I will be honest and tell you that, at this point, no clear direction is being taken for the future of the SAHAKA FOUNDATION ORGANIZATION (SFO). That is not to say that we are not doing anything. The day school in Prey Veng is doing great.

The cement work has been completed under the new awning, which will give the children more shade and a play area in the rainy season.

Home visits continue to be made to former Wat Opot children, and most are doing well… however, because of the distance from Phnom Penh and between families, only two or three families can be seen in a single day.

This translates into several long days on the road every month tracking the families down. We were fortunate this month to have both Josh and Melinda visiting with us and the children were very happy to see them.

The Department of Social Services offered us a compound in Pursat Province rent-free if we took over the upkeep and care of the grounds and buildings. We made the 4-hour drive out to see the property and talked with the social service workers there however, although it had a lot of potential…

The compound is rather large and would require a lot of time, money, and effort to make it into a suitable place to live and develop a new program for inner-city youth.

In addition, the distance from Phnom Penh and other SFO programs would make it difficult to manage unless we hire new staff. For that reason, we decided that it was not something we could do, at this time, and so our thoughts returned to reopening the Wat Opot compound.

Unfortunately, we found Partners in Compassion was still holding the contract to the land and, although we were told we could move in at the beginning of the year, the papers have not yet been signed, which would return the old Wat Opot compound to the local community. The Monks have started to build a wall that will eventually separate the land but SFO can do nothing until the papers are signed and the fence is built.

So there you have it… Dara continues to work with the Wat Opot alumni and the Prey Veng day school students, and I accompany him most of the time. We have put a lot of miles on the van in the past couple of months and fortunately, it hasn’t given us any trouble. We appreciate your support very much and hope to have more positive news in the near future.

If you would like to be a part of this, you can donate through the SAHAKA website or if you live in Cambodia use this QR code: