Friends from America

The kids wait patiently for the visit from friends from America Mr. Franklin Lee and Mr Chhay Hour who have travelled all the way from Atlanta, Georgia, USA to visit and give gifts of food, rice and money to the children of PIO.

Mr.Lee and Mr Hour have visited PIO on several occassions and made generous donations. They are both successful Cambodian nationals who are now living and working in the USA, but they have obviously not forgotten their roots in Cambodia.

Mr.Lee and Mr.Hour are seen here distributing Num Pang and Coka Cola to the kids for lunch. The kids loved it.
Mr.Hour is the Chairman of CACD and Mr.Lee is a board member. This organization now supports 13 free schools throughout Cambodia that compliment rather than compete with the state run schools and give students extra opportunities to learn the English language using phoenetic tools.

People Improvement Organization - Gift Shop

The People Improvement Organization has opened a Gift Shop on its school site at Stung Meanchey to offer its visitors the opportunity to support the project by purchasing a few small items that they have to offer.
Sok Somaly seen here in the shop working on her original Khmer style artworks,(she is a pupils at the school), which a one a several items being offered to visitors. Some of the other items include, jewelry, silks and the ever omnipotent Cambodia T-Shirts but better to buy them here as all the proceeds go to support the PIO.
Paul Wilson, an Autralian visitor making his first visit to PIO in the shop with Somaly and Dawee (one of PIO's Teachers) makes a few purchases. He tells me he was very impressed with the whole project and that it was being run by Khmers for Khmers.
This is another example of the self help attitude and initiatives that are primary within the structure of PIO.

The proceeds from this shop will help fund ongoing a new initiatives (specifically the orphanage ) and the visitors will be able to offer support in a small way for the children they meet at the school.