C.H.O.I.C.E

Today we decided to do some good by lending a hand to choice. Choice is a charitable humanitarian organisation in Cambodia by expats. Ross Wright the founder is a great guy, he does so much to help the poorest villages around Phnom Penh. Although he hopes to do so much more he is short of funds and man power.

We started our day with a hour long bus journey out of the city to the rural Phnom Penh province where choice have set up their education centre,
there Ross kindly gave us a tour explaining how the centre is run. He first took us to see his dental room which is newly set up. In here was one dental chair which had been donated by a person in Malaysia who also payed for the chair to be sent out with an engineer to install all the equipment worths tens of thousands of dollars. One instrument alone cost $20,000. The dental room is open every second Saturday for routine examinations, teeth removals, and too improve local hygiene.

Next door we were shown the sewing room this consisted of around six sewing machines with local girls being payed and trained to make goods. The girls are currently making pouches to hold jewellery and Ross is trying to set up contracts with jewellers in Germany to buy their product.

Moving on to the computer suite we were shown another class full of girls learning to use I.T design programs. It was good to see the class was full as it was the school holidays and the girls had chosen to go in their spare time and learn.

We briefly walked through the kitchen which was a shelter in the back garden that housed two small open fire stoves to cook for 40 to 50 children daily. On the stove lay a huge wok shaped pan full of a creamy sauce and veg. The centre is trying to grow their own vegetable garden to become more self-sufficient.

There were two more rooms left to see. A room teaching English and German then there was a nursery. Mel and I decided to call into the nursery to see what the children were up too. As we entered the teacher was giving out pieces of paper and colouring pencils. I offered to help the lady, not that she needed help but to get involved and interact with the children. That turned out to be hard work with the children running circles around me and stealing all the sheets. Once the paper was gone it was time to sit down and draw. There was a small amount of bickering over pencils with the girls having most and not sharing. The girls clearly rule the roost in this place. At first some children were slightly apprehensive about us being there but soon began to approach me asking me to draw for them, speaking in Khmer and broken English they pointed at a poster with the alphabet and pictures of animals on and wanting me to copy the drawing for them. I thought the idea was for them to draw, not for me to be stuck in the lime light and my pictures scrutinised. After a couple of drawings which turned out alright a little girl wanted a drawing of a girl sat down cross legged. I can't draw people for toffee but had to give it ago.. It was a disaster and the girl looked at me mortified as the two pictures had almost nothing in common. She never spoke to me again.

After a while a bell rang and the children rushed out of the room leaving us in the dust. It was time for dinner. I got outside and the children were all sat down in the playground around the edge of two mats waiting for lunch. The older children from the English and computer classes helped to organise the smaller children and gave out a bowl of rice, veg with beef and sauce. We payed $1 for our bowl which was really nice.

Heading into the afternoon the children played in the playground with frizzbies and footballs. The playground was relatively well kitted out having a sheltered area with a basketball hoop, a roundabout which Mel enjoyed. Next to the roundabout there were a couple of swings. All the children were happy playing and running around. One particular game they played was jumping over a string of elastic bands tied together and held up in the air. The children wore their flip flops on their hands for protection. Then they ran towards the elastic bands, jumped in the air to flick their foot over the bands in a kind of cart wheel motion, hoping to land on their hands on the other side of the elastic bands. A lady named Sue had brought a bag of transfer tattoos for the children. These proved very popular and most children spent some time queuing through their break for.

With the break coming to an end it was time for a cartoon movie and all the children were sat down in the classroom starring at the tv. The film was in English but they didn't seem to mind. At around 1:20pm the movie ended and it was time for the children to get ready to leave. They had to stand in two lines and sing the national anthem, before being herded into a extended tuk tuk and taken home.

I was given the opportunity to ride with the children in the tuk tuk which was great fun yet sad to see the conditions they live in. Their homes are very basic wooden huts without running water. For income the women mainly worked in rice fields and made products from straw and bamboo to sell at the market. The men were big drinkers, lazy and often left or abused their wives.

Once we had finished dropping the children at home we headed to another village to deliver water to the locals. Choice deliver around 50,000l or gal per month to people who can't use their own water due to harmful levels of bacteria. Further down the road Ross showed us a smaller class he had set up for street children who spend all night in Phnom Penh selling books and other produce to tourists, leaving them too tired to attend school in the morning. This class starts in the afternoon giving the children time to rest. After their long night it was good to see a class full of happy and enthusiastic children wanting to learn.

This concluded our day of volunteering and we all headed back to the city. The insight to what goes on to help these was excellent and we really enjoyed our day. We would well recommend visiting C.H.O.I.C.E to anybody.