Visit to Kratie, Cambodia

Editor’s Note: Since 2015, WFWP New Jersey has supported children in Cambodia, in partnership with WFWP Cambodia. Foster parents sponsor a student’s yearly education, books, and more. In exchange, the foster parents receive letters and school reports from the children. Below is a letter written by Mrs. Takahashi who lives in Cambodia and works for WFWP Cambodia, and personally visits the children.

The WFWP Cambodia team visited the children in Kratie on April 11, 2023; before the Cambodian New Year began. In this visit, we hosted two activities: one involved the children revisiting their New Year’s cards they made in January and second allowed the children to make their own name cards. They were all eager to create their own name plates after seeing how other children, who were in the previous support program, had created their own.

For the first activity, the children wrote about an extraordinary event or memory they experienced within the past year. Even after describing their experiences with ample detail, they continued to write more to add on to their wonderful stories; we were so excited for them to share them all!   

For the second activity, the children created their own personal name plates; for this, we used paints. The children do not get to use paint in their everyday activities, so we wanted them to have the opportunity to unleash their creative minds. After showing them leaf stamps using the paint, the children started collecting a variety of interesting leaves  and flowers and happily created new patterns. For some children who haven’t used paints, mixing and creating colors was a great discovery! I believe that the children enjoyed their time and we hope to have more activities like this one!  

During the activities, which included writing, painting, and handcrafting, the children worked diligently; around noon, all the activities were finished and they ate some bread as we prepared for the Cambodian New Year. We were delighted to see the children enjoying and having lots of fun during this activity time!