The Long Road Home

I’m writing to let you know that the Sihanoukville Community Playground - Club Tapang - which followers of my ride home, including generous corporate sponsors, helped to fund - has been completed, and opened on 11th May.
To inaugurate the Playground, a show was performed by M’Lop Tapang kids, watched by more than 500 children and their families over two days. I’ll upload shortly some photos sent by the M’Lop Tapang team of the show, and the Playgound, so you can see the children’s amazing acrobatics stunts at the show, and also scenes of people using the Playground - local youth playing volleyball, kids doing sports and playing in the large covered area, children playing in the sandpit in the children’s area.
This is what Francesco Caruso, who works with the M’Lop Tapang team, wrote to say:
“The playground has reached beyond our expectations, with every dollar being used wisely. The images show a dream come true: images of children benefiting from a community playground that is happy, safe, clean and open to everyone.
“When we first tried to show the land where we wanted to build a playground to Lisa Genasci - director of ADM Capital Foundation - we could hardly reach it because the entrance was blocked by rubbish and stale water. Yet we knew there was potential, centrally located, right behind the town market.
“Chris Reid, the architect who volunteered to design the playground and monitored the construction, managed to transform that vision into reality. He not only helped build a beautiful playground, he has made sure it will be clean and environmentally friendly, with lights powered by solar panels and with a proper waste water system.
“During the opening show we saw M’Lop Tapang staff, from M’Lop Tapang director, Eve Sao Sarin, to the many Khmer volunteers who work with us. We saw smiles of pride and happiness. Watching hundreds of children enjoying themselves and former street children performing amazing acrobatics is worth all the hard work. These are children and youth who spend their days working and struggling to survive. Watching them grow and play in a safe environment, allowed to play like children want to the world over, is what matters the most to Maggie, Francesco, and all of us who work here daily and to all of you who support us. Moments of happiness like that are what our work is all about.”
Click on the M’Lop Tapang link to the left to read more about the centre, working with street children in Cambodia.
I’ll also update shortly on the Pakistan project, which readers also funded.
Thankyou again for all the support to make this happen,
Sue.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Charity Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.