Humanitus News Update
Since we last communicated through our April newsletter quite a lot has been happening which we would like to briefly bring all of our friends and supporters up to date with.
In June/July this year our Projects Director, Sally Cordner, and colleague Christine Gilliland, visited Mkak Primary School, Pichey Rangsey School and SFODA Orphanage in Cambodia.
At Mkak Christine presented the students with books that students from Koska Hall, Xavier College had made for them. The students at Koska Hall had also donated many picture story books for the new Mkak library. Whilst in Siem Reap Sally and Christine purchased $500 worth of resources, books, stationery and play equipment for the Mkak students.
The solar power at Mkak is up and running in the new library and they are now able to hold evening classes for the villagers. At present there are two evening classes running with more planned for the future.
Work has begun on the new classrooms at Mkak Primary School. The foundations have been laid and doors and windows ordered. The building of the classroom is currently being carried out in gradual stages as funds become available and until such time as we raise the required approx. US$32,000 to complete the classrooms.
The organic farm/learning centre is also gradually coming together with foundations for the building having been laid and the framework completed. We were thrilled to hear that the water quality from the well at the organic farm is far superior to that of the school well. The water at the organic farm is now the main source of safe drinking water for the school and the entire village.
Sally and Christine’s next visit was to SFODA Orphanage in Phnom Penh. They had an informative afternoon spent with orphanage Director, Moninarom Ouk, and staff. They were pleased to see the children settled into their new home. The children were in extremely good health and gave their usual warm welcome. They were all grateful for the food supplies that Sally and Christine brought with them.
The final visit was to Denzil Sprague’s Pichey Rangsey School during which time Sally and Christine were able to engage with the students and teachers both in and outside the classroom. The ongoing health program has made a significant and obvious impact on the general wellbeing of all the children. The school grounds were as always immaculate and the children’s bicycles were still in as new condition. A sincere thanks was once again extended to Caulfield Grammar, Malvern Campus whose support has made so many things possible at the school.
Our current focus is on funding the completion of the new Mkak Primary School classrooms, the health program and completing work on the organic farm learning centre.
We hope to have news for you soon on when our next fundraiser dinner will be held. Until then we are continuing with our wine drive fundraiser which has been a great success over the past two years. There are a variety of quality wines to choose from and orders can be placed through following this link. Humanitus Foundation Fundraising Wine
One issue that is often raised by many of our supporters is that of tax deductibility for donations. As all of our funds are directed towards projects outside Australia it is virtually impossible for Humanitus to obtain this deductible gift recipient status through the taxation department. Through not having the DGR status we have already missed out on what would have been rather generous donations which is disappointing. Hence this issue really is a priority for us now. Of course we are not alone here as hundreds, possibly thousands, of charities in Australia are in our position. The only solution we can see to this predicament is for Humanitus to partner with an organisation that can offer tax deductibility to all donors. In essence donors would make their donation through the partner organisation who would then redirect the donation to a Humanitus bank account in Cambodia. We hope to have a partnership in place in the very near future and will advise everyone as soon as this is formalised.
On a final note we would like to thank our IT Director in Frankfurt, Christopher Cölle, for completing the enormous task of rebuilding our website. We are extremely pleased with the new look website and are now busily bringing it up to date with more information and photos. You can view the photos from Sally and Christine’s visit on the website by following the links below.
Once again thank you all for your continued support.
Best wishes from the Humanitus Team
Jeffrey, Christopher, Sally, Simon, Angus and Celine
