Saying goodbye to the Young Adult House

The last month a lot has happened regarding the Young Adult House. The owners of the house decided they want to sell the property. This meant that the last three students living there needed to move out. The decision had been made not to move to another Young Adult House right now. Luckily these last remaining students: Sert, Sopheak and Roun, all quickly found a new place to stay in Siem Reap.

Last week has been a strange week for them, because they had to move out of the house where they had been living for two years. Many things have happened in that house in those years. Let’s hope all the students who have been staying there will remind all the good experiences they have had together…

After the moving, it was time for cleaning! Many students from Anjali and even former residents of the house helped with this. The whole house has been cleaned, a wall has been painted, and the chicken coops have been taken down. In the photos you can see all the hard work everyone has done. Now everyone can enjoy their well-deserved holiday!

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A day at the Siem Reap climbing wall

On Sunday the 31th of March, the Young Adults of Anjali House went on a field trip. After having a huge lunch at a buffet restaurant (some students ate as much as five full plates!), they all went to a climbing wall in Siem Reap. A new and very exciting experience for all of the students! This is what one of the students, Sopheak, wrote about this day:

There was on 31^st of March, we  had a great time with our teachers. First we went to the Buffet Restaurant, which called Tonle Sap Restaurant. It was a very nice restaurant, because there were many kind of food and treats. We ate so much, because most of the food was really delicious. After that we went to another place, which called Sport Climbing  Federation. Everyone really enjoyed it too, because it was our first time to do that sport. It was really interesting, but there was a few students didn’t do it, cause they were scare of high so they didn’t want to do it, but they still loved it so much and they kept laughing when they saw their friends did it. We really had a great time that day.

For an impression of the climbing, check out the photos!

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Life in Phnom Penh

It has been a few months since the last update of the Young Adult Program. In the meantime a lot of things have happened: students have started studying, have changed their living situations and have found new jobs. From now on, we are going to keep you updated again on all the things that happen in the YAP!

For now, we start with a short update from one of our students, Sandy, who has been living and studying in Phnom Penh since last October. He has been living here together with another student from Anjali, Chanroth:

“My name is Sandy, I am a student from Anjali House. I used to live at the Young Adult House in Siem Reap for nearly 2 years, where I got a lot of knowledge and experience. I got education and I learned to live alone and to cook by myself.

Now I am living in Phnom Penh, because I wanted to study nursing and here is a good university for me. I am studying at the international university. It is a very good university, and we have teachers who have specific knowledge. It is a difficult subject, so I have to study hard every day. I often get assignments from the teacher, and this term I have ten subjects! However the teacher does not always have enough time to explain everything to us, so sometimes I have to copy the lesson from the teacher or from my friends. I have a good place to stay and my studying is going good. All the lessons that the teacher teaches I get 80% and the teacher always helps me if I have question.”

Next update coming soon!

Angkor Wat Bike Race 2012

The past weekend, 17 members of Team Anjali (also nicknamed ‘Team Zebra’ by our students due to the matching zebra shorts the team wore) took part in the 100km Angkor Wat Bike Race. It was an early start for everyone, with the students and teachers meeting at the Young Adult House at 4am to eat a meal of fried egg, pork soup and rice prepared by the Young Adult Boys. After a quick briefing on ‘stretch, drink lots of water, stick together’, everyone rode to the police station where we were met by the truck which was going to transport us to the bike race. At that point we realised we had already lost two students, so the older boys formed a search party and warmed up on their bicycles whilst looking for our students who had gone astray.

After we had finally located the students, it was time to head to Angkor Wat! It was a squashy truck ride, as 17 bikes combined with 17 people makes for little moving room. The students, despite the early hour, were excited for the ride as we saw many people also travelling to Angkor Wat. When we arrived and unloaded the truck, we split into our ‘Fast’, ‘Medium’ and ‘Slow’ groups, however due to the crowd, most of the team were split up straight away.

After a ‘Gangnam Style’ flash mob held by the organisers, the race began, with the most competitive people getting a big head start. The students also raced ahead, most of them in ones of twos, as they tried to catch up with the fastest competitors. The first lap went fairly fast and smoothly, however a couple of students ran into trouble on the second lap. One of the boys was kicked by one of the fast cyclists who was trying to get him out of the way, resulting in him falling of his bike and hitting his head. Luckily, as he told the teachers later, “I was wearing my helmet, so I was OK”. Then, another student fell off his bike and scrapped his face and arms. Once again, the trusty helmet saved him. Then a third student went over the edge off the road as the ‘professionals’ tried to push him out of the way, however he managed to jump off his bicycle before it hit the ground.

Three students finished after lap two (50km), due to one having a broken bicycle and two others being tired. After the third lap, 13 more students finished (75km), as many were tired from riding so fast, or, despite the endless amounts of water they had drunk, were dehydrated. Only one student made it to 100km – small boy. Small boy is the 13 year old cousin of one of our students who had joined us for all the training sessions. He has an incredibly amount of energy, is always polite to his team members and never gives up. We were speechless that out of all the strong students who participated in the race, the youngest, and skinniest, was the one to complete the whole 100km!

In the evening, Team Anjali went to Tonle Mekong Restaurant for a buffet dinner. The students kept piling their plates high with food, with the winner being Pheaktra, who ate no less than seven full plates of food. After the dinner, the team went to 60 road where they jumped on the trampoline (surprisingly with no food coming back up), drove the dodgem cars and rode the rollercoaster. It was a magnificent evening to celebrate the end of three months of training for the bike race. We are SO proud of our students and the physical and mental growth they have shown over the past few months. When we started this project, we knew there would be some changes in them, but we had no idea that it would be to this extent.

Thank you to Janet and Allen for supporting our bike training, Kristy and Grant for also being part of Team Anjali, and of course, our sponsors who enabled us to raise £3,360 for our ongoing running costs. We couldn’t have done it without you!

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