December 2021 Update
Dear donors, past and present, and supporters and friends of KEAP,
We’re happy in this letter and excited to provide you with positive news on the nun’s project for at-risk children in Cambodia, and to ask for your help in getting this innovative local initiative through the final stretch.
A number of you over the years have through KEAP supported, thank you!, this initiative and dream of the Buddhist head nun, dounji Ly Savy at Wat Poveal, a learning center temple-monastery in the northwestern provincial capital of Battambang. It’s been some time in the making because raising funds for construction, in this case of the Maha Ghosananda Children’s Dharma Center (CDC), proved difficult for us. It’s been nearly five years since I participated in the traditional ceremony breaking ground for the construction of the Center:
We’re happy in this letter and excited to provide you with positive news on the nun’s project for at-risk children in Cambodia, and to ask for your help in getting this innovative local initiative through the final stretch.
A number of you over the years have through KEAP supported, thank you!, this initiative and dream of the Buddhist head nun, dounji Ly Savy at Wat Poveal, a learning center temple-monastery in the northwestern provincial capital of Battambang. It’s been some time in the making because raising funds for construction, in this case of the Maha Ghosananda Children’s Dharma Center (CDC), proved difficult for us. It’s been nearly five years since I participated in the traditional ceremony breaking ground for the construction of the Center:
It was a beautifully time-worn Buddhist and Khmer ceremonial offering that combined Pali chanting by Buddhist monks with incantations to the spirit world, a world that together with Buddhism (and some vibrant relics of Brahmanism) remains very much part of the Cambodian moral-cosmological universe and way of life. The stone in the lower left of the picture above the fruit offerings was lowered and buried in the dug pit after the achar of Wat Poveal, on the left, incanted that the site was henceforth consecrated by the laying of the stone to protect the vulnerable young cared for by the nuns. Sadhu!
KEAP prefers and does better at supporting education programs in Cambodia than construction projects. Nonetheless, we persevered and made progress. We have to date raised just over $151,000 for Wat Poveal to complete construction of the dorm facility at the CDC. In the picture below taken this August in front of the dorm are, from left, the abbot of Wat Poveal Ven Soun Cheoun, dounji Ly SaVy, executive director Chim Bunchenda of Samakithor (Dhammic solidarity), KEAP’s local implementing partner; and KEAP’s admin & finance assistant Ms. Chakriya.
KEAP prefers and does better at supporting education programs in Cambodia than construction projects. Nonetheless, we persevered and made progress. We have to date raised just over $151,000 for Wat Poveal to complete construction of the dorm facility at the CDC. In the picture below taken this August in front of the dorm are, from left, the abbot of Wat Poveal Ven Soun Cheoun, dounji Ly SaVy, executive director Chim Bunchenda of Samakithor (Dhammic solidarity), KEAP’s local implementing partner; and KEAP’s admin & finance assistant Ms. Chakriya.
The Children’s Dhamma Center will be a temporary home to 40 primary school children (20 boys, 20 girls) from impoverished families in the province who ask the wat to care for their child, in the Cambodian “temple boy” tradition. The children will be cared for and taught the Dharma, including through play and other group activities, by a team of up trained younger nuns while also attending, half-day, the state primary school a few minutes’ walk away.
Another important part of the program has our implementing partner Samakithor, a Buddhist training & education NGO, work with the families through a “Buddhism and Family/Community Development” training program, such that when the children graduate and return home, they will be coming back to stronger and more cohesive families better integrated in their communities. Families however poor and broken are required to participate in the program as part of their training. They will interact with program - Samakithor staff and the nuns - and be co-responsible as a sponsor of their child’s education at the CDC.
The other good news is that the abbot has committed to completing the two smaller support buildings of the CDC. This raised expectations that the program will begin, possibly with a smaller initial group of children and covid permitting, at the start of the next school year, in September/October 2022. With this prospect in mind and the abbot’s request last year for KEAP to assist Wat Poveal in developing the program, KEAP applied for and this month received a program start-up grant of $53,000 from the Khyentse Foundation! The project period begins next month and runs through December (2022). The main beneficiary of the grant is Samakithor, whose staff will develop curricula to train and afterwards provide backstopping assistance to the team of younger nuns runnung the CDC day-to-day.
A part of the grant will also fund a KEAP staff member in Battambang (our local office is at the Buddhist University branch) to develop and manage child and nun sponsorship programs. The programs are based on donors agreeing to sponsor a child or nun from year to year through monthly recurring payments, receiving reports, and being in communication as desired with their sponsored child or nun. The sponsorships promise to substantially ensure the CDC’s monthly operating expenses by the end of the project period. In the meantime, we humbly ask for your help to get to that point of financial viability. There are three outstanding needs ahead where we can together help Wat Poveal over the next nine or so bridging months prior to the program opening:
- Equipping the CDC building interiors, including beds/furnishings, installation of electrical fittings, and a working kitchen. This recent picture shows completion of a wing in the dorm facility. The power supply to the CDC is there, but installing an electrical system including fixtures in the dorm building alone costs $6,000, or $8,000 if the lines are embedding within the walls. The cost estimate target for this campaign is $15,000.
