CamKids Xmas Appeal

The credit crunch is hitting charities hard at the moment, with many donors understandably cutting back on their spending. In addition, for charities like ours, whose expenditure is linked to the US Dollar, our income is being badly eroded by the fall in the value of the £.

If you feel that you can help us to help a child in Cambodia, please give whatever you feel you can afford. A small amount really does go a long way in Cambodia - for example, £3 is enough to send a child to school at our Education Project in Takeo for a whole year!! We can assure you that any amount you raise will be put to great use. At CamKids, we are all volunteers, have all of our services donated to us and so we can guarantee that 100% of any money you raise will go DIRECTLY to the children.

Lots of our supporters have decided to ask friends and family to make donations to CamKids, rather than send them presents this year. If you would also like to do this, please ask them to make the payment to our JustGiving Xmas Appeal site: www.justgiving.com/camkids.

Alternatively, you can set up your own JustGiving site in favour of CamKids, so that you can keep track on how much you have raised. Just go to: www.justgiving.com/tccc. Much easier than chasing people for cash and sending off a cheque. It is quick and easy and means that you don’t need to chase your sponsors / donors for the money. If you are a UK taxpayer, JustGiving will reclaim an additional 28% in Gift Aid from the UK government, on our behalf.

Thank you for supporting CamKids – we are really grateful to all of our friends and supporters and the Trustees would like to wish you a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.

New Project - Who Will Children's Village

The slideshow below shows the construction of the first house at a new Cambodian NGO, Who Will's Children's Village, which is supported by CamKids and which I visited on my recent trip to Cambodia.

The village will ultimately comprise 10 family houses and ancillary accommodation to enable the project to function as any normal local village community. Each house will have three children’s bedrooms, a supervisor’s suite of bedroom and en-suite shower room and a kitchen/living room.

Initially each of these will have a house mother with space for up to 12 children. The house mother will be responsible for bringing up her family as if their true mother. She will buy the food from the market, cook, clean and generally be their mother.

As the project evolves, the house mothers will be replaced by married couples with a maximum of 2 of their own children. They will be offered occupation rights to each house that will be conditional on them agreeing to “foster” up to 8 disadvantaged or orphaned children. These couples will probably be from poor local families so should have good connections in the area. Who Will will retain a supervisory role with a local Village Manager living in the village to ensure that the standard of nutrition, health, education and discipline matches the strict rules/code of conduct that will be established.

Ultimately, the directors of Who Will expect that this village will appear to be just another country village and it will be fully integrated into the community and the children will not carry the unjustified stigma of “coming from an orphanage”. Who Will’s role in the future management will likely entail subsidising food and education costs in addition to its general supervisory position.

CamKids is proud to be supporting this project, which is run by a board of directors in Cambodia, which includes a long-term friend of the charity and former Chairman of Sunrise Orphanage in Phnom Penh.

Mark Purser

CamKids Trustee

CamKids wins funding from Gulf For Good

Gulf for Good (G4G), is a charitable organisation based in Dubai, which organises international challenge events to raise money for worthwhile causes in the area in which the challenge takes place.

CamKids is pleased to announce that it has been selected by G4G as the recipient of the next event, The Great Asian Cycling Challenge, which takes place from 26 March to 4 April 2009 in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Starting at the ancient city of Ho Chi Minh (formerly known as Saigon), participants will ride through the heartland of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta on paved, small country roads along the flat river valley of the Co Chien River. More flat roads, with a few short small hills surrounded by shimmering rice paddies will take them to the border with Cambodia, via Temples and Khmer villages to the magnificent ruins of the Angkor Wat Temple complex. The last day will take the participants along an excellent route on dirt and sand tracks and rural paved road through typical Cambodian countryside.

This will be G4G's 24th challenge. The challenges have included trekking, cycling & kayaking adventures in Morocco, Egypt, India, Tanzania, Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, the UAE, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Peru. So far, around 400 people of 30 different nationalities have taken part, ranging in age from 15 to 70. Over £700,000 has been raised for charities in the above and neighbouring countries.

