Kampuchea House (Australia) Inc, the governing body of Siem Reap’s Kampuchea House orphanage, has approved a donation of US$5,000 to the Angkor Hospital for Children.
The cheque will be officially handed to the hospital on Boxing Day, December 26, with the money coming from funds raised during the 2008 Big Cambodian Bike Ride.
Kampuchea House CEO Les Stott, together with Tom Wilkins, a grade 11 student at Wesley College in Melbourne, Australia, set off on September 22 to cycle for five days on a 657km odyssey from Siem Reap to Kampong Cham, up to Kratie, and then on to Stung Treng.
The charity ride, publicised in Australia, raised just over A$30,000, although the final amount has taken a bit of a battering due to the Aussie dollar plunge.
Les Stott, who has just returned from Vietnam, said he couldn’t have hoped for a better result.”I’m ecstatic about the amount that was raised. I never imagined we’d get that much,” he said.
“I’m also very pleased that we can give a cheque to the hospital because part of our philosophy is to be more than just an orphanage and to be directly involved in the Siem Reap community.”
Stott said he also makes the NGO’s tuk-tuk and car available in town for community emergencies such as trips to hospital, which has recently paid off.
“We had an emergency with a three-day-old boy who couldn’t breathe properly. We got him and his mum to hospital in time, simply because we had the transport on hand.”
– The Phnom Penh Post