Love and light, Geraldine Cox AM, “There's a crack in everything -That's how the light gets in…”

My, how the months are flying by! Early March was spent mainly in Sunrise with the usual gaggle of visits from sponsors and team meetings with staff. Not to mention spending time with the children in my house and the Centre’s grounds.

We had meetings with engineers, architects and contractors to get all the plans in place to start construction on the Macquarie Bank Learning Centre.

Mid month, I was in Adelaide to meet with sponsors, family and to keep up with the affairs of our 8 Sunrise students, who are all doing amazingly well in their studies.

The rest of the month was taken up with school presentations, before I went to Brisbane to pitch again our Sunrise advert on Channels 7, 9 and 10. This was to confirm that channels will continue to screen these for at least another year. Thanks goes to Jo Stone and Kevin Moreland and staff at BCM Advertising who are responsible for filming this advert completely free of charge!

I was able to return to Cambodia for another staff member’s wedding, Chhay Theara.

At month end, some Thai and American friends came to give us advice on our farm project in the aquaponic and hydroponic fields. This is a small pro-ject and new for us but I have hopes for it to grow.

Later in the month I took a few days off to attend a family christening in London where I have not been since I was 19. Naturally there have been a few changes there since then.

I flew onto Adelaide for an amazing event where friend and sponsor Victoria McGregor-Smith donated dinner for 40 people at the prestigious Shiki Restaurant at the Intercontinental Hotel. This intimate event managed to raise over $5,000. Warmest thanks to Victoria and to Judy Myers of Ouwens Casserly who organised the event.

The high point in this period was for me to get Ashurst (a large legal firm) to in-clude Sunrise in their global staff giving program. This is marvellous but will take time to really bear fruit and we need to follow up every possible lead to build up reserves, which are being used every month to give the children what they need.

I was invited to a presentation given by the Australian Charities Fund in Canberra and was so honoured to be there as only around 15 Australian Charities were on the list. Malcolm Turnbull gave a passionate speech about corporate social responsibility and a program he is involved in to get one million Australians to donate one dollar to charity.

The event was organized by Richard Murray, CEO of JB Hi Fi, one of our biggest staff giving sponsors.

Soksan, our Operations Manager has much more exciting news for you, so I now hand over to him.

I never forget and neither do our Sunrise children, that we exist simply through your interest and generosity. Thanks to one and all, large and small......

News from Geraldine...

Inside this

issue:

Operations Update by Sok San Yi 2

What’s happening at Sunrise 3, 4

Our Community Support 5, 6

Thanks from Sunrise 6

Khmer corner 7

Bequeathing & Memorial Donations

7

Fundraising 7

Merchandise 8

Payment /Change of Details Form 8

Volume 14

Issue 2

The Australia Cambodia Foundation: PO Box 1113, Unley BC 5061, Adelaide South Australia

Tel: +81 8 8340 4230 Fax: +81 8 8340 4920 Email: admin@scv.org.au

Cambodia:Country Director & President: Geraldine Cox AM Operations Manager: Sok San Yi

Check out the lovely couple.

Richard Murray JB Hi Fi— far right

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The final quarter of financial year 2013/14 delivered many significant and fruitful achievements and identi-fied some challenges for the year ahead. These achievements have only been possible through the won-derful support of all our donors and dedicated staff. Here are just some of the results we achieved thanks to your support of Sunrise

Prevented child exploitation Abuse and exploitation of children in our care were fully prevented. We received excellent feedback and en-dorsement from the Ministry of So-cial Affairs (MOSVY), who inspected our implementation of their Policy on Minimum Standards for Alternative Care. This important task was achieved through cooperation and construc-tive feedback from staff and man-agement at all levels. No serious health problems Good hygiene, good cleanliness and care meant that our children’s health was free from serious health problems like dengue fever. Focus on staff development To ensure our staff are aware of the latest policies and procedures in dealing with children, they received training in Parenting and Child De-velopment skills, Children’s Rights, Domestic Violence, Cambodian Gov-ernment Minimum Standards for Alternative Care, Staff Policy, Child Protection Policy, Operacy, Cooking skills for kitchen supervisors and English. Some of our senior staff are study-ing Bachelor and Master degrees in business management and develop-ment. Data systems fully maintained Child Biographies, Sponsor reports and “Smart Sponsor” system are up to date for all Sunrise children

