Oh, it's only been three months....

We have had so much happen in the three months, and this website is a tad out of date. A very brief recap then, as I put together longer reports and get them online this week:

• The Riverkids Shop broke even and raised a bit more with enough inventory that were still selling to be really helpful. It also raised a lot of awareness and support.
  
• The website for both the project and the shop are being reworked to be way more user-friendly and cheerful.
  
• Riverkids Project is an actual legal non-profit trust in Singapore, that's registered with the IRAS, but not as a Singapore-based charity, because we don't meet their 80% of funds in Singapore and primary-Singapore-interest requirement. So I think we're marked as an institute of public good or something. I have to get the specifics up. But we are yay, legal and non-profit. No tax deductable status, sorry.
  
• We've started the local NGO process in Cambodia and that is going to be separate legally, so hopefully as we grow, we can fund several different projects.
  
• We had lots of discussions over Dec-Jan over what our core goals and values are, and a big disagreement between the RK trustees and Sok Lyna, our then manager in Cambodia, came up. Mostly over the style of management, but also over RK being multi-racial and multi-religious. So we worked out an amiable split. Sok Lyna found funding from another source and the house and operations at St 330, #4 are now running under her with their funding. We sort of divvied up staff and such, and went on a bit faster to our 2007 Stage 2 plans.
  
• We have a Children's House and a Families' House now! They are smaller places, one right in the middle of the slum it serves, and so they're much cheaper to run and easier for families to access. We're going sort of modular, with a maximum of 40-kids for each house before we start a new one, funding permitted.
  
• The Children's House is in a slum near the Japanese Bridge riverside area, and we've got 25 kids already. We hope to add an informal kindergarten and a toy and book library as well by April. We actually opened early because the kids kept showing up, they were so eager to get started!
  
• The Families' House is nearer the Russian market, and we're renting for now half of a building. We're starting at last our hoped-for vocational training project, with six young women lined up, including one of the girls from the older house who left and is at extreme risk. They're the kids that are too old for school, and at the highest possible risk. We're also going to run our workshops and other family-based projects at this house.
  
• Our finances are fairly solid for now. Our new project model means we can keep costs lower, reaching more kids for the same amount.
  
• We had so many amazing people volunteer and donate - one woman organised a donation drive in her entire condo and got 33 boxes! We'll have baby layettes for the social worker to take on family visits, books and toys appropriate for the kids, clothes - it's been fantastic. Thank you!
  
• I go up first week of April, and I hope to bring a video camera of some sort up and do a short video of the areas we work in.
  
• Several people have volunteered and there are just - well. People have been fantastic.

Merry Christmas!

Thank you, thank you and merry christmas and more to everyone whose helped with Riverkids this past year - a number well into three digits now, with amazing support for our very tiny and new Riverkids Shop this holiday, with our Sixty Good People who've helped us keep running every month, all our donors, staff, friends and supporters....

But most of all to the kids themselves.

They stayed in school. They loved their families, and we saw some of their families start to love them better. Some excelled, some struggled, but they all tried, even when trafficked or beaten or abused, they have hope. Hope that they bring every day to Riverkids and share with us.

Dale is headed up to Cambodia 26th-28th this month, as Lyna is away so Dale will do the end-of-month finance and administration. Then January is business-as-usual plus our very first annual report. We'll be sending a copy to all our donors and supporters, and it's basically a chance for us to take a deep breath, assess what we've done and plan how to reach our 2008 goals. That will include finances, which I can roughly say now (thanks to the shop and donations!) gives us as of the 24th of December, enough for five months at US$3,000-US$3,500. We're very cautious about funding and spending for sustainable long-term growth, not a big splash and then we run out!

The other good news is that our charitable registration is in process in Singapore, and we'll be starting our Cambodia-side registration, and well! We've also had some really interesting volunteer opportunities for health, art and counselling.

On a much more personal note, Dale and Jim had an urgent family problem over Christmas, so we've got a backlog from about the 18th of December to respond to, our apologies.

And that, stockings stuffed, children asleep in Cambodia and Singapore, is all the quick news! Thank you!