For more details about the challenge, please follow THIS LINK.

Al Murray - Benefit for CamKids at The Brewery in London

LAST 50 TICKETS REMAINING @ £95 each plus VAT to CamKids fans and supporters, including food & booze (full price is £150).

Join us and The Pub Landlord – Al Murray for an afternoon of fun and Christmas cheer at the Brewery on Chiswell Street on Friday 5th December. Hosted by Dr Kevin Jones.

There will be a pints for the gents and a glass of white wine for the ladies!

Al's TV show, Happy Hour, has won a British Comedy award and a National Television award.

You and your guests are guaranteed an afternoon of fun and laughter with one of the UKs finest comedians.

We look forward to welcoming you on the day.

ALL HAIL TO THE ALE !

To book: call MBN Promotions on 0161 926 9569 or email sales@mbnpromotions.co.uk. Mention CamKids when you book, to receive the specially discounted price.

New Futures Organisation

During a recent visit to Cambodia, I spent a few days in Takeo, about 2 hours South-West of the capital Phnom Penh, to visit the New Futures Organisation (NFO), which CamKids is now supporting.

NFO consists of an orphanage for 55 children and a nearby Vocational Training and drop-in centre. Some of the children in the orphanage are in their teens and so the aim is to try to equip them with the necessary skills and training to find work when it is time for them to leave. Sponsorship has already been secured to fund the cost of putting some of the children through college, including medical training. However, many more long-term donors are needed to secure the futures of these children.

CamKids is now funding the monthly food costs for all of the children and is also making available our donation collection and payment systems to NFO, to allow them to receive donations in the UK, Australia and the US, without any deductions for administration costs or funds transfer fees. In addition, we have also extended our child sponsorship programme to the younger children at NFO and are helping to find sponsors for those children who are able to secure places at college.

NFO welcomes volunteers from all around the world with particular skills or just the enthusiasm to help with whatever is needed at the time and to help teach English to the children. At the Centre, there are 8 rooms for visitors and volunteers. Guests are charged $5 per night and this helps to cover some of the running costs of the orphanage and the Centre. Alternatively, volunteers can stay at one of the nearby guest houses. Reports from the volunteers have all confirmed what an enjoyable and fulfilling time they have had and many have returned in the following year to stay for longer.

If you would like to volunteer for a day, a week or a year, please contact: neville@newfuturesorganisation.com. If you would like to sponsor a child, a college student or support our work with NFO in any other way, please send an e-mail to sponsorship@camkids.org.

Mark Purser
CamKids Trustee

Quantum of Solace - Exclusive Charity Gala Screening

Northwest Vision and Media and ODEON – the UK’s largest cinema operator – are delighted to be joining forces to host an exclusive charity screening of the latest Bond installment, Quantum of Solace, on Thursday 30th October – the day before the hotly anticipated blockbuster goes on national release at cinemas across the UK.

Northwest Vision and Media works on behalf of the digital and creative industries in the Northwest to grow a world-class digital and creative economy within the region. It has teamed up with the city’s brand new 14-screen state-of-the-art cinema, ODEON Liverpool ONE – located at the heart of the Liverpool ONE complex – to celebrate its opening and raise money for two extremely worthwhile charities, First Light Movies and CamKids.

The exclusive charity gala screening promises to be the event to be seen at this year. Stars of the small screen are tipped to be in attendance, as well as Liverpool’s very own Bond girls – modelling the latest collections from the array of stylish shops situated within Liverpool ONE.

VIP tickets to this special event are priced at £25* and include admittance to the film as well as the essential cinema treats, from ODEON Liverpool ONE. Guests will also be invited to dance the night away at a private after-party hosted by the city’s most desirable hot spot, Kingdom. All proceeds from ticket sales will be divided equally between First Light Movies and CamKids.

