This weeked on the Cap d’Antibes in the South of France the

Incomparable Stefan will perform for  a wonderful Cote d’Azur audience to help support our Schools in the villages.

These are just two of his reviews: ” Far and away the most talented singer song-writer of his generation”  International Herald Tribune. …… and, “In the same Olympian bracket as Noel Coward and Victor Borge” Sunday Times.

Incredible reviews for a great performer. John.

This is the BLOG or ‘latest news’ section the EducatingCambodia. It includes all our updates and photos; they then are gradually copied into the various sections that you see to your left. The sections include ‘schools’ village children’and how to donate and a list of Donors. (The BLOG also includes occassional news items especially if they help to tell the ‘Cambodian Story’.)

Please look for ‘Helping this Way’ and ‘Suistainability’.

We have 1000 children so far in 3 schools. We only employ Cambodian teachers and teach Cambodian subjects. We have no admin staff or admin costs of any sort. eg no travel or accommodation costs.

Our Clinic is completed as a building and soon we will employ 2 Cambodian nurses.

Our ‘MISSION’ is “to help thousands of innocent victims of decades of horror in the very best sustainable (see the sustainability section) and accountable ways we can – starting with schools.

We are also working on a range of farming initiatives, aiming towards giving the villagers incomes of their own. John…

One photo is of the Chuor Ph’av School with the red clinic in the distance. The other photo is of Bit and her brother. Bit features several times in the ‘village children’ section.

I took some photos last night and the others this morning; they are of the incredible, stunning, amazing crematorium to be used for The King Father Norodom Sihanouk on Monday February 4. The King Father died on October 15 and he has lain within the adjacent Royal Palace since being brought back from China where he died. The Building – ALL the buildings, pavillions and seating stands and plants and pathways have been built specially and are ALL TEMPORARY. The area will be returned to parkland after the cremation. If you look carefully you can perhaps see that most of it including the rooves are in fact plastic.

The King Father is known to most as King Norodom. He became King and ruled through the last years of French colonial rule and then the better days of the 50s and 60s -  then there were arguably corrupt governments, US incursions and carpet bombing raids during the Vietnam War (you can read articles and see maps on this elsewhere in this site). King Norodom then survived the Khmer Rouge but was under house arrest in his palace(!) – one of the few people living within Phnom Penh during those four years. He later abdicated in favour of his son who is King Sihamoni… but to most people Norodom was still King.

Tomorrow begins the 7 days of mourning with many embassies warning their expats to stock up on essentials because little will be open. Tomorrow is the big procession right through the centre of Phnom Penh. I will try to take a photos of crowds if nothing else. Several mllion people have come from the provinces for this funeral. Phnom Penh is packed. The Queen Mother – Norodom Monineath Sihanouk, King Sihamoni and a great many dignitaries will be within the special pavillions on Monday. John.

If you look down to two post below – dated January 18 2013 – you will see a full story of the Beaudesert Rotary Club visit to Cambodia and our villages in particular. On January 16 an Australian newspaper, The Beaudesert Times, published this article. It covers the essentials of the visit very well. It also covers WHY we are helping these villages.

If you are a first time visitor to our website then you might enjoy looking to your left and browsing through any of the sections listed. You’ll find stories, photos, ways to donate and why donate! John.

 Elise from Douiai - representing La France!

Bon Chance Antibes this coming Friday and Saturday evening on Cap d’Antibes. They will be fabulous shows starring the wonderful Welsh tenor, playwright and story teller - ARWEL TREHEARNE MORGAN.. Have a great time everyone. Much love to you all from the children and families here in your villages. Read the post below for more … much more…. John.

Please look at the posting dated January 6 2013 for the preparations for this visit and photos.

Nine Australians from the Rotary Club of Beaudesert and our French Exchange student from Douiai near Lille in northern France, flew back to Australia today from there very successful and happy trip. In today’s post you’ll find 40 photos and the story of their trip.

They all came to Cambodia to see our villages and our schools. Their stay became a holiday also. We travelled together in a private hire bus from Phnom Penh to the villages and from there past the border with Vietnam to the Mekong River town of Kratie to see the many great things Katie has to offer. From Kratie west and then north to Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat’ and then south back to Phnom Penh – a one week holiday!

The route was S21 and The Killing Fields and historical things in and around Phnom Penh and then a days market shopping…. the cheapest markets in the WORLD! – I havent included photos of the Phnom Penh section in this blog update. There are sections with stories and photos within this site that cover earlier visits to all the places we visited during the week, but these are brand new photos with brand new people.