New Gate at Sunrise Siem Reap

Business planning and budgeting A comprehensive business plan for 2014/15 has been developed to cover four main programs: 1 Centre-based childcare 2 Education 3 Case Management 4 Community outreach programs. The Budget has been approved by the Board of Directors. Local community support We are highly committed to reaching as many vulnerable children as possible. Sunrise through our partners provides all kinds of support to children living near our three centres. This ranges from food and healthcare to repairing school facilities, sports equipment and educating children. You can learn more about some of these projects through-out this Newsletter.

New Khmer pre-school classes I am very proud to inform you that our first ever Khmer pre-school classes for 50 disadvantaged and vulnerable chil-dren from poor families living nearby will open in August 2014. This comple-ments our existing community outreach program, which includes English and computer training, dance and music, sports, library activities, direct emer-gency assistance in educational, food and healthcare support, shelter and in-come generation for hundreds of chil-dren.

Macquarie Bank learning centre Our big dream of having more and modern classrooms to expand our edu-cation program for Sunrise children and children from local communities will be-come reality in early 2015. Sincere heartfelt thanks to Macquarie Bank for sponsoring this project. Newcomers/family reintegrations Between April and June, seven new chil-dren were referred to Sunrise and five children and young adults were reinte-grated back to their families after posi-tive family assessment completed. Improvements in our facilities With generous support from our donors, projects completed include: Sunrise Phnom Penh: Renovation of toilets and bathrooms. Repainting of all buildings.

Sunrise Siem Reap: Renovation of kitchen and children’s dormitories, plus the construction of new toilets, gazebo and parking shed, new gate, volleyball and soccer fields.

Our premises are well maintained and almost spotlessly clean, as anyone who has visited will know.

Operations Report from Sok San Yi

Sok San Yi, Operations Manager

Renovated kitchen in Siem Reap

New gazebo and walkway

Brightly painted new shed

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What’s Happening at Sunrise 2014 Khmer New Year Celebration

As part of our family/risk assessment procedure, all children visited their families for 10 days on the Khmer New Year holiday. Their families came to collect them on April 11th and they all returned safely to the centre on April 20. Before departure to their hometowns, a Buddhist blessing ceremony, a small party for the children and a number of Khmer popular dances and games were arranged to welcome the upcoming new year, The Year of the Horse, on April 10. A group of community children who attend classes at Sunrise Children’s Village were also in-vited to attend the activities of the day. Like Sunrise children, they were given a pair of socks and shoes as a gift from a Cambodian businesswoman. This celebration was not only fun, but it also gave children a chance to learn about their culture and traditions, which are part of their development.

Our special New Family Member: REI SAMUEL

Rei Samuel, a disabled child, is unable to walk or do anything by himself and was referred to Sunrise by the Missionaries of Charity in May. He cried a lot on his arrival, but by the next day, he started to smile. Surpris-ingly, with good care and supplementary food in his diet, his weight increased considerably a month later. He enjoys living in our Centre. Samuel has been taken to meet a neurologist at the National Paediatric Hospital, Caritas Organization and Veterans and Rehabilitation International Cambodia for health and physical check-ups.

One of our older students, Saran (who was also selected for the Summer Tour Program in 2013) was chosen to travel to Kos Romdal Village on 21st May to translate for Sue and Daryl who have been great sup-porters of Tep Sovandeth, a disabled child living nearby. The translation was to help explain their new project to the headmas-ter, school manager and students at school. Thank you Saran.

International Labor Day

In celebration of International Labor Day on May 1, Sunrise Chil-dren’s Village organized rubbish collecting activities to clean up the centre and outside areas. All staff and children were invited and di-vided into groups with gloves for protection, plastic bags and clean-ing tools. We also planted some trees and flowers.

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A snake at Sunrise!

On his visit to Phnom Penh in April, Chef Alex from Sydney brought with him lots of rolled cakes to make a giant snake cake over 5 m long!

