Grace House Community Centre, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Marianne Richards is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

The last time I was in Cambodia was February 2020. Flights from China were being cancelled because of some silly illness detected in Wuhan - I remember being the only person on the flight from Phnom Penh without a mask on and finding it funny. Little did I know...

Our worlds were about to be blown apart and I was not going to be able to see my Khmer family for almost three years. The children, the staff, my friends, my family, and the hotel I stayed in were all about to struggle more than those of us in the West could even imagine. Their main source of revenue, tourism, was snatched away from them. I read that 80% of hotels closed. For the vast majority of the students at Grace House, their parents are likely to have lost all income. Schools closed; education stopped. Home schooling here wasn't a case of sitting in a spare bedroom with some smart computer and so the already disadvantaged kids at Grace House were dealt another poor hand. We supported as best we could from afar but mostly there was little we could do except add additional family support so that everyone could at least eat. I'm so happy that we managed to keep paying the staff throughout. Huge thanks to all who made that possible.

Finally, in August 2022, some of my fellow volunteers made it over and now we need to make a concerted effort to pull it up by its bootstraps and try and help them make up for lost time! I have now managed to book my return trip at the turn of the year and, if at all possible, I'd like to make sure I can take a nice donation with me. I know it's a big ask with many struggling themselves, but anything you can manage is truly most gratefully received.

If you're in the UK, please feel free to donate direct to the UK charity here If you're eligible they can also claim the tax back. If you're near me in France, I can take cash. I can't give you a tax receipt but at least we'll save commission charges. The euro to dollar exchange rate is a pain but there's nothing I can do about that.

Thank you -*- Thank you -*- Thank you