We went from Phnom Penh to Chuor Ph’av in the Kamchay Mear District of Prey Veng Province to our villages and schools and Clinic – where there are photos (in the Clinic)  Three posters in there of donations made this past Christmas by a grandma to her grand kids instead of Christmas presents. (see the blog below).

Today there are everal photos at Chuor Ph’av Schools and the tumble down looking but very popular tuck shop with kids buying – using some of the 500 Riel that we always give when theres a ‘visit’. 500 Riel is a red note that’s worth 12 cents. The Beaudesert Rotary group also bought a huge cupboard for the school and paid for the schools to be painted inside and out and to get thewindows more securely fixed. (again see below)

If you can recall (you’d have to have a good memory) twin boys with shaven heads (lice) taken 4 years ago. (the original photo is in the site section ‘schools’ if you look to the index to your left) Theres a picture of them today aged eleven. These boys are especially poor and sadly very malnourished. One of our very obvious goals is to improve village nutrition combined with sanitation and health!

We then went into the village to the house where I live (theres a big table) for lunch (photo) and then onto Antibes School in the village of Prey t’Baing. It is named the Antibes School because Antibes in France contribute a lot to its overall upkeep.

We still need donations from anyone or everyone to help our three schools, the new Clinic and our farm projects. Look to the index for the Donate section. Without your help we cannot function. Please remember that we have 1000 children and we employ NO foreigners and just our nine Cambodian teachers. I am not paid and no admin staff are paid anywhere.

Elise from France took on being the representative for Antibes..She asked a million questions about money, purchases and Antibes itself! Soooo there she is proudly with The sign  and in the classrooms. We gave Antibes School 500 Riel a piece too and recently paid the teachers for a year and built the pump you see in the post dated January 6.

The next thing we need to do at that school is a finishing coat of fine concrete on all floors – if you look carefully you can see its very rough. We also need to repaint the school inside and out and eventually buy three new blackboards.

We had hired a bus for our five days and so now we travelled north to Kratie on the east bank of the Mekong. In and near Kratie we visited temples at the top of endless steps; we went on boats to see the VERY rare Meking dolphins; watched delicious palm sugar being made with lots of skill and hard work with pulleys and wooden paddles until fudge like. We had a meal over the Mekong after crossing causeways to rapids where we could paddle.

The journey to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat is an eight hour one so we broke it with stops in markets and wood fired brick works.. Photos relating to all this are included today and as I say if you were to browse through the entire site you would find other similar photos.. Several of the markets sell everything from deep fried tarantulas to cockroaches and crickets… and no the tarantualas do not taste like chicken, they taste like tarantulas fried in old oil.

Siem Reap is very much the tourist city for Angkor Wat. We had two days in Siem Reap. Theres a ‘floating village’ with lots of kids holding snakes for ‘photo 50 cents’ and hundreds of families living on little homes on the water. We saw lots of touristy things including an Apsara dance troupe (the precurser and original for the much later Thai dancing) there’s a photo of some of us with the dancers. There is a large section on Angkor Wat and also on the early history and old battles with Thailand within this site.

Angkor Wat is an incredible complex of many temples and ancient buildings. I chose two for everyone to see in our all too brief a visit. Angkor Wat itself which is by far the biggest religious building in the world and incidentally the only real building to appear on a national flag! The first photo of Angkor Wat is of the inner causeway at 8am – and the second was taken at 10am…quite a difference.

Ta Prom is most peoples favourite with a symbiotic relationship with the jungle that was covering it and still does to a certain extent … if the temple falls so do the trees and vice versa!

It was a wonderful week staying in good and very inexpensive hotels. Many great memories for for the nine Australians and one French Rotary Exchange student… BUT… mostly it was wonderful that 1000 children can carry on with their Education and I can ask you, dear reader, to try to help us too if you can. Within Australia donations are tax deductible. John.

Nine Beaudesert Rotary Club members and one Rotary Exchange student from France will visit our villages next week… (and then they’ll go for a short holiday in one of my favourite areas, Kratie… then two days in Siem Reap and back to Phnom Penh)… so there will be photos and stories to come right here in this blog in a couple of weeks from now.

To get us right up to date before their visit I’ll add nine photos!

Our Beaudesert Roatarians have individually sent money in advance of their trip for such things as their travel within Cambodia but also things for the schools. Often we spend money on books, clothes and shoes. You can see in the previous blog that salaries have just been paid. THIS TIME we are doing things for the buildings themselves – plus one big storeage cupboard (see photo). We will paint the buildings inside and out (progress photo) and also make some insecure windows more secure.

