LOCKED DOWN
The sudden new lockdown regulations in Phnom Penh has led to a busy, challenging and at times surprising month for the kids here at Little Hearts.
Still the creativity, resilience and positivity that our kids demonstrate every single day never ceases to amaze us. By sharing our projects and stories we hope to inspire you, and make this difficult time just a little bit brighter and stronger.
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Jack's Story
Jack is one of our older kids at Little Hearts who took some time to write a small piece on how life in lockdown has been for the kids this month:
"When Covid-19 arrived in Cambodia, it has been changed a lot of things. Like, there is a locked down in our country now. Schools have been closed a few times and we have to do online study everyday. While we know it has been a challenging time for us.
Study through online is not easy as the real class. Like, it's hard to catch up the lesson and sometimes the internet is not working at all. and there are many things we can not do like, going outside on weekend, we can not practice volleyball with our team outside for the tournament.
We can not across to Phnom Penh to buy the stuff that we need. We had no Taekwondo, football, art class on weekend. And last but not least we can't meet others people beside our family.
There have also been some positive changes that happened. Because we have enough time to make a lot of new projects. Like, growing a lot more of our own vegetable and fruits in our garden. For me one of the best thing is some time to be creative and make the new plan, like we have now made a new plan to build a fish pond using rocks we found near the property that we can breed and sell some fish in future.
Beside that we also got some time for fun games activities with the all the family together. We're never let it rest and we're always go for the best!"
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Life In Lockdown
From our Little Hearts welfare coordinators.
For the younger kids COVID- 19 has been especially hard. They make important bonds at school for their social development. They miss their classes, they miss the friends they have at school, they miss their teachers and they miss going out every day. Even for the weekends the little things they enjoy have been much harder. They aren’t allowed to ride bikes, swim or collect the green mangoes, lotus fruits where they used to go.
Online classes have been hard. Our team here does their best to support the kids with their assignments, but it’s not the same as having the teacher show examples and explain it in person. None in the world was prepared for these circumstances. For everyone things are uncertain and it takes much more work and planning to make classes go smoothly.
Despite the challenges we have had some great experiences and new projects. The kids have had more time for activities and have made new gardens and art projects.
They have their own room where the younger kids have been designing and making their own art works over the last few weeks. They have been creative using old recycled materials and turned a broken bike into an artwork and garden feature. They are very proud of this and because the wheels still spin you can see them play with it each day.
The kids have developed new hobbies and interests including learning combat theatre skills through online classes. We can’t buy real performance swords in Cambodia but the kids made their own from bamboo sticks to practice with. They used some electrical tape and paints to decorate them individually and they all look after their ‘lightsaber’ carefully so it doesn’t get damaged. We keep asking them to store them in the closet but each day we find they keep them back under their beds where they are safe.
One of the best things that has happened from COVID 19 is more time with the family.
Every day on their breaks we find the small kids joining the old kids in digging a garden or painting some furniture. COVID 19 has definitely been hard for everyone and the small kids need a lot more attention, support and love to cope with the change but it has also brought the family together more than ever. The kids have reviewing for first semester test in May preparing and hoping to get back to school soon.
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Lockdown Projects
Keeping forty kids entertained during a lockdown is no easy feat! In order to keep busy our kids designed their own projects to do at home together. We completed many new creative projects this month! If you want to check out all of our projects they will be on the Little Hearts website (www.lho.ngo) or see a couple of our highlights below:
Level 1: Recycled Garden Feature
Our Level 1 and Kindergarten class joined together to recycle and old bike and make it into a new feature for the garden.
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Level 2: Window Diorama
Our level 2 class used some paint we had left over to create two amazing new window dioramas for the kids to learn about the solar system and aquatic ecosystems.
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Level 3: Geopolitical World Map
Level 3 joined their desks together to paint a scale map of the world color coded to geopolitical regions to improve their global perspectives and prepare for mock United Nations debates.
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Story from our sponsors in Phnom Penh: A Little Hearts Surprise!
Recently, we had accumulated quite a lot of glass bottles in our garage and were hoping to somehow give them a second life, as glass recycling is not yet much of a thing in Cambodia. So, I posted a picture of them on the “Phnom Penh Minimalist and Freecycle” page on Facebook, saying that they were available for free for anyone who’d like to have them. I remember that the first person to express an interest was a certain Roxanne… Unfortunately, just then the COVID community spread started in Phnom Penh, and it felt not safe for her to pick them up at that time.
After many weeks, with our bottle stash now grown even bigger, I reached out to Roxanne again, and only after multiple messages to and from, we finally both realized who we both were, and that this was Roxanne the Welfare Coordinator of Little Hearts! As coincidence would have it, we had just agreed with Tony, one of the brothers who founded Little Hearts that they would come by on 5 April to pick up a bunch of things that we wanted to donate to the kid, and so they could take the bottles along in one go. A bit puzzled on what the kids actually wanted to do with the bottles, we happily sent them on their way, and didn’t think further about it…
We couldn't be more surprised what happened next, a few weeks later, a package was delivered to Home Horvath in Phnom Penh. Sabine, Yonas, Lila, Katyanna and I could not believe our eyes! There it was a fantastic and unique garden table with matching chairs they had made with sparkling repurposed Christmas lights! Astonishingly, Micky, Sambo, Daleine, Dany, Dina, Lisa, Mary, Malee, Ben, Bunrath, Vandeth, Sreyroth and Roxanne had made it with some of the recycled bottles, cement, and an old tuk-tuk tire. They had hand painted it beautifully and even made us matching pillows.
We were overwhelmed at the time and effort the kids had put into making this gift to thank us for the donations we had made in past. As several times before, we were again amazed by the spirit of positivity, creativity, appreciation, sharing and caring that is the hallmark of these truly extraordinary, wonderful kids and young adults that make up Little Hearts. In any case, we cannot miss seeing the table as we go in and out of our home, and so we now think of Little Hearts every day!
Christophe Horvath, Phnom Penh 11/05/2021
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Our New Marketing Coordinator
Our newsletter this month is brought to you by our new Marketing Coordinator. One of our very own kids Sarim has been with Little Hearts for over 10 years.
Now having finished high school and starting kids college studies in marketing he is taking over our social media and newsletters to gain experience for his CV.
Quote from Sarim:
"Studying marketing I've learnt its more then just selling. It has to include advertising and promotion. To have this chance for experience now will make my future easier because I can learn to overcome the obstacles"
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