2. Preparing lodgings for the nuns’ team through restoration of the nuns’ residence & meditation building, the back side of which is pictured
here with dounji Ly Savy. The three-floor structure (the open middle floor is meditation space) is adjacent to the CDC. Its upper floor, unoccupied
and unlivable, and has eight kutis (monastic cells) for the nuns’ team. The building needs structural reinforcement, installation of an upstairs
washroom/toilet & electricity, wall and ceiling repairs, and a coat of paint. The cost estimate and target for this campaign is $25-30,000.
here with dounji Ly Savy. The three-floor structure (the open middle floor is meditation space) is adjacent to the CDC. Its upper floor, unoccupied
and unlivable, and has eight kutis (monastic cells) for the nuns’ team. The building needs structural reinforcement, installation of an upstairs
washroom/toilet & electricity, wall and ceiling repairs, and a coat of paint. The cost estimate and target for this campaign is $25-30,000.
An historical note: The structure was built in 1973 during the civil war, two years before the Khmer Rouge takeover that unleashed the
Cambodian holocaust. Wat Poveal had an important, thriving nuns’ center at the same spot in the first part of the 20th century prior to the
civil war. This project stands not only to help revitalize the nuns' center containing the CDC, but also, and this is one of our objectives, to raise the
social status and role of Buddhist nuns in Cambodian society. They are unfortunately, like in Thailand, an under-appreciated resource for the
Dharma in the country, especially for women and children who live in distress.
Cambodian holocaust. Wat Poveal had an important, thriving nuns’ center at the same spot in the first part of the 20th century prior to the
civil war. This project stands not only to help revitalize the nuns' center containing the CDC, but also, and this is one of our objectives, to raise the
social status and role of Buddhist nuns in Cambodian society. They are unfortunately, like in Thailand, an under-appreciated resource for the
Dharma in the country, especially for women and children who live in distress.
3. Consider a child or nun sponsorship prep period before sponsoring a child or nun team member. Much work needs to be done before
a child or nun can be selected by a sponsor with the receipt of a picture and bio. The normal cost of a child sponsorship will be $3 per day or $90
per month, which covers meals/nutritional snacks, school clothes & supplies, medications/infirmary supplies, library materials, and materials and
other costs for program activities. Most of these expenses need to be incurred prior to the arrival of the children, along with logistical support
costs not covered by the grant for the recruitment/selection phase (the children are selected from the poorest districts in the province). This
preparatory support, with a campaign goal of $5,000, is greatly needed and most welcomed.
Additional note: please let me know you wish to volunteer to help coordinate the child and nun sponsorship program effort, using the peer-to-
peer software in our Flipcause-hosted website and in coordination with our staff person (to be hired) in Battambang and me in Crestone,
Colorado (as long as I’m needed).
We have opened campaigns on our website for each of the three areas of need cited above. Click on the respective link below to make a direct contribution today. Or send a check by mail to KEAP, P.O. Box 657, Crestone CO 81131, specifying the area in the subject line. For direct wire transfer instructions either to our main account in Colorado or our project site bank account in Battambang, please contact me, including if you have questions, a comment share, or need more information.
- Equipping the CDC building interiors
- Renovating lodgings for the nuns’ team
- Preparing for child & nun sponsorships
Another way to donate is to purchase a painting by Svay Ken, who in the 1990s was a pioneer of contemporary art in post-conflict Cambodia. His oil-on-canvas works are valued between $7,000 and $12,000, with the crown jewel in our remaining collection valued at $20,000.
Help us in helping Buddhist nuns at Wat Poveal get this worthy project in engaged Buddhism across the threshold in 2022. Please pass this link to your friends and acquaintances. Note that the progress we've reported here took place during the global covid pandemic to which Cambodia has not been immune. Let's persist in the hope that it will allow, barring other possible constraints, for the program to open at start of the 2022 school year.
Let us also note that we all, here and in Cambodia, do so in memory of Most Venerable Maha Ghosananda, the spiritual leader of Buddhism in Cambodia in the 1980s and 1990s. Through his spiritual presence and actions during that decade, especially the Dharma peace walks that criss-crossed the country in the 1990s, he brought the country a much-needed message of peace and reconciliation. It is in his name that Wat Poveal will inaugurate this local Cambodian initiative lending a dharmic hand to the neediest and most destitute children and their families in the province. I hope it's worthy of your dana as well as inter-faith and non-faith based support. Thank you!
Peace within,
Peter Gyallay-Pap,
KEAP board chair and ad interim executive director
peter@keap-net.org +719 937-7757