In the past two weeks an individual donor has paid for 300 chicks and 100 ducklings. You might recall and see in an earlier blog that a donor (same donor) has already paid for a LARGE chicken shed in readiness. The chicks and ducklings are currently in our small rearing pens (part of the donation)… Chicks and ducks are so far doing well. I’ve added a phot of our nearest little prodice store run by my friend the VET.. so we gets lots of free advice and buy feed that we can’t already grow ourselves for our animals.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will understand why we seem to have got into FARMING!! Its simply to raise the potential income of village families from its current $1 per day so that the villages can eventually contribute to THEIR OWN schools and clinic.

You’ll see a photo of the Prey t’Baing school with a pump and well out front. A man is standing proudly by his pump. He is the Prey t’Baing village leader and with money given by Antibes in France, he dug it and built it for us. His name is Pun Pointe.

We now have names on all three schools, recognising the major contributions from Beaudesert Rotary, Captains Choice (travel company from Melbourne) and Antibes in France. All maintenance, books etc and teachers salaries at the Prey t’Baing Elementary School are now being paid by donations from Antibes in France so that School is ‘Antibes School’. Our middle school in Chuor Ph’av is ‘The Captains Choice School’ and our first Elementary School is ‘The Rotary Club of Beaudesert School’. John

I’ve made two additions to the ‘Donors’ page today.

Ailsa and Don Hay have been added to the ‘Gold Donors’ list within the Donors page. (see the blog prior to this one.)

For clarification Ive added the sentence  ” ..Indeed we have no administration charges whatsoever. NO ONE is paid except our Cambodian teachers.” Check the page to your left. This is in addition to there being no percentage taken for administration.. What it all means is that 100% of your money goes to Cambodian teachers, buildings and books etc. John. Then check the ‘Donate’ page to actually send money. Thanks, John.

Merry Christmas from the village of Chuor Ph’av in District of Kamchay Mear, in the Province of Prey Veng, Cambodia – (there’s more about Nang and her daughter – our Christmas Miracles later in the article!

- this is an absolute up to date update from our Cambodian villages. Most of the photos were taken yesterday, December 21 2012. As you know I take 1000s of photos and keep the originals in large format so if for any reason you’d like a large copy at any time, just ask.

The 16 photos today don’t cover our farm projects. The tractor is well used throughout the villages and we are waiting for waters to drop before we start our legume crop experiment. Pigs doing well and Chicken House complete but yet to get its 200 chickens – soon though.

The Photos:

We have nine teachers over three schools for 1000 children. We pay the Cambodian teachers In the first of the last block of photos you will  see Chanthou, our Cambodian representative when I’m absent, giving each teacher their salary. Our Antibes Friends (France) who help us a lot and frequently look after the third (Prey t’Baing ) school, so one third of the money came from France, two thirds from The Rotary Club of Beaudesert. In fact, yesterday, only eight of the nine teachers were present – the head teacher in pink took his money on his behalf.

Ailsa and Don Hay who are Rotary members from Brisbane have just done something truly wonderful. Ailsa and Don have always loved what we do in our villages and follow our every move and dollar. This Christmas they have made a very personal decision. Rather than give their twelve family members personal presents this Christmas they asked me what we really need right now. They have given $1500 which has bought 1200 exercise books, 1300 pens, 500 reading books and 100 school uniforms (which actually provides many children with their ONLY clothes).. I’ve sent Ailsa and Don 50 photos of the school presentation and thanks but here are 16 for you!

One of the photos is last years news and three years before that – just to let you know that the computers we bought 4 years ago are still in use… and we still very much remember everyone who helps us. My old College friend, Fleur, from the 60s died last year and she was one of our ‘gold’ donors (more than $500 – see the ‘Donors’ section).

After the first major difficulties we’ve had with a building project (two builders over running budget) our Clinic is finally complete and ready for two or three beds and first aid equipment – for which WE NEED MONEY PLEASE. There are five photos of the Clinic nestled between the Teachers House and a School building.

Look back to the ‘Merry Christmas’ and you’ll find our CHRISTMAS MIRACLE – If you keep up with this website you’ll know NANG and that time after time after time after time she could easily have died. See ‘Nangs Story’ in this website.

Nang is still very sick but she symbolises the almost complete lack of health care in any of the villages – it is Nang who has inspired our Clinic – not to cure everything but for early intervention, health and nutrition education and first aid.

