Arts for Cambodian Children & Teens at Champey

Champey Reopening ! 

In early 1999, when we first started supporting arts instruction for children In Phnom Penh, most people in the country, even in the capitol city, were still desperately poor. Consequently, most of our students in those early days came from very poor families and had few other opportunities for amusement or free instruction of any kind.  Many of our students in those days were too poor to attend even the government schools and, instead, performed some sort of paid labor in the mornings and came to our arts programs in the afternoons. 

One of our first dance teachers when we opened Champey Academy in January 2013 had originally been a dance student at the Apsara Arts Association school which was sponsored by Kasumisou Foundation from 1999 to 2012.  That girl learned to dance in the afternoons at Apsara Arts after spending the morning with her brothers – those children were orphans - pulling a rubbish cart around the streets of Phnom Penh to collect recyclables which they then sold at the city dump to support themselves.   Now, though, as Cambodia’s economy has developed and a middle class has emerged in Phnom Penh, many of the students who study at our Champey Academy of Arts come from middle class families. 

We still have many students who  come from very poor families.  In this program update, we would like to share just a little about two of those students.

Ms. P and Ms. S  are two sisters ages 14 and 11.  When the government schools in Phnom Penh reopen after the pandemic closing, Ms. P will be in grade 6 and Ms. S will be in grade 3.  Ms. P  is the third child in her family  and Ms. S is the fourth child in a family of six children.  The oldest two children in the family are boys , who are currently Buddhist monks.

Their father is a construction worker which means that due to the Covid related shutdowns, his work in the past 18 months has  been sporadic at best.  The girls’ mother sells birdseed and canned soft drinks on the street in front of the Royal Palace to tourists and other people.  The period of the pandemic has been especially tough for families like this one as the government imposed shutdowns have frequently impacted their ability to earn any income. 

For this family in particular, with the two oldest kids being monks and thus having no income,  there is significant pressure on the other kids to try to earn money to help the family.  Consequently, although Ms. P and Ms.S love to study dance and have been students at Champey for more than four years, they must periodically skip classes at our school to help their mother sell bird seed on the street.  For serious and committed students like Ms.P and Ms. S, though, we do offer very small monthly stipends usually $20 to $30 per month to make certain that they can have something for lunch every day and maybe have just a very little pocket money left over. It also helps to prevent children like these two sisters from being pulled out of school to work full time. The stipend is  often just enough to make it " worth while" to keep  children  in school.  Although Champey’s main mission is to teach arts and crafts to disadvantaged children and youth, the social safety net  that it provides is an important part of safeguarding the well being of our students.

Cambodia, for the time being, seems to  turned the corner on COVID and things are beginning to open up. Our students are eagerly returning to classes and we are all hopeful to get back to normal.

Your loyal support over the past 18 months has been a crucial part of retaining our teachers  and supporting classes so that we can resume our classes.

We are deeply grateful to you all for your loyal support.

Mark and Barbara

Continuing challenges caused by the Covid virus endanger  the survival of our school.

In accordance with the government's lockdown orders, we were required to close our school for one month - from April 7 until May 6.  We were able to open for about one week but then, due to the increasing spread of the COVID  virus in Phnom Penh, the government again ordered a partial lockdown and we again had to close our school - this time from May 14 to June 14.

Our school  have now been open again for two weeks but student attendance is very light.  Most of the students in the drawing/painting class complete their work at home and then bring their art work to Champey for the teacher to make suggestions and corrections.  Currently, very few students actually attend in-person class in the drawing/painting class.

Our music classroom is too small and confined to allow us to safely teach a full class so most music students show up only occasionally and rarely are there more than one or two students at a time.

On the dance stage, our numbers are similarly reduced with only five to ten students in attendance for each class, down from usual  pre-COVID attendance of  80 to 90 students..

The Cambodian government is pursuing a fairly aggressive vaccination plan so we are hoping that the combination of limited lockdowns and growing vaccination numbers will soon stop the spread of the virus in the Phnom Penh area and things can then start to return to something closer to normal at our school.

Loss of tourist revenue is a big hit for the school

Tourist revenue historically provides an average of  35% of our operating revenue. However, at this point, the start of the next tourism high season in Fall 2021  looks very much in doubt.  In total, our revenue from tourist visitors - through the admission fees which they pay and the money which they put into the donation boxes as well as their purchases in our little souvenir shop - accounts for about 35% of Kasumisou Foundation's annual income.  Now, having lost the entire season for 2020/2021, we are extremely concerned  if  we can survive 2021/2022 if we have  even a partial tourism season.

We are hoping that we can increase donations enough to be able to keep this program alive.

On July 14, GlobalGiving will host a donor match day and will match donations on a tiered basis:

• $100-$499 donations will receive a 15% match
• $500-$749 donations will receive a 30% match
• $750-$1000 donations will receive a 50% match

We are hopeful that you will consider participating in the Match Day as we try to survive these daunting challenges.  

We are deeply grateful to you , our kind donors for your generous support.

Mark & Barbara

Links:

• Kasumisou Gallery ~ a Community Partner revenue sharing donor