Importance of Early Childhood Education
October 9, 2020
Merry Christmas from the TukTuk Family
December 1, 2020
IT'S ALREADY NOVEMBER 😱
It's been a while since the last TukTalk but how are you all? And a BIG welcome to our new Krousah members!
October saw extensive flooding in Pursat which covered half the town and affected all the population. The Tukquarters were spared thankfully however some of our staff weren't so lucky. Sarin, our tuk-tuk driver and kindergarten support officer, had his house 2m under water and had to bunk in at the office.
Many of TukTuk's partner schools were also heavily damaged as well as rice crops destroyed and farm animals lost. Although Cambodia is accustomed to flooding, this year has been particularly bad however the government has stepped in to help those affected with food and cash.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Water Festival, one of three major Cambodian holidays, had all the events canceled. However since then, schools are now open and an additional 2 months have been added to the 2020 school year. This means that school will start in January instead of November going forward.
Recently there has been a COVID scare in Pursat when a visiting official who has been exposed, held a ceremony with a large group of people. The government has now labeled Pursat as a high-risk area with the possibility of strict restrictions being imposed. Lucky TukTuk has a good remote working structure in place!
Adrian & Mayu 🦘👘
36 more children supported by Krousah members 🎉
In September and October, we ran the 'Krousah' campaign to encourage new donors to the TukTuk Krousah (family). We didn't quite manage to reach our goal of 100 new members, but we were very fortunate to welcome 16 new Krousah members. We now receive an additional $110 (USD) per month ensuring 36 more children now have the support needed in their classrooms.
Thank you to everyone who joined, especially in these challenging times! The campaign is over, but we are always looking for new Krousah members, so if you missed it, please consider to "Join the Krousah" and keep TukTuk fueled for the future.
TUKTUK & STORYWEAVER PARTNER📚
Pratham Books, an Indian non-profit publishing company, has created an online library of picture books called StoryWeaver. On this platform, anyone can freely read the picture books posted, download and store them in any format they like, borrow pictures from the illustration bank of professional illustrators and create and share their own picture books.
TukTuk has partnered with StoryWeaver to translate their books into Khmer and will also upload our TukBook series to be translated and available for free across the world. The project has just started, but it won't be long before the TukTuk name appears on StoryWeaver!
MOBILE LIBRARY ON THE MOVE AGAIN🛺
With the reopening of schools, we have started to reinstall the speaker systems in the library cabinets and began to lend books again. The toy library and the monthly visits won't restart until the new school year starts in January.
Meanwhile, we were so happy to share our printable teaching materials with the teachers, giving them more COVID friendly options of teaching over the past few months. These were requested by the teachers themselves so it was very rewarding to receive positive feedback from the project.
KHMER OF THE MONTH
Khmer Word: Piba(k) Chet
'chet' means 'heart' and 'piba(k)' means 'difficult'. Can you guess what "difficult heart" means? It means "sad". This word is often used in Cambodian songs because Cambodians love broken heart songs. When you listen to songs while you are on the bus in Cambodia, try to catch this word :)
Khmer Food: Nom ka chai (Chive cakes) 👇
COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT RESULTS ARE IN 📋
Since January of this year, we have been applying for a new grant with Rotary International. Our 3 year plan has finally been reduced to 1 year after funds were reallocated to COVID related projects. As part of the application, we needed to go into the communities we will serve in and ensure that we are providing what the community wants and what is needed. This is called a community assessment.
We conducted community assessments at five schools in October. This included interviewing principals, teachers, elementary school students, kindergarten students, village school support committees, and parents. By talking with them, we were able to review the needs of the community, our direction, and how we should be involved
Once approved, this project will be conducted in partnership with a local NGO called BSDA in 2021. Many thanks for the support from the Rotary Club of Calgary in Canada and the Rotary Club of Pursat. More updates on our success expected in our next addition so wish us luck.
VOLUNTUKER SPOTLIGHT | BETSY
Betsy is an American living in the Netherlands, has been a virtual volunteer since March. She is a specialist in curriculum development and writing, and we have been very lucky to have her on board. She has been re-writing our measurements of success policy helping to develop our education resources. She will also be supporting the construction of our future workshops with the teachers. Thank you, Betsy for all your hard work!
We are so lucky to have volunteers from various fields :)
We are currently looking for volunteers with the following skill sets to help TukTuk bring educational resources to Cambodia;
- Goggle Ads
- SEO
- Fundraising
- Marketing
- Sales
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 ⇢
