Report from Visit to Takeo, Cambodia, April 2, 2023

Students hold thank you cards made for their sponsors from WFWP USA.

Editor’s Note: Since 2015, WFWP New Jersey has supported children in Cambodia, in partnership with WFWP Cambodia.  Foster parents sponsor a student’s yearly education, books, and more. In exchange, the foster parents receive letters and school reports from the children. Below is a letter written by Mrs. Takahashi who lives in Cambodia and works for WFWP Cambodia, and personally visits the children.

Greetings from Cambodia! 

Groups of athletes are gradually arriving in Cambodia for the Southeast Asian Games (SEA GAME) to be  held in May. The SEA GAME is called “Olympics of Southeast Asia”, and shortly, 40 judges from Japan will be sent from Japan to evaluate the athletes’ performances. 

I believe through sports, as well through cultures and the arts, we can respect and bring the greatest  version of ourselves forward and recognize our collective strength and beauty–we can see beyond our  separate countries and instead see ourselves as citizens of the Earth that strive to bring about world peace. 

WFWP in Cambodia visits our foster children three times a year; in our most recent trip, the team stopped by the elementary school in Kiribong and Takeo City in early April. There, we held events for the foster child  support program and the ceremony of giving support money. Eight members of the Reatch Sei Association actively participated in the event and supported us tremendously; not to mention, they have been cooperating and dedicating their support towards our cause since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

For the first activity of the new year, we folded origami paper which can be seen in the images below. The children learned how to create dogs, chicks, fish, hearts, and flowers during the origami activity. Following  this project, the children created and decorated their own specialized name cards with their supporters’ names on them. Because the Cambodian schools we visit tend not to supply the students with many  opportunities for arts and crafts, we dedicated this time to express their artistic talents and passions.  

Our WFWP Cambodia team were overjoyed to see all the children, young and older, working diligently and beautifully on their origami projects. Also, seeing them decorate their name cards with their own artistic  designs allowed the children to showcase their personalities and creative thoughts. In this moment we definitely thought: every one of our children are so precious and lovely; they deserve the world! 

Thank you so much for your support; with your help, we are able to see the growth of these children.  Moving forward, we would love to develop our programs more and more to allow the children to follow their dreams and discover their bright futures with the amazing potential they have. As always, the WFWP  Cambodia team appreciates your support and we encourage supporters to continue watching over the children with love and care.