Yvette Elliott has written a book on Cambodian food to raise funds for Cambodian children and their families. Photo: Danielle ButtersSource: North Side Courier
Author: Andrew Priestley
Posted: Wed 7 May, 2008
Putting 150 children through school with a cookbook may sound far-fetched, but a Lane Cove charity worker has shown it's a sizzler of an idea.
Yvette Elliott and a team of volunteers put their own time and money into writing, editing, printing and distributing Nyum Bai!, a book of more than 30 Cambodian recipes.
Since December, the book has generated more than $40,000 which is enough to put 150 Cambodian children through school for a year and buy school uniforms and equipment.
Ms Elliott said she and her colleagues absorbed the production costs so that all the money generated, aside from postage expenses, could go back to Cambodia through the Green Gecko Project charity program. She said she did not know how much the production cost but she didn't care.
"I don't even like to add [the costs] up, but that's OK. It's a good cause," she said. "It becomes less about the money and more about the value you can add. It's about soul food."
The project set out to provide food, an education, and medical treatment for street children in the Cambodian city of Siem Reap, near the temples of Angkor Wat.
Ms Elliott said the children, who are as young as five, often become their family's main provider and can suffer abuse, disease and violence. But through the book sales, she said they would have the resources to follow their dreams.
"I hope that ongoing sales give these kids the ability to fund their education and whatever they want to be and whatever they want to do," she said. "One of them wants to be an astronaut, and who's to say they couldn't?"
The book was launched to the public last week and has sold more than 2000 copies.
See www.greengeckoproject.org.
Author: Andrew Priestley
Posted: Wed 7 May, 2008
Putting 150 children through school with a cookbook may sound far-fetched, but a Lane Cove charity worker has shown it's a sizzler of an idea.
Yvette Elliott and a team of volunteers put their own time and money into writing, editing, printing and distributing Nyum Bai!, a book of more than 30 Cambodian recipes.
Since December, the book has generated more than $40,000 which is enough to put 150 Cambodian children through school for a year and buy school uniforms and equipment.
Ms Elliott said she and her colleagues absorbed the production costs so that all the money generated, aside from postage expenses, could go back to Cambodia through the Green Gecko Project charity program. She said she did not know how much the production cost but she didn't care.
"I don't even like to add [the costs] up, but that's OK. It's a good cause," she said. "It becomes less about the money and more about the value you can add. It's about soul food."
The project set out to provide food, an education, and medical treatment for street children in the Cambodian city of Siem Reap, near the temples of Angkor Wat.
Ms Elliott said the children, who are as young as five, often become their family's main provider and can suffer abuse, disease and violence. But through the book sales, she said they would have the resources to follow their dreams.
"I hope that ongoing sales give these kids the ability to fund their education and whatever they want to be and whatever they want to do," she said. "One of them wants to be an astronaut, and who's to say they couldn't?"
The book was launched to the public last week and has sold more than 2000 copies.
See www.greengeckoproject.org.
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