TukTuk’s Cambodian Charity Work
March 22, 2021
Pursat, Cambodia – The Drifting Bodhi.
April 4, 2021
HAPPY KHMER NEW YEARđ
The 3rd new year celebration is happening in Cambodia this April and everyone is excited. (They also celebrate the western and Chinese new year). Cambodia has been lucky so far to contain COVID-19, but with the latest wave sweeping through, it will be a much quieter KNY than normal. (Or is that the new normal đ€). The end result is no water and powder fights this year.
Two of our staff have returned to working remotely and one is on maternity leave. With only 4 staff in our new spacious office, social distancing is easy peasy. Meanwhile, the demand for our digital teaching resources is increasing, so we know our project is on the right track.Â
Adrian & Mayu đŠđ
SCHOOLS CLOSE.... AGAIN! đ„
A third community infection occurred in Phnom Penh in February, leading to the first death from COVID in Cambodia in March. The pandemic has begun to spread, mainly in cities, and the number of infected people so far has exceeded 4,500. Even Pursat has had a few cases and fewer people go outside than before.
As for the schools, those were closed again in the middle of Marchđ±Â The Ministry of Education recommends online lessons, but it is really difficult for preschools. Schools have gone to KNY holidays early to allow time to work together a good strategy going forward later in April.
OUR RESPONSE TO THIS CHALLENGE!đ©đœâđ«
In an effort to continue preschool education, in some areas, teachers handed out worksheets to their students. Parents can submit the sheets to the teacher every three or four days allowing them to continue their education.
Workshops for teachers were also postponed this month..... again. We planned to introduce the teaching materials centered around our books "Jack the Giant" and "Happy Khmer New Year". As an alternative, we are now frequently uploading our resources to Facebook for teachers to access and distributing worksheets to some education offices to enable teachers and parents a variety of ways to access resources.
One teacher happily told us how she was using our resources in her class before the school closed. We hope that after proper training, we can have all of our teachers use these materials and spread them to other schools outside of our current list. A resource sharing pandemic seems like a better option than the current one we face đ.
KHMER OF THE MONTH
Khmer Word: Srektuk
April is the hottest month of the year in Cambodia!! Frequent hydration is essential as it often approaches 40 degrees during the dayđ„ This month's word means "thirsty." If you can come to Cambodia for sightseeing after the pandemic settled, you should remember this word!
Khmer Food: Tuk Ampow (sugar cane juice)đ
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OHH BABY!!đ¶đŒ
Leakhena, who is a project coordinator at TukTuk, is known in the office as the big sister. Her 2 children now have a little brother and although it is hard to see, if you look close enough, you can see a budding tuktuker on his way.
And so the Krousah is now one more member stronger and we couldn't be happier. Leakhena is on maternity leave until June, but we can't wait for her to come back to the office and meet the little ankle biter.Â
VOLUNTUKER SPOTLIGHT | SARA
Sara from the UK is one of our longest continuous volunteers at TukTuk having worked with us for the past 1.5 years. She is a graphic designer that found herself with some free time lately, (like a lot of us), and has been the brains behind a lot of the graphics that you have seen in our blog posts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) and newsletters.
She has also put a huge amount of work into our digital library, getting lots of our resources ready for print and working with our local staff to help them on tasks where they were lacking some experience. A big thanks to Sara for all of her dedication and hard work.Â
We are currently looking for volunteers with the following skill sets to help TukTuk bring educational resources to Cambodia;
- Google Ads
- Front end developer
- Fundraising
- Marketing
- Back end developer
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 âą
