Saturday the 21th of January, Carpets for Communities joined the Mith Samlanh Fun Fair in Cambodia’s capital city Phnom Penh. Using a local bus company to ship two bags full with fresh colored carpets, we came to the Fair to sell. But while we were in Phnom Penh we also had the opportunities to meet up with Tout Kimchhean, one of our scholarship students now attending university.

Tout Kimchheans family is on the Carpets for Communities program. In the past his mother produced carpets for CFC and now they have successfully transitioned into cricket farming. Meeting this family is a great and inspiring experience. Kimchheans father is a hospitable, friendly and humble man. When talking about Kimchhean his eyes lit up and as he demonstrated one of Kimchhean inventions, he looks so proud.

This invention Kimchhean made has become quite famous amongst CFCs followers. While his mother was making carpets and hand rolled T-shirts off cuts manually into the rolled cotton we make our carpets from, Kimchhean created a machine which rolls the cotton automatically. This piece of equipment, mainly made from scrap wood, saved his family a considerable amount of time while working for CFC. When we found out about this invention, it was clear that Kimchhean would be one of our first scholarship students.

Here at Carpets for Communities we were eager to know how the kid from the village was doing in Phnom Penh. While meeting we first discussed his progress in university and we were proven once again that Kimchhean is a serious, engaged and motivated student. While studying electrical engineering he works on repairing an old house to practice some of the skills he learns in school. Off course we were also interested in how Kimchhean experienced the crowded and busy capitol city. After a long talk we concluded happily that Phnom Penh is treating Kimchhean well, and that although he misses the quietness sometimes, he is having an amazing time in university.

During the market we got to know Kimchhean better, laughed together and sold carpets together. With his family working for CFC in the past, Kimchhean was very engaged in the selling process and told our customers many stories about how the carpets are handmade and about how working with CFC has helped him and his family.

Meeting families or students from our program is always very inspiring . Kimchhean is a positive and energetic young student with a bright future ahead of him. Thank all of you who have supported him in his first year in University and expect to hear more from him soon!

Our national country manager Kimsreang Kun was born in Phav, Kampong Cham province. At age nine, she moved to Battambang, where her parents could earn a better living selling rice. Although her family was never rich, they always had enough food and so Kimsreang and her brothers could go to school. In Battambang Kimsreang successfully finished University in Management, while working full-time as a teacher. She started working as a social worker for Carpets for Communities as she was looking for a job in which she could work directly with Cambodia’s poor people.

Kimsreang is now our National Program Manager. She is in charge of all Cambodian operations for Carpets for Communities and is training and evaluating staff, developing and executing new directions for development and keeping track of logistics. Her motivation for working has however still stayed the same; “To help the poor people of Cambodia.” Although Kimsreangs family was never rich, for Kimsreang there was always enough food and the opportunities to get an education. When she started working with Carpets for Communities in Poipet she experienced what extreme poverty looks like. “When someone in Battambang said to me they were poor, they meant that they cannot buy a motor, or a car. But when someone from the countryside talks about being poor, it means that they really don’t have a 1000 riel ($0,25) in their pockets. Working on improving these people’s situation and to be able to sent their children to school makes this job very rewarding.” 

While Kimsreang is running all Cambodian operations, she would love to see and experience the Australian side of Carpets for Communities. “All of the Poipet staff including me are always wondering what happens to the Carpets after they are shipped from Cambodia. I know that they are sold by volunteers on markets, but I want to know how Australia compares to Cambodia and who the volunteers are that sell them for us. We are very thankful to our volunteers and I would love to get to know them.” Going to Australia would be the first time for Kimsreang to leave Cambodia. While thinking about this she says: “I am very excited to travel to Cambodia and learn and share new things.” And is she going to miss anything from Cambodia? “I hope they serve some good Khmer Noodle Soup in Melbourne!!”

We are now fundraising to bring Kimsreang over for the CfC Conference in February.

Make a donation now at http://pledgie.com/campaigns/16602.

From the 2nd to the 5th of January both the Executive and Poipet teams ventured off to our staff retreat in Mondulkiri. The intention of this trip was to help bridge the gap between both teams; our purposes, goals, visions and expectations.

Mondulkiri is approximately a 10 hour bus ride from Siem Reap, this gave us plenty of time to catch up on reading, sleeping and listening to the entire contents of the Khmer Pop Music charts, Karaoke style! Upon arrival to Mondulkiri the change in temperature was immediately notable, it was much colder there than in Siem Reap! In addition, for the Australians on the team we couldn’t believe how much the landscape replicated something of an Australian country town, was quite the surreal feeling!

