Cambodia: building houses and teaching art

- admin November 19th, 2009

The first time I went to Cambodia was for a field trip in 8^th grade. Several homebase classes (first 20 minutes of the school day) worked together to raise money through a shave-a-thon. We raised over SGD$8000 or about USD$4800. With this money, we were able to pay for several houses, a well, and pigs for a village.

When we traveled to the village, I brought a backpack full of toys. Because I had a 3-year-old sister, I knew what to bring: bubbles, balloons, pens, and…a Chinese yo-yo. Okay, the yo-yo was more for me and the other “big kids.”

Because of this bag of tricks, I ended up giving a giant art lesson to about 20 of the village kids. Many of them had never been to school before. They definitely didn’t have structured art classes; yet, they created beautiful works with the little materials that I brought with me.

When we had to go, I brought back a couple pieces of artwork and left one of the bubble containers. The drawings are still stuck up in my room.

Our work was done in conjunction with the Tabitha Foundation, an amazing organization that has affected the lives of 232,000 Cambodians with their various programs over the past 15 years.

http://www.tabitha.ca/

http://www.tabitha-usa.org/tabitha_cambodia.shtml