Six months in to our world adventure and the time has come to start our two months of volunteering for the Cambodian Children’s Painting Project (CCPP) in Sihanoukville on the south coast of Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand. With two pretty hectic months I am going to break the blog down into two parts. Part one will give you an insight into the project and our daily working lives plus the good work done by other NGO’s in the area. Part two will cover our life of living in Cambodia, the people we met, the places we went and of course Cambodian Beer.
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| Welcome to CCPP |
The CCPP project works to give local children a safe environment to learn and be artistic in order to keep them away from the dangerous situation of living and working on the beaches.
The CCPP doors are open to young people of all ages and offers them a chance to play, learn, paint, free healthy meals, water, medical care, dentist, safe environment to socialise with friends, clothing & footwear and access to English education. The project offers support to the whole family and enrols young people at the local Khmer school. The project started around 6 years ago when a painter came to the beaches of Sihanoukville to paint and caught the imagination of the local children who were working on the beaches. CCPP now has a volunteer house which includes two galleries where the children’s art work is sold by volunteers with the proceeds going both to the individual artists and the educational fund. The project now has close to 150 children who participate regularly. The main education takes place on the larger campus just a short walk away from the gallery which has great facilities to make the project a huge success.
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| The Main Gallery inside the CCPP House |
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| Inside the CCPP Campus |
It was hard work but extremely rewarding. We worked a six day week Monday to Saturdays with Sunday’s as our days off. The shifts were a combination of the following - 8am – 12pm/ 12pm – 2pm/ 2pm – 5pm/ 5pm – 7pm. The shifts were made up of Art lessons, English lessons, Activities, Yoga, Karate and lunch cover at the centre with the children. There were also shifts at the CCPP Gallery where we opened the doors to the public in order to sell the paintings and promote the project. Studio shifts were where the preparation work was done for the centre. These included cutting and painting the boards which the children used for painting, plus painting & stretching canvasses as well as some manual labour in the blistering heat like building walls and cementing floors. You could say we were extremely busy but there was never a dull moment as each day was different and the time just flew by.
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| Art Sessions |
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| Teaching English |
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| Karate Kids |
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| Starting the day with morning Yoga |
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| Serving up lunch usually about 120 bowls |
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| The New Creche |
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| Lunch is noisy time |
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| Gallery Set-Up & Ready for Business |
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| Studio. Time for some manual labour |
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| Leaving our mark and this stuff will never come off. Smirf Feet |
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Improving the Main Gallery. New display walls & a lick of paint
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We also had days out with the children which they were always excited about and it was great fun as everyone piled into the CCPP truck. We took them swimming at the beach and visited the local Pagoda. We were there for the Khmer New Year which meant the most hectic day of the year was upon us. We took the children to the Pagoda in the morning with offerings for the monks. The afternoon was spent carrying out the local tradition of a giant water fight and throwing of flour/talcum powder at the centre. It was messy carnage but everyone had an absolute riot. Getting clean was another story. We also played party games and following tradition the children were given small amounts of money as gifts.
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| Everybody into the CCPP truck |
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| Fun at the beach |
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| Plenty of excitement on trip out |
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| Locked in its time to head home to the centre |
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| The Pagoda |
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| The children sharing New Year offerings with the Buddhist Monk's |
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| Everybody In! |
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| The New Year Water/Talc Fight is Underway |
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| Not a Good Look! |
It was amazing how quickly the eight weeks went for everybody. It took us a few weeks to settle in and learn our roles but all the volunteers became best friends and helped each other out. The CCPP staff are a great group of people who welcomed us into the local community as well as giving us much needed Khmer language lessons. It is surprising how much Khmer we actually picked up in our time there.
The pictures will show how amazing the kids are much better than I can ever express in words. The children were just so fantastic, their energy, humour & their cheekiness. They made our time there so worthwhile and we felt privileged to be there. It was an experience that both of us will never forget, both heart warming and mind opening to the dangers that these children still face in today’s world.
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| Finding my ARTY side |
If you would like to find out more about the project and the possibilities of sponsoring a child, donating or purchasing one of the fabulous paintings from the children then check out the website below. The Cambodian Children’s Painting Project relies on the kind hearted people who fundraise and put on art exhibitions worldwide to keep the friendly doors open.
Being able to stop for two months and settle into a local community also enabled us to find out about and visit other NGO’s in the area that are carrying out great work to help Cambodia develop.
ChildSafe Network
ChildSafe works to protect children from abuse. They educate tourists and travellers in order to protect the local children. They also monitor suspected abusers in the area and will respond to calls if someone sees something suspicious. There are around 1000 children who live and work on the streets & beaches of Sihanoukville and the children are at great risk of abuse. While travelling check out the ChildSafe tips.
For more information check out the website.
The Starfish Organization
Starfish is another wonderful NGO in Sihanoukville. The project provides a range of programs for people of all abilities and disabilities. ‘This is vital in a country where an estimated 1 in 10 people have some form of disability’.
They sell wonderful hand made products & if you are ever in Sihanoukville check out the amazing cafe which serves delicious food, especially the chocolate brownie.
To find out more check out the website.
M’Lop Tapang
This is a very large NGO in Cambodia which works with a large number of former street children and their families developing skills for the future. The products in the shop are made by parents of former street children; the sales help and support various vocational training programmes. The products are made from recycled materials which also helps the local environment.
For more information check out the website.
The Dump
Towards the end of our time working for CCPP we were able to visit the local rubbish dump site on two separate occasions. The dump was located about 40 minutes Tuk-Tuk ride away from Sihanoukville. We took large sacks of rice & clothing to help the local families that live and work on the dump sites. Nothing could ever have prepared us for this experience. This is a hard one to write about. We were covered head to toe with long trousers, socks and shoes and when getting towards the dump we had to put our face masks on as the burning rubbish was intense and the swarms of flies like nothing we have ever seen. As we entered the site we saw the vast rubbish dump and the houses which were built on top of the rubbish. We had never seen living conditions like that. Forty families live on the dump. The sense of community spirit was heart warming. When we arrived one person would see us and within minutes the whole village knew. If one family wasn’t there they would let us know (via the CCPP Tuk-Tuk driver who was translating for us) and they would save rice for them. These families often don’t have enough food to be able to eat every day.
Our visit was shocking and upsetting. On the second visit we were more prepared but it is still a difficult experience. They invited us to see their houses and we also walked across the rubbish to see families who were out at work. It was the most grounding experience we have ever had. It makes you think how can you help and make the help and support sustainable. There are organisations who raise money for dumps around the world but you feel so much more needs to be done and it again seems to come back to education. One of the projects that have raised money for this dump is the Small Steps Project.
For more information check out the website.
This blog is a little bit different to the other ones you may have read but I feel it’s important to try and help increase awareness where I can. My time in Cambodia really was a life changing experience for me and it makes you appreciate where you come from and how lucky we are. It puts your life in perspective and even though you can’t change the world every little helps.
thanks for your great report. It must have been a positive experience and made a mark on your life. I now live in cambodia since 7 years,mostly in sihanoukville. There are dangers that you will probably not have noticed and i want to aleart you and every male visitor to cambodia,sihanoukville in particular to be extremely cautious when working with children. Many foreigners have been set up and charged as beeing pedophiles. Some was true and they deserve to rot in jail. Others where set up by mlop tapang and childsafe for no other reason than to generate publicity and donations. Please check out www.tpf-cambodia.com to get a full picture of cambodia's dark side.
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