2002-05 News

Anna Moran and Clare Moran visited Cambodia and Vietnam last Christmas. Their trip to Cambodia enabled them to better understand how lucky they are to have been born in Australia. They plan to return to Cambodia with their parents this Christmas to participate in the January Tabitha house-building project. They will be contributing their own saved pocket money to fund their travel expenses and attempting to raise additional money for extra houses.

Read more: Oct 2004 - Anna Moran and Clare Moran - Kids who make a difference

Drew Shepley, aged 7, is travelling to Cambodia in July this year to join a house-building team with other Cambodian kids and their adoptive parents. The team will travel to Kompong Som to build a total of eight houses in a village just outside Sihanoukville.

This will be Drew's second building trip to his home country with Mum, Belinda, and Dad, Fred. Belinda has been selling Tabitha cottage industry silk products, in association with Living Silk, since October 2004, and has managed to take orders and sell over $20,000 worth of this beautiful silkware. As well as creating a lot of interest in Tabitha Cambodia's work, profits from the sales have assisted in fund raising to meet the cost of building materials for the July trip.

Drew's classmates have also helped with fund raising. After a talk about Tabitha's work by Belinda, the school captains from each class at East Carnarvon Primary School (total of 340 students) got together to discuss what they could do to help. They decided to build a house frame from plywood in the style of the Tabitha logo, which they then painted and displayed in the school canteen at lunch time. For a 50 cent donation, students got to bang a nail into the symbolic house. On Friday, 10th June, they proudly handed to Drew and his Mum, a cheque for the total funds raised

Tabitha Cambodia's specific objective in the program year October 2004 to September 2005 was to build 200 houses in our eight project areas.

Tabitha surpassed that goal with a total of 321 houses, which were built by 48 teams consisting of 764 volunteers.

The houses were constructed in the following provinces:

Siem Reap: 55 houses
Kandal: 84 houses
Takeo: 81 houses
Kompong Som: 47 houses
Prey Veng: 42 houses
Kampot 12 houses

In Kandal, Siem Reap, Takeo, Prey Veng the houses were constructed with tin and wood; and in Kompong Som and Kampot the houses were built with wood. The total cost of constructing these 321 houses was USD277,950.

Parents, Barb and Kev – seasoned professionals (well, they’d been the year before anyway).

Daughter, Georgia – pregnant novice with laughable building ability and motor skills.

Yes, we had made this expedition to Cambodia the year before, but this time we had our daughter - our pregnant daughter - determined to share our sad, mind-blowing, joyous experience from the year before, with her, before motherhood took over. After all, it was going to make her a better mother – my justification to her father and husband.

Read more: May 2005 - Building in Kompong Som, April 2005 (Barb and Georgia)

Alexandra Turner (aged 8) and her friend and neighbour, Nicole Kewin (aged 9), decided that they would like to raise some money for Tabitha by selling fresh flowers to their friends and neighbours. They organised an order form to enable them to take orders from their customers. Customers could order bunches of flowers in differing colours and sizes. They then visited the Flower Markets in Sydney at 6.00 am on the day of delivery, with Alexandra’s Mum and Nana, who helped them to purchase the flowers and materials they would need to make up the orders taken. After arriving home, they then had to make up 33 bunches of flowers to complete all their orders, deliver them to their customers and receive payment.

They aimed to raise $60, but instead raised $225, which is enough to support nine Cambodian families for one year on Tabitha’s Savings Program

Operating theatre attire at Hollywood Hospital in Perth was like all other operating theatres; that was, until Jennie Lockwood hit on the idea to brighten up the place with colour and style.

As a fundraiser for the April Tabitha Foundation building trip to Cambodia, Jennie added flair to the headwear that she could make at home by using a multitude of brightly patterned materials. Initially placing them in a basket at the front counter with a sign “Fundraiser for Cambodia”, the excitement of ownership of such a bright and colorful theatre hat soon overcame the hospital staff and orders came pouring in for six, eight and ten at a time! Permanent staff, casual staff, night staff, agency staff and even the orderlies wanted to be part of the fun. In addition, the colorful headwear has been sighted by a group of air force trainee pilots during a visit to the Lockwood household, and guess what? They, too, have discarded the regular institution issue and now wear the fun hats under their helmets as they learn to fly at supersonic speed across the skies of Perth.