Music Training Therapy Blind Youth Cambodia

Dear very Kind Donors,

Thank you all for supporting our School, so that we can take care of our Blind Children and Youth.

Recently a very kind donor gave the gift of special walking sticks for our Blind Students, so that they could step forth into the unknown with more confidence. These special sticks are not easy to come by in Cambodia and so we were very grateful for this kindness.

As you can see from one of our photographs, our Blind Students also sing and play Mohori and Pin Peat Instruments to accompany our other Children when they learn and perform Classical Cambodian Ballet and Folk Dance. To be a Musician in this sense, is to require great skill, even more so, because our Blind Students must feel and sense what is happening with the Dancers, because they cannot see them.

Our Students also accompany our Lakoun Sabaik Touch (Small Shadow Puppet Theatre), which is interspersed with bursts of joyful Music woven between dialogues.

We also have a dear Girl who lost the sight in one eye due to a dreadful episode of domestic violence when she was a little child. Recently, in her 17th year, with much stoicism and resilience, she underwent many specialist visits 137km away in the capital Phnom Penh, first to have the damaged eye "tatooed", using a special, avant-guarde method to give it colour, (as it was all white) and then to have a special lens fitted. She also practices eye exercises every day, to help the muscles of the damaged eye to widen, so that that eye does not close on itself. This long Journey of quiet courage lasted several months and was sponsored by wonderful, kind people too. For her privacy, we cannot put her name or photograph.

Many are the heart-breaking stories of our Children. Things that only we know within in our School and the relevant authorities. Much we have seen and witnessed of the horrors that exist in the world. We never close the door on any Child who has such need. Nor do we ever close the door on a parent with young Children or Child, who has been suffering domestic violence or abuse and needs shelter.

Yet though each Child has known great suffering, including our Blind Youth, our School is not a place of gloom, but a place of Peace and of Love. A Sacred place of Healing. Music peals out and mingles with the sound of the many little Birds who sing in our large tree-filled garden. It is though that here Music is a Light, indeed.

Links:

• Official website
• Official Facebook