The smiles on their faces show how much fun the children had as they decorated their giant snake.

Welcome to Srey Vy

18 month old Srey Vy recently joined Sunrise. Although malnourished, Srey Vy’s diet is being supplemented with porridge, biscuits, soya milk and vitamins to ensure a healthy future for her. Here she is happily sitting in her new cot donated by supporters, the Brandt-Gagnon family.

What’s Happening at Sunrise

Art/drawing competitions

A group of ten art students were sent to attend the Nation-al Art Competition organized by Global Art on 31st May. As a result, three of them became champions and one other received a consolation prize from the competition. Meanwhile, another two children aged between 10 and 12 attended an art-drawing competition organized by Sovannaphumi school. By the end of June 2014, the group had painted new and beautiful artwork of animals on the water tank close to the warehouse.

Our Adelaide office is moving soon ….

In mid-October, our Adelaide team is moving to office space in Flinders Street in the heart of Adelaide, South Australia. We’ll keep you informed and let you know our new location and contact details in our next Newsletter.

Our students in Australia

Our students continue to enjoy the challenges of studying in Australia. Their results have been, in some cases, astounding considering they are studying in a second language. Three of them, Sopheak Louch, Srey Leak Phem and Theaneath Outh, will be returning to Cambodia at the end of the year as they will be finishing their studies in Film & Media Studies, Nursing and the Cordon Bleu course.

Soknoeun Soeun is achieving good results in her Year 12 studies. Her host family have generously taken her to Port Lincoln and Kangaroo Island for short visits which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Sopheak Louch flew to Bali to help with the organisation ‘Bali Kids’. His flight was generously donated by the director, Brenton Whittaker. Sopheak found many opportunities to film what the organisation was doing for his film studies. He’s hoping to produce a documentary.

Srey Leak Phem completed a 3 week placement at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for her Nursing de-gree. She rose to the challenges of working long hours and being on her feet all day while learning all about the care of patients in a very busy hospital.

The skills these students are learning will help them contribute to the development and well-being of their country on their return.

Our Community Support

Support for local grandmother

Recently a Sunrise Case officer arranged for Tep Sovandeth, a disabled boy living in Kos Romdol island, to be taken to Rose Centre to check problems with his legs. He had assessments with a specialist who observed his weak points and gave some advice to his grandmother. The staff also taught Sovandeth’s grandmother some physical therapy skills to help her grand-son.

Sports gear to Iroha Primary School’s soccer teams

The Birdwood Primary School in South Australia provided funding for the purchase of new soccer gear for Iroha Primary School. The much needed items included soccer balls, uniforms, boots, socks, shin guards and goal keep-er gloves for 40 team members aged between 10-12 years old. A special ceremony was held on 12 May at the school to present the donated items.

Participants included Sunrise representatives, School Director, teachers and the soccer team members. The soccer team members were very happy to receive the gifts. At the end of the cere-mony, the School Director and soccer teams thanked Birdwood Primary School for their generous support. The students also expressed their wish for the Birdwood Primary School representatives to vis-it them in the near future and play soccer with them.

Emergency assistance for four orphaned children

Sunrise Siem Reap provided emergency support to a family of four orphaned children including 7 month old twin babies and two girls, aged 4 and 6 living in a poor community in Siem Reap city. The mother of the children died while she was delivering the twin babies and the father died of illness. These children are being cared for by family, including the grandparents, aunties and uncles who have a very limited income and they are also supporting 11 family members in total.

The family are really struggling in poor conditions with insufficient money for healthcare, proper shelter and insufficient food, especially for the orphaned children.

We provided milk for the babies, cooking oil, canned fish, instant noodles, eggs, salt and rice. We plan to provide further and longer term support for these children through our family-based child support project.

Community event for Sunrise school partner

With the co-operation of a Sunrise Case Officer in charge of Community-based Support Programs, a group of 96 students and seven teachers from our school partner, Iroha Primary School, were taken to participate in the Im-age Charity Day organized on April 9 at Beeline area. It was a good opportunity for community children to join in this program. They saw some popular singers and other artists perform and enjoyed having their photos taken with the singers. Food, soft drinks, ice cream and gifts such as books, pencils, pens and shampoo were given to all participants.

