May 2010 CCH Report

.........................CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S HAPPINESS ........................ MONTHLY REPORT

May 1, 2010

CCH Ranked #1 in Child Protection

Cambodia has many, many vulnerable children, and many orphanages. Some orphanages do a very good job, others not so good, and there are even some that have made the news for exploitive practices. To help differentiate among various levels of child care, Save the Children Australia initiated its "Child Safe Project" to help in "strengthing the capacity of local child protection agencies" within Cambodia.

Recently, an independent evaluation was made through Save the Children Australia of 47 participating orphanages in Phnom Penh to assess the quality of child protection at each organization. Center for Children's Happiness ranked #1 in this survey. Congratulations to the staff at CCH for doing such a good job!

The criteria for evaluation were quite thorough, including nine basic standards, as follows:

1- Clarity in articulating a written child protection policy

2- Formal reporting procedure in cases where children are facing personal problems

3- Good staff recruitment procedures

4- Internal rules for staff attitude and behavior toward children

5- Good responsibility in following legal requirements for orphanage administration

6- Adequate written materials to explain to the public about child protection policies and relevant legal matters.

7- Good quality in-service training for staff in matters of child protection

8- Involvement of children and youth in integrated training and development programs

9- Internal evaluation of programs

As you can see, there is a lot involved in running an orphanage well!

Phnom Penh Opens a New Garbage Dump

As regular readers of this newsletter know, most of CCH's children come from the infamous Steung Meanchey garbage dump, which was closed last year. So what happened to all the garbage pickers? As it happens, a new dump has been opened a few kilometers out of Phnom Penh, and the scavenging continues. The only difference is that foreigners are not allowed to come to the new dump except in cases where they are accompanied by Cambodians who are themselves authorized to bring visitors. So the great need which CCH addresses continues, and from time to time it is good to remember where the smiling faces at CCH might be if CCH did not exist.

This huge hole in the ground is beginning (in the distance) to fill up with garbage

..........Garbage pickers--men, women and children, work in heat of 40 degrees Celsius................... (104 degrees Fahrenheit)

CCH Director Mech Sokha, working with the Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs, carries out a survey of children working at the new dump. There are no resources to help this 12 year old girl or her siblings. In general, donations to NGOs have fallen in the most recent year.

There are, however, plenty of children at the dump (and therefore not in school):

Khmer New Year

Mid-April is the annual Khmer New Year. Phnom Penh becomes very quiet, as everything shuts down and most people go to visit their home villages, whether nearby or some distance away. Children at CCH are no exception, as they go to their birth places to visit extended family. Pictured here, CCH requires the custodial adults to sign an agreement accepting temporary responsibility for the care of the CCH children during the New Year period.

Of course, many CCH kids must stay at CCH, but the spirit of the holiday is not lost for them, as they get to go to a local waterslide, and also visit the beautiful Wat at Oudong Mountain, about an hour north of Phnom Penh.

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Progress in CCH 3 Construction

CCH 3 continues to make construction progress. In the past 2 months, the site has been filled with sand and soil to raise it above the natural rainy season water levels. The brick fence has been completed around the perimeter of the property, and all the concrete pilings have been set in the ground.