Sometimes small is good...

Yesterday we received a call from World Vision (yeah.. okay.. I'm naming names!). They told us about an elderly couple who are taking care of their three grandchildren, aged 9, 7 and 4 years old. Their old house has completely collapsed so the village leader arranged temporary shelter in an empty shack. World Vision asked if we could help with food and housing.

We discovered that the parents of the children are working in Thailand. At first they sent money back, but now there is no money coming through. None of the children have ever been to school. Instead, all three kids collect rubbish for recycling in order for the family to buy food.

Our staff visited this morning, bought supplies after lunch and returned on a moto this afternoon with:

25kg rice

12 cans of fish

30 eggs

1 bottle of soy sauce

1 bottle of fish sauce

500g salt

500g sugar

500g garlic

...plus a few small gifts for the kids left over from our Ping Pong closing last weekend (pens, notebooks, balloons & candy) and US$30 for the family to buy additional food and medicine that they need this month.

While talking with the grandparents, they said that the Cambodian Red Cross also came recently to interview them and take photos. But neither World Vision nor the Cambodian Red Cross were able to help with their basic needs. I don't know the details... maybe they don't have a budget line for something as tiny as 30 eggs and 500g of salt.

Sometimes it's good to be a small NGO that can respond to a couple of grandparents. We'll go back at the end of the month to talk about their housing situation.