Only 5%? Seems a lot more than that....

From The Mirror, Vol. 14, No. 662:

“The Representative of UNESCO in Cambodia, Mr. Jinnai Teruo, said that Cambodia has made a lot of achievements in recent years in the equity of school registration, the quality and effectiveness of education, and the success in strengthening educational infrastructure, especially the registration in primary schools that increased from 93% in 2008 to 94% in 2009.

“He added that nevertheless there is still no equity in the registration between children in urban and in rural areas. This issue calls for increased attention towards those children, so that they too can go to school; infrastructure should be built for those without the opportunity to receive education who are at present not in schools, so that Cambodia can become successful in the Education for All plan."

"“Mr. Im Sethy (Minister of Education, Youth and Sports) added that ‘Our rate of school registration covers only 95% of the respective age group. That means 5% of the children cannot go to school, as they live in remote areas, but we are planning to gather them to register to attend school.’"

BASP - money matters and security

Working in rural Cambodia presents challenges in different ways.

One is the relatively weak level of formal accounting procedures available for the management of money in the projects we do. While we have been fortunate in that we have been able so far to be able to trust the people we work with - namely Esther and the local pastors, we do recognize that our donors do expect a tighter level of accounting for the financial management of our projects. For this purpose, I have set up an Advisory Committee who will help provide the oversight for the financial management and accounting practices for the projects. While these may not be as detailed as is practiced in Singapore, it does provide some way of ensuring that donors expectations are matched by the utilization of money on the ground.

Another difficulty we are recognizing is that there is a real security issue with respect to the movement of large amounts of money during the implementation of projects of the ground. Here in Singapore we can can make use of electronic resources and operate cashlessly, but in rural Cambodia, transactions are based on hard cash. The movement of large amounts on USD in the form of hard cash carries a significant level of risk. This was made very real recently when Esther had her bag snatched, losing a large amount of money, handphones and a camera.

Please pray for us and the staff in Cambodia, that God will grant us the wisdom in dealing with these problems.

The TonLeSap, Mekong and those dams....

Recently, senior officials from countries in the Mekong basin met to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Mekong River Commission. High on the agenda were the pressures to deal with 2 pressing issues that affected the Mekong River system - the falling waters of the Mekong, and the impact of upriver dam constructions.

The Cambodians living off the Mekong basin, as well as the Tonle Sap flood plains are obviously concerned. The river waters have fallen. And while the presence of hydroelectric dams are not expected to materially affect the total flow of water down the Mekong unless it allows for greater tapping of waters for irrigation upstream, the dams actually reduce the predictable seasonal fluctuations of river water levels. The other serious implications are the effect the loss of seasonality will affect the breeding of river fishes.

Because of our work with the floating village, we are also concerned about how these villages of the Tonle Sap flood plain will be affected by the increasing number of dams of the river systems that feed the Mekong. Clearly the health and livelihood of these communities will be seriously affected.

I reproduce excerpts from two publications for your reading:

a] The Angkorcivilization blog: Hydroelectric dams endanger Cambodia's river people

"The water is also no longer drinkable. The village gets its drinking supply from a well, recently dug by a German non-governmental organization (NGO). "It's very difficult to find food to eat," Teouy says. The main diet consists of rice and salt, with traces of fish, meat and wild vegetables when available.

The villagers are used to seasonal fluctuations of the water table and even to flooding during the wet season, but since the dam construction, the river levels have been changing frequently and erratically. Diurnal fluctuations of the water table have made fishing and farming difficult, if not impossible.

The basin's entire ecosystem is in danger, with many varieties of riverine plants having dwindled because of unnatural flooding, and bird and turtle nests having been swept away."

b] Stimson Report: MEKONG TIPPING POINT: HYDROPOWER DAMS, HUMAN SECURITY AND REGIONAL STABILITY

"China’s eight-dam cascade in Yunnan, already half-completed, will significantly alter the timing and volume of the river’s seasonal flows and hold back a significant amount of the silt that annually provides nutrients for downstream agriculture that are critical to food security. This will severely alter the natural rhythm of the river and jeopardize the annual flooddrought

cycle that makes the Mekong the world’s largest freshwater fishery and one of the most productive regions of wet rice cultivation.