Marko kicked us off for the week with a few team building activities; this proved quite the challenge with two different primary languages spoken by team members! Communication certainly involved a lot of creativity and patience on both parts! Kylie led us through a time of reflecting on where the organisation has come from, where we are now and where we are headed, the achievements and challenges alike. This was an interesting time of sharing both the Executive and Poipet team’s perspective leading to a more cohesive appreciation of both Australian and Cambodian operations and priorities. Kat facilitated a session on Empowerment and working from a Strengths Based Perspective with the Poipet staff. The activity involved the team brainstorming and noting ‘two strengths’ per participant followed by a time of sharing with the group. We learnt about some fantastic skills and strengths in this session that our participants have, emphasising much hope for their situations! Lindsey wrapped things up by presenting the 100 day action plan and key priorities for Cambodia which includes focusing on family selection, micro financing, education programs and the scholarship program. We also worked through individual and team expectation settings with both teams. This exercise was incredibly valuable with clear mutual expectations set in order to direct the best and most effective methods of working together this year.

In addition to the above sessions we spent some time exploring the local area with activities such as visiting waterfalls, trekking, elephant rides, watching the amazing sunset and sharing meals together!

Staff retreat was a great way to begin the year, working across both teams and aligning our focuses in achieving key project priorities. It’s safe to say we are all excited about the year ahead which will no doubt have its challenges, hopefully in conjunction with some real positive outcomes for the families CfC is here to support!

Check out our facebook for more pictures http://www.facebook.com/carpetsforcommunities

In October we began our search for the new executive team. As you may know our current team will be finishing their term in January. Long search is finally over. After having interviews with amazing candidates for our CEO position, the decision has been made and our CEO for the next year is selected. Its our great pleasure to welcome Lindsey Ritchie to the CfC family. Originally from Melbourne, Lindsey has studied at ANU and worked with UN Women, Australian Institute International Affairs and other community development organisations. We are excited to have such a great person joining our team and we can’t wait to welcome her in December to Cambodia! It was a really difficult decision as we had a great many wonderful applicants, and thank you to all for applying. Welcome Lindsey!

Our 3 scholarship recipients have arrived in Phnom Penh this week and are getting settled in! All of them are currently in the process of registrering for their degrees.

Attitude Centre for Education (ACE) has agreed to support Hing Premprey and Hourt Pesith as part of their program. This means that the initial funds that we raised for them will be reduced and will be able to be redistributed to further years of study!

We are currently supporting Tout Kimchhean look for accommodation. He was only excluded from ACE due to his degree, as they try to diversify what is studied within the program.

The executive team 2011/2012 is slowly finishing it’t term and it’s time for new people to come on board. This year positions that will be based in Cambodia are Chief Executive Officer, Sales&Marketing Manager and Finance&Production Manager. If you are interested in applying please go here.

Thanks to all of our donors and some amazing events in SA and VIC all of our entrepreneurs have been funded! We still have 7 families we are supporting develop business plans, but we have raised enough funds to support there businesses also! They will be put into a reserve and allocated once the families are ready to start their business.

This continues on from the success of funding the first year of university for our scholarship program.

Thanks from the CfC community for the massive support we have received to empowers these mothers to gain independence and enable their children to gain an education.

We have been able to achieve our 1st year goal! All 3 university scholarship recipients have been funded the costs for their first year of university ($1600). This is an amazing time for them! We are currently in the process of supporting them select their degrees and university and find accommodation in Phnom Penh. We still need to works towards supporting their following years, so we are starting fundraising for their second year at university.

This as an exciting time for these students and an opportunity that they simply wouldn’t have the opportunity to attend university otherwise. In addition it is an exciting time for CfC as the maiden round of scholarship recipients as we strice to expand our operations to achieve greater impact. The next step in their lives is about to start!

On behalf of Carpets for Communities I’d like to thank Trinity Grammar, for their generous donation of $3, 594.95.

Your donation will directly help two of our mothers, Seng Eng and Seng Sean, start their own businesses, which will help them further provide for their family’s needs.Your donation will also help fund university scholarships for three students, Hing Premprey, Hourt Pesith and Tout Kimchhean.

This donation came from a sausage sizzle at the Athletics Day, the Cover for Cambodia event and from money raised at the Sutton House Breakfast.

Our heartfelt thanks to the parents, students and staff of Sutton House for their generosity; the Breakfast raised $1,200 for CfC.

And a very special thank you to the Year 10s who organised Cover for Cambodia – it was a huge undertaking on their part and they did a great job!

Kylie Hansen, CEO

We are looking for new directors to sit on the Carpets for Communities Board of Directors, starting at our AGM in October 2011. If you know of anyone with experience in international development initiatives, or might have a unique skill that they could contribute, please contact Kylie Hansen at kylie.hansen@carpetsforcommunities.org