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Thanks from Sunrise

Bikes for needy local community children

Sunrise Children’s Villages has provided 4 bicycles to poor and disadvantaged families in the community whose homes are located too far from the school.

This ensures that the children are able to travel to school everyday.

Thanks to our wonderful sup-porters who pro-vided the money to purchase the bikes.

Our Community Support (cont.)

Social Justice Evening At a school event recently, 5 women speakers spoke about helping disadvantaged girls, women and underprivileged children. Hannah and Molly had their stall all set up with infor-mation and a donation box. Lots of people (around 150) attended and were very interest-ed in Sunrise. Even the School Principal donated. The girls did a great job. Hannah also made a slide show of SCV that played through the night. The whole evening was based on extraordinary people doing extraordinary things for others.

Thank you Molly & Hannah—a job well done!

Vihea Chen Primary School

Located near Sunrise Siem Reap, this school with approximately 200 students, has been selected to be a school partner to Sunrise. As a partner, Sunrise provides support to the school as well as its children.

The two year old playground from Sunrise has been repainted and repaired and will be donated to the school. Sunrise has also opened its doors to welcome 54 children from the school to study computer skills, dance, music and arts every day from Mon-day to Friday. Sunrise also provided the stu-dents with school materials including pen-cils, pens, writing books, volley balls, bas-ketballs and 6 chairs for the teachers. We plan to help build new school buildings as the old ones which were constructed by the villagers in 1980 are now in very bad condi-tion and dangerous for the children.

Geraldine battling a Sydney winter in her Onesy!

Intimate Lunch with Geraldine

An Intimate Lunch with Geraldine was held in May at the highly award-ed Shiki Restaurant, Intercontinental Hotel, Adelaide. Thanks go to Victoria McGregor-Reid for donating the luncheon and Judy Myers who organized the event. Both these ladies work for Ouwens Casserly Real Estate and are great supporters of Sunrise.

The event was a wonderful oppor-tunity for a small group to share a superb lunch and listen to Geraldine’s stories of life and strug-gles in Cambodia.

New friendships are formed

Our new Treasurer, Richard Fennell recently travelled to Cambo-dia with his family to visit Sunrise Children’s Villages. They had a wonderful time meeting some of the children and formed many new friendships.

Richard’s daughter, Eliza had organized a Pyjama Day at her school, Seymour College and pre-sented a cheque with the money she had raised. Thanks so much for your efforts Eliza.

Geraldine and Victoria

Judy and Geraldine

Everyday Hero A great way to do fundraising for Sunrise is to register on Everyday Hero for any events you may wish to participate in (eg fun run, weight loss challenge). As a participating Hero, you can choose your own charity to raise funds for. It is very simple to register.

Following is a brief description of upcoming events where all participating Heroes can choose Sunrise to raise funds for.

The Sun-Herald City2Surf: Sunday August 10, 2014 Presented by Westpac, this is not just Sydney’s favorite sporting event, it is the world’s largest run and is taking place on August 10, 2014. Since 1971 Sydneysiders have been joined by participants from all over the world, elite athletes rubbing shoulders with locals to run, walk or watch the 14km race from Hyde Park in Sydney’s CBD to the finish at spectacular Bondi Beach.

For more information go to: The Sun-Herald city2Surf city2surf.everydayhero.com.au/event/city2surf2014

Sunshine Coast Marathon, 2014 Sunday August 31, 2014 One of Australia's most loved running festivals, the 7 Sunshine Coast Marathon, is set to be bigger and better in 2014 with a new look beachfront course and more runners than ever before.

In its third year, 7SCM will again deliver a flat, fast and scenic course so you can achieve your goal, no matter what your ability. Whether you're an elite athlete testing the legs and chasing down prize money, an age grouper looking for an elusive PR, a first time mara-thoner nervous about making the distance or a beginner wanting to know what the fuss is all about, you can achieve it by running the 7 Sunshine Coast Marathon.

