After thinking that Claire's presentation on 'Cows For Cambodia' was going to be an eye opener to us all, I actually lost count of the many other charities that Claire Dolton is involved in in Cambodia together with the fund-raising ideas that she & her husband, Gerry, have created such as skipping ropes of which I think we should all buy one for at least $1..that will come later..!
Cows for Cambodia is the creation & now organisation of a S.A by the name of ANDREW (Cosi) COSTELLO which is designed to provide the opportunity to break the poverty cycle. Cosi (as he is commonly known by) purchased his first cow for $751 and lent it to a family. “I thought I’d do one as a trial and if that was successful then I’d continue to grow it,” he said
Cows for Cambodia is essentially a 'COW BANK' “We loan families a pregnant cow, they must look after it and when it has the baby they get to keep the baby and we take our cow back. It’s more about providing an opportunity to break the poverty cycle rather than a direct handout. Each family signs a contract to ensure our cow is looked after and strict rules are followed to ensure the best outcomes for all parties”
I might add that these cows are Immunised and vetted on a regular basis, so no room for neglect..!
Apart from 'Cows For Cambodia' there are the 140 goats that the villages look after, Duck farms are in process too, up to 40 ducklings are transported to villages where the families care for them. Claire also enlightened us to the fact that Fish are being introduced as another source of welfare for these families in the form of 'Fingerlings' these, when fully grown and harvested are then transported by means of large esky's and taken to the local villages and schools as a means of a daily meal of fresh fish.
There's also the 'Rice Runs' which are literally 30kg rice bags that are purchased by means of donations of $30 and whoever donates that $30 gets to put a personal message on the bag itself and 5 Tut Tut's head out and deliver these bags to various villages, where the cows are fed the rice too.
The village schools are all run on a volunteer basis and the children get fed 'One' meal a day. There are anything up to 400 children attending these schools which most are nothing but dirt floors and instead of blackboards there are 'White boards' that are actually 'Grey!' all stationary is donated and as you heard the other night Claire made a huge purchase of stationary such as, pens & pencils etc at Officeworks which they'll take over with them early next February on their Reunion trip.
There are just too many other projects going on to even get your head around but all are a necessity and a wonderful way to help these beautiful people get their lives back after the terrible way they were treated and are still suffering the consequences today. But with our help maybe we can help change a family's life in the best possible way..?!!
Here is a list of donation values which represents the activities your donation could help support:
Build a Cambodia family a house – $1900 Cow – $1000
Feed 260 School kids $390 Build a duck farm – $250
School excursion for 50 kids – $200 Bag or Rice to feed a family for a month – $30
Feeding a cow for a month – $30 Vaccinating & drenching a cow – $15
Goat – $185
Jan Emmett
Chairman
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