Ever since Kidshelp Kambodscha guests have visited Cambodia for the annual school graduation ceremony on 7th January, it had become a tradition to arrange a visit to a local restaurant on a Saturday evening and invite all scholarship students. The annual event was enjoyable, but as numbers increased it became expensive and difficult to meet students.
This year we decided to take a different approach. We would have a student planned and prepared event in one of the dormitories. All preparation and planning would be done by students supported by visiting guests. Some of the year 4 students were already committed to supporting the Kidshelp-Elsevier Diabetes Management project in the morning of 13th January, so it gave an opportunity to involve younger students from both dormitories.
First was to invite two volunteers from each dormitory and two visiting guests to act as chefs and two or three to assist with food preparation. Next was agreeing a varied menu, shopping list and budget. Then volunteers to decorate the venue, arrange karaoke and make sure every student was invited to attend, starting with a student meeting at 4:30pm.
The day started with students and visitors meeting and going off to the local market to buy all fresh ingredients, food preparation and cooking. One of the student chefs was Kong Sokmean it was only days earlier that she learned her assistant would be Bea Möder, her scholarship sponsor. It would be the first time they met.
All students who would be studying in 2024 were requested to join the event, including 7 new students who had confirmation they would be offered scholarships in 2024. In past years new students had not had the opportunity to meet the whole student community. In total 40 students and 15 guests were invited. The guests included Khemara – Country Director, Tharith – Director of Student Affairs, Raphel and Claudia Weyel – Country Director 2012 to 2016.
The event which was held on the top floor of one of the Kidshelp dormitories, started with a student meeting. Welcome was extended to all students, new and existing and then focused on the importance of communicating with sponsors; Kidshelp as a student community; and importance of raising any concerns with Tharith, in his role as Director of Student Affairs. Finally, plans to start building a new school in September 2024, were shared with everyone.
With that the fun began. Amazing food, karaoke, dancing, lots of talking and laughing. And to add to that success, costs for the event came in exactly on budget. Best student dinner ever and a huge amount of fun and participation by students and guests. Next year we may have competition to join the team of chefs and helpers. Bernd Giersberg a regular visitor from Germany has already reserved his place in the team. Bernd said “for me it was a nice day and evening, and we should definitely do it again next year”.
Here you can see how much fun the young people had:
And here you can find photos of the party
