JULY IS RAINING SEASON IN CAMBODIA!
In Cambodia, July is in the middle of the rainy season. Our daily meetings have been interrupted by loud rolling thunder and flashes of lightening. In Cambodia, when lightening begins to occur, everyone flicks off the power to prevent lightning strikes, so meetings often come to an abrupt end.
The rainy season has also filled up the rice fields, meaning the farmers are busy! This year has been a good rainy season, which is a good omen for the rest of the year.
Adrian & Mayu 🦘👘
KOLIBRI IS NOW AVAILABLE IN KHMER💻
We've been lucky to receive a grant from 'Leaning Equality', an American organisation. Their grant makes it possible to develop our 'AccessBox' used in schools to access the Digital Library.
The AcessBox uses Kolibri, a digital learning platform created by Learning Equality, to house our Digital Library. Up until now the Khmer language was not available. To fix this problem (and also as a thank you for the generous grant) Mayu and Fy worked tirelessly for two months to translate the system to Khmer.
Now, TukTuk can use the Khmer language feature, as well as anyone else with access to the Learning Equality platform 🥰.
It was a difficult and long process but we know it is for a great purpose! Now, we are going to begin focusing on making the platform more user friendly for our teachers.
TUKTUK'S VERY FIRST TUKBOOK IS ON YOUTUBE🎥
Back in 2017, we only had 1 Khmer staff member, and depended on donated resources from around the world to share in the Cambodian preschools.
Since TukTuk's origins, we always spoke about creating original books for our preschoolers, but sadly no one could draw to compliment the amazing ideas for our stories.
That was until Kaho, a Japanese voluntuker, burst into our lives and who happened to have the amazing ability to draw! We quickly sent her to the drawing board, literally, and finally TukTuk had its very first TukBook!
Three years later, that same story is now available on Youtube.
Why not check it out!
KHMER OF THE MONTH
Khlach
"Khlach" in English means "scary, to be scared". During our recent video meetings with the Cambodian staff, there has been a few instances when lightening and thunder have come on during the calls. The Cambodian staff will start to yell out "Khnom khlach nas! (I'm really scared!)" and begin turning off all electrical points, including their computers and phones which makes a very abrupt ending to our meetings!⚡
Khmer Food: Bok Lhoung (Papaya Salad) 👇
TUKBOOKS GO DIGITAL 📱
We are lucky enough to have 16 virtual volunteers, including Samson from Australia, our graphic design voluntuker. He is now converting our TukBooks into the Kindle edition.
Why Kindle? E-books are already popular but with the current global challenges, even more so. It is a great way to raise global awareness of our work.
Did you know there are over 200,000 Cambodians living in America? We hope to tap into the market for dual language, Khmer - English books. Children get the added benefit of parents/grandparents reading in Khmer or reading themselves in English.
We hope our kindle TukBook will be loved and read by more people like this around the world. We will no doubt be launching this and more in the coming months so stay tuned📙
VOLUNTUKER SPOTLIGHT | SAMSON
Samson is one of our current virtual volunteers that keeps TukTuk's wheels turning. We are very grateful to have such an amazing voluntuker 🤩.
With the help of our illustrator Choven, he is bringing our favourite TukBook series to Kindle.
A big thanks to Samson, for all the support.
We are currently looking for volunteers with the following skill sets to help TukTuk bring educational resources to Cambodia;
If you want to get involved or know someone with skills that could help us spread positive education in Cambodia, hit that link below and say hi (we're friendly, promise).
Get Involved ⇢
TUKTOGRAPHY HIGHLIGHTS 📸