Phil Westhead, General Manager of ODEON Liverpool ONE, says: “We’re thrilled to be celebrating the recent opening of ODEON Liverpool ONE with an exclusive screening of the most exciting film of the year. The fact that it’s supporting two such worthwhile causes makes it all the more special – we can’t wait to throw our doors open and invite Liverpool’s film fanatics to be a part of the celebrations.”

Doors open at 7.30pm with the screening starting at 8.00pm prompt.

* Tickets for the exclusive charity gala screening of the next Bond adventure, Quantum of Solace, can be purchased on ODEON’s website odeon.co.uk, via the ODEON Filmline on 0871 22 44 007 or by calling in at the ODEON Liverpool ONE cinema box office. A limited number of tickets are available on a first come first served basis.

Vision and Media, which chose CamKids as its charity of the year for 2008, also have a limited number of premier tickets available, priced at £40. This includes your seat and admittance to the pre and post screening private parties. To purchase one of these exclusive tickets, email 007@visionandmedia.co.uk. For more information visit www.visionandmedia.co.uk.

John Barrowman & Scott Gill - a thank you

We would like to say a big thank you to fans of John Barrowman (who plays Captain Jack from Dr Who, among other roles) for raising $1,200 on his fansite from the sale of John's souvenir flyers. John has very generously matched this with an equivalent donation, bringing the total up to $2,400.

The money will be used to purchase furniture and equipment for the Kais Village nursery, which John's partner, Scott, helped design and worked on in Cambodia earlier this year.

To see John and Scott's video thank you to their fans, follow This Link.

Thanks also to George and everyone at Barrowmanonline for their hard work.

Thankyou to our JustGiving Fundraisers

We would like to offer a big thanks to all of our supporters who have raised money for CamKids through JustGiving sponsored runs, cycle events, birthdays, weddings and other fundraising initiatives.

Recent heroic work has included Matt and Sophia's epic 1,000 mile cycle ride from Land's End to John O'Groats - battling all the elements during the appalling summer we have just had. Also, Daniel's 100 mile Manchester bike ride and Kamila's 5.6km corporate running challenge. We would also like to wish good luck to Rachel, who competes in a half Marathon on 5 October.

You don’t have to use our JustGiving site just for sponsored or special events - you can also use it as a general fundraising tool to tell your friends and family that you are a CamKids supporter and ask them to join you. Far easier than rattling a tin or chasing donors for cash. Lots of people set up a fundraising page after a trip to Cambodia to let their friends know how they have been affected by the country and how they can help the children. Scroll down to the bottom of this Weblog to see some other ideas from our current fundraisers.

If you would like to raise money for CamKids, please visit our JustGiving site: www.justgiving.com/tccc or contact us at justgiving@camkids.org for information and fundraising materials.

2008 Al Murray Golf Classic

Following the success of the golf day last year, the 2nd Al Murray CamKids Classic was held at Leatherhead Golf Club on Friday 29th August. Sixty seven golfers hit the fairways ........ actually, 67 golfers teed off and, in truth, considerably fewer hit the fairways. Al Murray, Abi Titmuss and Marc Warren took to the golf carts and headed round the course providing entertainment and refreshments.

Amazingly there was some good golf played on a fantastic course, but we also had our share of hackers. Everyone had a fabulous day and the weather remained kind, even if the course didn’t.

Following their efforts on the course, there was a free pint of London Pride (donated by Fullers) for every golfer. After a few beers, regaled stories of monster drives, long distance putts and greens hit from seemingly impossible positions, 86 people sat down to a wonderful 3 course meal and an evening’s entertainment.

After dinner, Al and Abi drew the raffle and gave away some great prizes donated by various generous sponsors. Al then presided over an unbelievably successful auction which skyrocketed the profit for the day to over £17,000.00!!!! A truly staggering amount that will do so much in Cambodia - and remember that every penny of those profits will make it to Cambodia helping to enrich, and possibly even save, many children’s lives.