For more information go to: Sunshine Coast Marathon

www.everydayhero.com.au/event/shinecoastmarathon2014

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To create a fundraiser for Sunrise, go to our website at www.scv.org.au/fundraising

The fundraising guidelines are at www.scv.org.au/fundraising-guidelines

Fundraising

City

The ever-popular fun run is over 40 years old, with options of 3, 6 or 12km run or walk from Adelaide to Glenelg. Entries open in May each year.

An additional event is planned for April 2015: the first ever Bay to City Fun Run (reverse of normal). City-bay.org.au

www.walkingsa.org.au/walk/walk-event/city-tp-bay-fun-run-2014/

Khmer Proverb

You don’t have to cut

a tree down to get at

Khmer Corner

A Bequest is a gift made in your will to individuals, companies, associations or charities and may be as simple as adding a Codicil to your existing will. Full capital gains tax relief may be available to your estate for bequests made to certain charities, including Sunrise Children’s Villages.

For more information please see our website: www.sunrisechildrensvillage.org/bequeathing/

A special way to honour the memory of a loved one is to encourage your relatives and friends to make a gift in lieu of giving flowers. A Memorial Donation to Sunrise Children’s Villages in Cambodia is a thoughtful way to remember someone.

For more information, please see our website: www.sunrisechildrensvillage.org/memorial-giving/

Bequeathing and Memorial Donations

Online donation pages can easily be created for Sunrise for many reasons:

Running for a cause

Cycling for a cause

In celebration

In memory

It’s my birthday

Making a difference

Personal challenge.

See GoFundraise for details.

http://www.gofundraise.com.au/

T-Shirts $25.00

Black or white

In adult sizes small,

medium, large

Caps $12.00

One size fits all!

Sunrise Gift Cards $12.50

This range of cards would be ideal for Christmas featuring

photography of some of the Sunrise children by long-time

supporter and photographer Tracey Shelton. The cards

show happy times during Tracey’s visit to Sunrise in July

2013 that included a trip to the beach!

They are available in packs of 6 x A6 (105mm x 148mm)

blank gift cards with envelopes (with 6 different images).

Starring Geraldine and the Sunrise kids, it includes:

Happiness is a day at the beach Splish splashin’ Learning artful ways Victories and celebrations Love on the shore Learning to pray

Musicians of Cambodia CD $15.00

A beautiful collection of traditional songs and dance music

expressing stories of life at Sunrise. The CD presents tales

of hope, gratitude and happiness, as well as showcasing the

talents of our children.

Home is Where the Heart Is $38.00

This book tells the deeply moving story of a woman

who found her true purpose in caring for Cambo-

dian orphans—the tragic victims of three decades of

war and destruction. Geraldine tells with warmth and

humour of an extraordinary life.

My Khmer Heart DVD $22.00

The documentary, My Khmer Heart, won the

Hollywood Film Festival Documentary of the Year

Award in 2000 and it has since been bought

by HBO and Discovery Cable Channel.

Merchandise Order Form Quantity Price Subtotal

Name and delivery address: TOTAL

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__________________________________________________Phone No.:__________________________

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I authorize THE AUSTRALIA CAMBODIA FOUNDATION to charge my credit card as specified below:

My donation: $.................... for Sunrise Children’s Village in: ❏ Phnom Penh ❏ Siem Reap ❏ Sihanoukville

To be allocated to: ❏ Operating expenses ❏ Education ❏ Sponsoring a child

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Enter credit card number:

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❏DIRECT DEPOSIT Australia Cambodia Foundation – SCV Operating A/c BSB 085-005 A/c No. 54 952 3845

❏CHEQUES Payable to: The Australia Cambodia Foundation Inc.

Return the completed form to:

PO Box 1113, Unley BC, South Australia 5061, Fax: +61 (0)8 8340 4920 or Email: admin@scv.org.au

Payment for donations/sponsorships or merchandise orders or changes to your contact, credit card or email details can be made on the following form:

Merchandise

Payment or Change of Details Form

For merchandise purchases, complete the order form and include payment details below. Please note all prices quoted include postage.

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