The Lower Mekong mainstream dams in Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia, by one estimate published in a December 2008 issue of the MRC’s journal, Catch and Culture, will block the spawning migration of 70 percent or more of the most commercially important species, imperilling the food security and livelihoods of millions, most of them in Cambodia and the Mekong Delta. A more recent preliminary “technical note” also published by the MRC provisionally estimates that if all eleven Lower Mekong dams are built, the population of the main commercial species, will decline by less than 22 percent in all. However, the study notes that the impact will be disproportionately borne by Cambodia (43 percent decline) and Vietnam, affecting populations that are the poorest and most dependent on fish for their protein needs. The study estimates that Thailand will be little affected while Laos may experience an increase of up to 25 percent, presumably because of the expansion of the currently narrow mainstream wetlands.

The greatest downstream ecological impact will be felt in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Great Lake that connects to the Mekong mainstream at Phnom Penh, and Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Upstream dams, including two planned by Cambodia itself, will seriously degrade the Tonle Sap, by far Cambodia’s most important fishery and the seasonal “nursery” of many of the Mekong’s most important fish species. The Mekong Delta of Vietnam will also be severely impacted. The Delta, which produces about 52 percent of Vietnam’s rice and most of its aquaculture fish and shrimp exports, will suffer major consequences from the upstream dams, including the capture of vital silt in dam reservoirs, pollution from mining operations, and a large increase in the use of chemical fertilizers and increased effluents from accelerated urbanization and a decrease in natural soil replenishment."

Khmer language Scripture Union Books for Baray

We are looking for a sponsor for 40 sets of a number of Khmer Language Scripture Union children's Books for distribution to churches and schools in the Baray District.

The books are:

1- Friends Jesus Made Introducing children to Bible reading ($0.50)
2- Children's foundation Introducing children to faith in Jesus ($2.00)
3- God Command Teaching Children about God's Law ($1.00)
4- Pray The importance of Prayer ($1.00)
5- True God’s word Teaching children through the whole Bible ($2.00)
6- Adventure in the deep Sea Vacation Bible School lesson for children ($2.00)
7- Children Ministry Seminar Teaching the teacher about the basics of childrens' ministry . ($1.25)
8- Game Book (This is not an SU book but from EFC-CC) ($3.00)

The whole set costs US$12.75, so we will need about US$500 to supply 40 sets.

If you feel you can help, please let me know.

Happy baby

We were privileged to have been able to support this baby's milk feeds last year, when the mother was down and out, without food and milk. What a difference that timely bit of support made for the child! Which all goes to show....often just a little bit can go a long way!

Praise God!

Floating school@Boeung Rial - design sketch#2

Any contributions to the school building fund would be very much appreciated.

Any cheques should be made out to :

"Mt Carmel BP Church Ltd" and tagged on back to "Cambodia School Building Fund"

The cheques can be mailed directly to :

Attn:Fiona
Mount Carmel BP Church
Clementi Bible Centre
152 West Coast Road
SINGAPORE 127370

Floating school@Boeung Rial - design sketch

This is my sketch of the design for the floating classroom. The classroom dimensions are 7m x 10m. I have added a skirting of about 1-1.5m along the front 3 sides of the classroom, plus a small toilet round the back.

The bundles of bamboos upon which the classroom floats are about 1m x 0.6m with a length of about 3-4m. I am not sure how many bamboo bundles are needed and have represented these as about 5 longitudinal bundles x 3 lengths to extend the full 11-12m of the platform.

The estimated cost was about US$13000, but I expect with the added skirting it might be closer to US$15000.