Thursday, 8 May 2008

Story-telling helps Cambodian kids

Jennifer Meloche, Gaye LePage and Gayle Redfern will read children’s books for Voices In The Night, a free evening to support Shoe Boxes for Kids.
Colleen Flanagan

By Lara Gerrits - The Tri-City News
May 06, 2008

The combination of shoe boxes and story books is a strong one for Cambodian children who don’t have a home.

Stage 43 is pairing the two seemingly unrelated items together for a Voices In The Night storytelling event May 17 at the Evergreen Cultural Centre, with all goods raised benefiting Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

The first half of the evening will have young participants decorating shoe boxes that will be filled with donations, while the second half will feature the lost art of storytelling.

The only cost to attend the family-friendly event, beginning at 6:30 p.m., is a hygiene item(s) for the hospital, which treats the children of Cambodia, one of the world’s poorest countries.

About 34% of people there survive on less than $1 a day and of a population of 13 million, nearly half are under the age of 15. About 51% of children are malnourished and one in seven will die before their fifth birthday.

Stage 43 is donating the shoe boxes as well as decorating supplies, but kids (or adults) can bring special ribbons, bows or other art along if they wish. Later, storytellers from Stage 43 will share with the children magical stories.

Angkor Hospital for Children provides both outpatient and inpatient, acute, emergency, surgical and dental care. AHC has treated 500,000 kids since 1999. Currently, the outpatient department sees 300 to 400 children daily and maintains 50 inpatient beds.

All treatment and inpatient care is free of charge.

Suggested items to donate for the shoe boxes are: packaged toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, nailbrushes, hairbrushes, combs, water bottles, t-shirts, flashlights, batteries, colourful pencil packs, pens, crayons, manual sharpeners, books, colouring books, paper, magnifying glasses, soft toys, balls, card games or anything else you can think of.

Also, if you want to correspond with a Cambodian child, then bring a self-addressed envelope so a child can write you.

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