October 1st 2008 Update

Hello Everyone.....

Well it has been some time since the last formal update on the Tiger Foundations progress, but I would like to take this opportunity to let you all know what has been going on since I last wrote.


An Aussie in Cambodia


At the beginning of August, Kenny Williams moved from Australia to be based for the Tiger Foundation in Cambodia. Kenny is a long time friend, so it was with much appreciation from myself that Kenny took this huge step in life to help the foundation become established in Kampong Thom, Cambodia.

Kenny is now settled into his new life in Cambodia. While still not 100% used to the local food, he is endeavouring to become accustomed to many other things that Cambodia has to offer. Since Kenny's arrival we have been able to start some more projects, I have displayed photos for you to view of these projects.


Project Completion


One of our first projects was Phase One of the Vegetable Garden program.
Thanks to our wonderful team of volunteers from Singapore led by Anita Pereira, along with members of the schools teaching staff and students we have now created together a fantastic vegetable garden. This garden is phase one in a two phased program which will see the school become self sustainable for the cultivation of vegetables to make into soup for the children everyday before they start school.

The next project to be undertaken was that to transition the existing Kindergarten building from a run down dilapidated classroom with broken concrete floors, busted furniture and barren walls, into a smart tiled, freshly painted new classroom room that the children and the teachers would love to work and learn, photos are attached for you to see this fantastic transition of this room.

Now that the wet season is well and truly entrenched in Cambodia the school is once again experiencing its annual flooding period. This is one of the projects which we will take on board once the wet season has past, thats is to drain the school properly by implementing a flood prevention system.

Various construction projects such as the library extention, the development of a new canteen building, the secured perimeter fence, the pond re development will all wait until the end of the year, when the dry weather will allow us to proceed.


Until then its all about raising money for these projects as well as getting more wonderful volunteers to support our cause. I have quickly learnt that by having a day job as well as running a foundation can all be pretty much like hard work.

But it is easy for me to remember how fortunate I am, my mind quickly leaps to the 1000 school children, the teachers, the parents at the Aknuwat School and how tough life is every single day just to have food on the table.

In these difficult economic times it is hard to ask people to reach out and give all of the time, but rest assured every little bit does help, often a small gesture goes such a long way, we have already seen this many times over in Cambodia.


Fundraising and Support


The Australia Chapter and the Singapore Chapter of the Tiger Foundation are now full steam ahead in raising funds to support our projects. If you can help out in any way possible with your time, or by talking with your network about what we are doing it is amazing what people can do to help us, we continue to come across wonderful people everyday.

We are still working together with the Charities Commission in Singapore to be come a licensed charity organisation. Today we are operating under the Tiger Foundation Ltd business registration.Once we do become registered we will unleash our impressive website on the world.



Your Chance to Visit Cambodia

Between now and Christmas there are various volunteer groups planning to go to our school in Cambodia.

Why not join one of them?

Its a fantastic experience, as I say to everybody, there is nothing quite like seeing it all for yourself.

So by all means go to visit Kenny if you can, he will greet you with a huge smile, as well as share many hilarious stories about life in Cambodia. At the same time you can see for yourself what the Tiger Foundation is aiming to do and how you could help out in some way. We will of course assist you with the planning for the trip.

So until next time I wish you all farewell and thank you for taking the time to learn a little more about the Tiger Foundation.

Best wishes,

Mark