guide.

A third student Piseth who is partially blind is also preparing to enter teaching college and we will support him as he does so,

We hire a special motortaxi to take all our blind students from our school to their different state schools and courses.

Until about January of this year, all our older students who are blind have been doing a course on physiotherapy (physical therapy), so that they can have extra skills, beyond music to earn a living. However due to Covid-19 this has been suspended, but will continue once it is safe to do so. Their first course was sponsored by the local Pharmacy Lida.

You can see a performance of Mohori Music by our students on our Facebook Page.

We also welcomed two new boys who are also blind to our school as well as seven little sighted children who have suffered abandonnment, or death of their parents, or domestic violence.

We have not yet returned to teaching the many children from outside our school from the local community, because of Covid-19. The risk of infection to our resident children, some of whom have HIV and other illness is a major factor in this decision.

If you would like to continue helping us, we are participating in GlobalGiving's #Giving Tuesday campaign on the 1st December. We are inviting everyone to donate to our main project, but funds received will also benefit our blind students too. #Giving Tuesday starts at 09:00 ET and ends at 23.59 ET.

https://www.globalgiving/projects/education-arts-orphan-disabled-children

Wishing you all well-being and good health.

From us all at the Kampot Traditional Music School.

* Photographs of KCDI students by kind courtesy of Steve Porte. These photographs were done with the permission of our students and staff at KCDI. We do not use full names in order to protect their privacy.

Mohori Music Class

Studying at school using Braille

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