Many many thanks to;
Al Murray, Abi Titmuss and Marc Warren for their heroic efforts.
Gail Taylor for all her help in the organization and execution of the day
All our sponsors and donors
Tim Lowe and all the staff at Leatherhead Golf Club
All the volunteers who gave their time

........ and mostly to all the golfers and guests who turned up, had a great day, gave generously and helped to change children’s lives

SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR

July Newsletter

We are pleased to release the second 6-monthly Newsletter from CamKids - The Cambodian Children's Charity.

This edition starts with news of the completion of a large nursery at Kais Village Orphanage, with the assistance of members of the Royal Engineers and volunteers from the UK and Australia. We also have updates of our Farm project and Child Sponsorship programmes at Kais.

We also include an update on Rumdoul Thmei school, in Kampong Speu Province as well as other ongoing projects and reports of some of the fantastic fundraising work which our supporters have completed recently.

To access the Newsletter, you can either click on the image above, Here or Here or Contact Us and we will send you a copy by e-mail. If you sign up to our Newsletter, you will receive your copy by e-mail every 6 months (your details will not be used for commercial or any other purpose).

Thanks again to all of our donors and supporters, without whom none of this would have been possible.

With Best Wishes

The CamKids Trustees

GIVING FROM ABROAD - If you are an Australian or American taxpayer, you can now make tax deductible donations to CamKids. Please send Mark Purser an e-mail at: finance@camkids.org, for further details.

SPREAD THE WORD - please forward this blog entry or the Newsletter to any friends or family who you think might be interested. if you could ‘cc’ the e-mail to us as well, we will add their e-mail address to our Newsletter database, so that they receive the next issue directly.

We will never provide personal information to any other organisation. If you wish to unsubscribe from this Newsletter, please contact us.

Your exclusive invitation to a VIP event

On behalf of CamKids, Northwest Vision and Media is organising a VIP event at the Beluga Bar and Restaurant, 2 Mount Street, Manchester M2 5WQ on Thursday 31st July, from 6pm.

For more information on the event, please click on the image below:

To RSVP and for a full list of raffle prizes please contact:

Gemma Johnson
Northwest Vision and Media
Room LG45, BBC
Oxford Road
Manchester
M60 1SJ
Tel: 0161 244 3754
Email: gemmaj@visionandmedia.co.uk

CamKids Latest Newsletter

We are pleased to report that our latest Newsletter is now available.

The July Newsletter includes news of the completion of the nursery at Kais Village Orphanage, with the assistance of members of the Royal Engineers and volunteers from the UK and Australia. We also have updates of our Farm project and Child Sponsorship programmes at Kais.

We also include an update on Rumdoul Thmei school, in Kampong Speu Province as well as other ongoing projects and reports of some of the fantastic fundraising work which our supporters have completed recently.

To access the Newsletter, you can either click on the image above, This Link or Contact Us and we will send you a copy by e-mail. If you sign up to our Newsletter Here, you will receive your copy by e-mail every 6 months (your details will not be used for commercial or any other purpose).

Thank you once again to all of our donors and supporters, without whom none of this would have been possible.

With Best Wishes

The CamKids Trustees

Northwest Vision and Media Sponsored Bike Ride to Paris

Last Thursday, 2 members of staff from Northwest Vision and Media completed a gruelling 3 day bike ride from London to Paris, to raise money for CamKids. This is one of the fundraising events which Northwest Vision and Media have organised during 2008, after selecting CamKids as their charity of the year. Here is Lynsey's report:

Here's the proof that Alice and I didn't just sneak off to do some shopping on the Champs-Élysées. We did three long days in the saddle, setting off from South London on Thursday morning and finally arriving at the Arc de Triomphe at 7:00pm on Saturday.

Thanks again for all your support and encouraging texts along the way and of course for your sponsor money. Our current total stands at £1,648 which is well over our original target and we still have a few last minute pledges to add. So all those aches and pains (and my new found addiction to ibuprofen) now seem worthwhile.

Thanks again!

Lynsey

Lynsey and Alice's total is now over £2,000, including Gift Aid - enough to educate 800 children at ETO school - a fantastic result. If you would like to add to Lynsey and Alice's sponsorship total, visit their JustGiving page:

http://www.justgiving.com/northwestvisionandmedia.