Nang is a wonderful mother to her daughter Peery. Peery is showing off the $1 dress I bought for her. I gave Nang away at her wedding. Her husband is long gone (he couldn’t cope with the illness and was violent). Bonde hair? that only happened yesterday.. “why?’… ” I wanted to look like your daughter.”

In January,  10 Beaudesert Rotary members and friends will come to visit our projects. It is something they and everyone who has helped and will help in the future can be very proud of.

Incidentally our farming projects are for something that is possibly unique – certainly in this part of the world: and what is that something? -

- We employ absolutely no one except nine Cambodian teachers. there are NO administration fees or percentages. Salaries for teachers? The Cambodian Government pays the standard $1 per day and so do we… I am not paid, no assistants or secretaries are paid..

SO – IF we can lift the farming income of the village by … not much — and so pay their own teachers, buy books and maintain the buildings it will evetually be ‘sustainable’.

you can email me anytime on fromjohnmann@hotmail.com,

Merry Christmas from John and 1000 wonderful children.

This is the ‘blog’ part of our website with all the latest news and additions. You can, if you wish, scroll down through 16 months  of news or look to your left for any or all of our sections – from Mission Statement and aims, and how and why we do what we do, to Schools and Village life… with the occassional national news item as its relevant to us.

The most recent blog – see below – was wishing ‘Bon Chance Antibes – et moi’. The two performances were fabulous and I made a lot of new friends (because I was there!). With the money raised we have made progress in the villages and will make more as the large chicken house is now complete and the Clinic will be ready to equip in days rather than weeks.

Today I’ve added 27 photos which I hope are largely self explanatory… so please enjoy them as you browse through them. I’ll put all their notes together so if when looking at a photo you can’t quite place it in the great scheme of things – search through the following notes!

THE SECOND GROUP OF PHOTOS is from the shows in Antibes… I was there so I took them! They show our Antibes part of the Village family enjoying shows from Danish Stars – a greta magician, a very funny commedienne and all accompanied by a very special pianist from England.

All the money raised, yes ALL the money comes to our villages… no one is paid! Our 100 children and their families in kamchay Mear District understand this are are sooooo grateful.

…{The very first photo at the very top of todays posting is our miracle lady, Nang with her daughter – read more later plus her very own section in the index to your left – ‘Nang’s Story.’ In the first group of pictures there are lots of pig photos and pictures of all our farming projects.The pig photos start with the very first pigs the village sold and the start of our breeding programme (Our aim is for the villages to have their own income stream to initially help support their own schools and eventually completely.. We are a long way off that BUT at least it means that there will be some food on the table!).. Youll see a photo of Chanthou spreading fertiliser on a rice field. Yo can see the boy Kumheang cllecting pond weed from our fish project pond (feeding fish to sell) to supplemant the pig food. We bring in a vet to inject anti parasitic medicine in pigs failing to thrive (see left) and he is seen with Sochea one of the many villagers across three villages helping and learning pig farming – Chanthou to the right of that group of three.

A few weeks ago The King Father – Norodom Sihanouk sadly died and there is a photo of just one of the crowded Boulevardes to see his body driven past.

You can see in the index to your left, ‘Nangs Story’… you should read it, it inspires our Clinic. Theres a photo toay of Nang this week, weak but surviving with her terrific little daughter Peery. Peery is three years old in a few days of writing this, on November 26th 2012. (in the photo they are resting in a hammock). Theres another photo of peery standing wearing green shorts with a group of friends by a fire.

I LOVE THE PHOTO  OF CHENG - Nangs mother; (above)she’s standing, balancing herself with her kroma (multi use scarf) looped over a beam, while she separates rice from stalks the traditional and usual way, with here feet!

In the body of the website you can find lots of photos of the ‘three friends’ . Theres a picture of two of them together today .. Da on the left now a tiny seven year old and Chanthay her six year old friend.

There’s a photo of me giving the final installment of the Clinic Money to our builder, Lorn. As I write the roof is being completed so I may add that photo in a few days from now… for now theres a photo of the Linic with the roof strated and it still needs a large double sliding glass front door. … and then beds and first aid equipment.

Its very important that the Cambodian people understand both ‘charity’ and how to make work eventually sustainable ie supported by the villages. So theres a photo of several local Cambodian people at weekend classes on these very topics.

SOMEWHERE… (and uploading these photos from a very remote location..positioning both pictures and text seems impossible – sorry – I hope you the reader can cope!) theres a photo of me with Sok ken our much loved Head Teacher. John.