Posted by Dale Edmonds on April 11, 2012
Last month, we spoke to two delightful mothers who told us how happy they are to have their young children in our Day-care centre.
At the Family house now, our kind and patient housemother takes care of three lovely toddlers while their mothers concentrate in completing their six-month vocational skills training at Riverkids. Children at the centre are taught social skills, get lots of playtime, have warm nutritious meals and snacks such as delicious desserts and fruits.
"The first time I brought my daughter to the Day-care centre, she cried. She did not want to stay there, but five days later, she asked me to bring her there again saying, “Mama, let’s go to the center. Go to center!’ ” said a mother in her twenties.
This Mother’s Day, send the message of hope to our mothers in Cambodia with a scarf purchase that wraps your mother in love. A beautiful hand-woven scarf at $24.95 will provide nutritious meals and snacks for a young toddler and day-care by a housemother every month.
The big day falls on May 13, Sunday and the sale of the fair-trade scarves will help fund a much-needed Day-care centre for ten more mothers who need our day-care services so that they can focus in their jobs and training. With your support, we’ll be able to prevent mothers in Cambodia from resorting to working in dangerous jobs or worst, selling their babies
Click here to order the scarves online before May 13 or donate to Riverkids. Thank you.
Riverkids Project
P.S. Postage in Singapore is free and overseas postage is a flat rate of $2.
Posted by Dale Edmonds on March 25, 2011
Celebrate Mothers’ Day with Riverkids’ families and children. The “Scarves For Hope” Campaign supports mothers in Cambodia with beautiful handwoven silk scarves that wrap your mother in love.
The big day falls on Sunday, 8 May in Singapore. The sale of the scarves will help fund a much-needed kindergarten in a neglected slum in the outskirts of Phnom Penh, nicknamed Kilomet-Six.
Most of the children living in this struggling community have never been to school because it is too expensive and far away.
Riverkids has begun funding education for children at K6 to local state schools, and the new kindergarten will keep the younger children safe and prepare them for school.
Mothers crowded into a room recently to hear Riverkids’ social workers explain their school and kindergarten plans. They are desperate for their own kids to be given a chance. But they need help. The priority of these mothers is to find food for their families. There is no money left for school, let alone books, bags, shoes and stationery.
So this Mother's Day, remember that first day of school and your mother sending you off with her love and support. Make that possible for a child in Cambodia and show her your love and appreciation with a Riverkids scarf.
With the Scarves for Hope campaign, every $49 scarf sends two little children to Kindergarten for a month of learning, snacks and care. It's a gift that will mean so much to your mum.
Riverkids will be selling gorgeous silk scarves, made by social enterprises and charities in Cambodia, with prices starting at $24.95.
PS: Local postage is free and overseas postage is a flat rate of $2.
Posted by Dale Edmonds on November 26, 2010
Christmas is just around the corner, and as we start with a bang with our four day Thanksgiving sale, we just wanted to say thanks.
Thanks to the volunteers who've photographed, copywritten, inventoried, typed and helped out at sales and fairs.
Thanks to people who make the gorgeous beautiful bags and scarves and toys and gifts that we sell. We've been incredibly lucky to have helped some of them get started - our Riverkids students who graduated to jobs at some of our fair trade partners. We picked you to shop with because we've checked you out and we know you create jobs for Cambodians that pay fairly and help families.
Thanks to our customers! From suggestions and ideas, to recommending us to your family and friends, you make the shop possible.
And most of all, thanks to the children at Riverkids. The shop started when we needed schoolbooks and stationary for our classroom, and Dale went with a friend to the Russian Market in Phnom Penh. She suggested we buy some of the quirky Cambodian gifts and double them for our friends. An email went out, and with a pile of puppets, paintings and little pouches in the post turned into a stack of new notebooks and pencils, workbooks and crayons and happy children.
Thank you for being such great kids. Working with over 400 children from families in the slums of Phnom Penh, struggling with deep family problems, watching you blossom at school, with your friends and most of all, with your families, has been wonderful.
Have a wonderful thanksgiving with your family, wherever you are in this world.
Posted by Dale Edmonds on September 12, 2009
They’re gorgeous, fairly-priced and people love ‘em, especially when they realise that they’re made from discarded cigarette packets, carefully turned into bright beads.
Most of all, paper bead necklaces, earrings, bracelets and more are made by our very own families, including some of the more difficult parents we work with. It took training, support and small initial funding from us, and a lot of hard work and patience from them.
But we don’t sell them through this shop for one simple reason: Cambodia House.
Mary was one of our first large buyers and helped patiently advise our microbusiness staff, Sinoy, and the families on improving our work and working as wholesalers. Mary sells the beads and lots of other gorgeous things from Cambodia to fund many great social causes.
We aim not to overlap with great shops like Cambodia House, and thanks to the growing diversity of Cambodia, that’s possible – even if it sometimes means not selling our own products!
You can read about the impact Mary and our other Riverkids wholesale buyers have made in With paper jewelry, into a bright future from our blog earlier this year.
Posted by Dale Edmonds on September 12, 2009
The Riverkids Shop is run out of a small room in Singapore. As the shop grew, so did all the boxes stacked up around my desk – tonight, after setting aside everything larger than standard mailing bag, I had to hop, skip and jump to make it to the door – physical tetris!
We’re having a massive sale of all our beautiful big things to clear shelf space for our new finds. And oh, they were so much fun to hunt down! Some came from the local markets, a few were pure serendipity, and some are old favourites that sold out early on.
Next trip, I’m going to look harder for jewelry – we had to turn down some very pretty pieces that weren’t made in Cambodia and couldn’t be verified as fairtrade or socially responsible. But while Khmer silversmiths may be rarer, we saw some gorgeous new clothes designed locally. If you get to Phnom Penh, set aside a day early on to talk to several tailors. They’re moving beyond plain copies to their own style, drawing on a rich heritage of silk, embroideries and graceful silhouettes.
We love finding the best of Cambodia’s shops for you – and we hope you enjoy sharing them with your friends and family. Funds raised by the Riverkids Shop help keep our doors open to over three hundred children in the slums of Phnom Penh.
Thanks!
Dale Edmonds, September 12, 2009.