Or why not set up a JustGiving page yourself ! Contact us for details.

Rumdoul Thmei School Update

A number of CamKids Trustees travelled to Cambodia recently, to review our current projects, to assess some exciting new ones and to help with the Nursery build at Kais Village Orphanage (see recent article Here). More articles will follow, once we have finished sorting through our thousands of photos and manage to get through the backlog of work which was waiting for us when we got back !

Whilst we were at Kais Village, we visited Rumdoul Thmei school, the acquisition and renovation of which was funded by CamKids, to see how the work was progressing (see last update on the school opening Here). We are pleased to report that most of the work has been completed on budget, including improvements to the water and waste systems, the construction of a house for the teachers, sub-dividing the large building into 3 separate classrooms and building a wall all around the school, for improved security. This involved a great deal of land infilling and the final works, including the construction of the permanent security post, will be competed later this year, once the land has settled down and the rainy season is over.

Unfortunately, our visit coincided with the Khmer New Year and so school was not in session. However, knowing that we would be visiting, the teacher asked some of the children if they would come to school that morning, to see us. Over 120 children made the journey - some of them walking more than 5 km in the blazing sun !! We were very honoured and had to send out for more crisps and soft drinks for the children (see the slideshow below). The children sang some songs to us and the teacher explained about the schools and other donors in the UK and Australia who have helped CamKids to give them the chance of an education. It was very moving and they honestly appreciate that there are people on the other side of the world who are thinking of them and who want to help.

Thank you again to all of our very generous donors who have made this possible and also to our regular donors who help pay for the ongoing cost of running the school. We are still looking for sponsors to help cover the running costs and if you would like to find out more about the project or if you would like to sponsor a teacher or a student, please send an e-mail to: Mark Purser. Alternatively, to make a regular online donation, please click REGULAR or SINGLE, to make a single online donation. Please mark any donation 'Rumdoul'.

2nd Annual Al Murray Golf Classic

The 2nd Al Murray Golf Classic, to benefit CamKids, will be held at Leatherhead Golf Club on 29 August 2008.

Demand from existing CamKids donors and supporters has been so high that tickets for this year's event have now sold out.

If you would like to register your interest for a place at next year's event, please send an e-mail to contact@camkids.org or send a message from the sidebar on the right of this weblog.

To see a short video of last year's event, made by our friends at GBTV, follow:
This Link.

Kais Village Nursery Build Update

CamKids' construction of a Nursery at Kais Village Orphanage is almost complete and we thought that our donors and supporters would like to see some photos showing the progress of the build.

The team from the Royal Engineers has returned to the UK, leaving some final fit out and snagging work to our local contractor to finish. They were helped during April by a number of volunteers from the UK and Australia, who survived the very high temperatures and occasional torrential downpour. The nursery, which is big enough to comfortably sleep 40 babies, looks fantastic and is even better than we could have imagined.

We still need donations to help with the equipping of the nursery. Please contact us or click one of the links if you would like to make make a donation to support this build or a regular donation to support the running costs of the nursery or to support future builds. Please mark your donation 'Nursery'.

CamKids selected by Northwest Vision and Media as its Charity of the Year

CamKids is delighted to have been chosen by Northwest Vision and Media, the agency that works on behalf of the TV, film, radio, digital and games industries in the Northwest of England, as their staff's Charity of the Year.

Across the year staff will be holding various fundraising events to raise as much money as possible for CamKids. For more information about Northwest Vision and Media go to www.visionandmedia.co.uk.

We would like to thank the staff of Northwest Vision and Media for selecting CamKids and wish them good luck with all of their fundraising activities.

CamKids First Newsletter

We are pleased to announce that our first Newsletter is now available.

A great deal has happened since our launch on 1 March 2007 and we have grown far faster than we could have anticipated. Through your generosity we have been able to support more projects which directly help the children in Cambodia.

The Newsletter provides an update of projects at Kais Village Orphanage, including the Medical Centre, the new Kitchen / Canteen and the Farm project.

We are also very pleased to report on the official opening of a rural school for more than 200 children, which was financed by CamKids, as well as a number of other ongoing projects and some of our fundraising events.

To access the Newsletter, you can either click on the image above, This Link or Contact Us and we will send you a copy by e-mail. If you sign up to our Newsletter Here, you will receive your copy by e-mail every 6 months (your details will not be used for commercial or any other purpose).

Thanks again to all of our donors and supporters, without whom none of this would have been possible.

With Best Wishes

The CamKids Trustees

GIVING FROM ABROAD - If you are an Australian or American taxpayer, you can now make tax deductible donations to CamKids. Please send Mark Purser an e-mail at: finance@camkids.org, for further details.

SPREAD THE WORD - please forward this blog entry or the Newsletter to any friends or family who you think might be interested. if you could ‘cc’ the e-mail to us as well, we will add their e-mail address to our Newsletter database, so that they receive the next issue directly.

We will never provide personal information to any other organisation. If you wish to unsubscribe from this Newsletter, please contact us.

Kais Village Orphanage Nursery Build 2008

In May 2007, Sergeant Charlie Brooks of The Royal Engineers approached our patron Al Murray with the idea of constructing a building in Cambodia for CamKids.

We couldn’t believe our luck, only a few months after the charity was launched, and we are offered skilled help for a new building! Soldiers love this kind of work, it gives them a chance to utilise their skills to create something of fundamental importance, especially in a country that still needs a great deal of help to get back on its feet after the devastation of war.

Al immediately flew Charlie out to Cambodia (before he could change his mind!) to meet the directors of (charity funded) Kais Village Orphanage which is in desperate need of a new, bigger, more functional nursery. Kais, situated in a rural area in Cambodia, is currently home to 30 babies, the conditions are cramped and basic to say the least and more babies arrive every other week. Cots can double up over night and the nannies sleep on the floor - many work all through the day, feed babies in the night and have nowhere to go for a nap or break.

Charlie carried out an initial reconnaissance of the orphanage land and drew up some basic drafts and estimates for the nursery. Working from a detailed wish list we think we have managed to incorporate everything we could hope for in a nursery; sleep areas for up to 40 babies and up to 20 nannies, play areas, bottle preparation rooms, wet and dry rooms for changing, storage, and of course a tea break/wash/sleep area for the nannies. Charlie is now faced with a far more challenging build than he ever could have anticipated.

A particularly generous friend of CamKids, architect Scott Gill, has taken time out to turn Charlie’s drafts into beautiful, architectural plans. Between Scott, Charlie and new recruit, Steve Haskins, some serious thought has gone into to the design of this building, such as the need for good ventilation (given the sheer volume of soiled nappies and the tropical climate), the need for water collection guttering, and most importantly they have had to account for the fact that there is no sewage system in this part of Cambodia.

Charlie, Project Manager Lee Belcher and two other volunteers from the British Army, Greg Lawrence and Stephen Halpin, are taking 9 weeks leave to undertake this enormous build. They will be employing a team of local construction builders and tradesmen. CamKids volunteers will join them in April to help with plastering, tiling and painting. The new nursery should be complete by the end of April.

The directors of Kais have always had a dream that their orphanage would never feel like an institution. They have always wanted the children, the nannies, the cook, the cleaner, the doctor, the farmers, the maintenance men and volunteers that work and live there to feel like Kais is their little community, their village, their home. On behalf of Kais, CamKids would like to say thank you to Charlie Brooks, Scott Gill, Steve Haskins, Lee Belcher, Big Misters Shipping Co, Paul Redfern of Redferness (who is assisting Charlie with sourcing materials and a team of builders in Cambodia) and a special thank you to our generous donors, without your support this project never would have been possible.

Please contact us or click one of the links if you would like to make make a donation to support this build or a regular donation to support the running costs of the nursery or to support future builds. Please mark your donation 'Nursery'.