Crestone, Colorado, January 2000

Dear friends of Buddhism in Cambodia,

Thank you for your interest in receiving email updates from the Khmer-Buddhist Educational Assistance Project (KEAP).

·        IN BRIEF. Since our website went up in August 1999, we have begun to receive donations and volunteer support for the Cambodian owned and managed projects that KEAP has pledged to support; made substantial progress in establishing an international advisory council as well as local board of directors in the community of Crestone, Colorado, KEAP’s home base; and received tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a charitable educational non-profit organization. The latter development is of particular interest to U.S. citizens, who are now able to deduct their donations from their taxable income to the extent allowable by the IRS.

·        ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS. For those of you interested and concerned with environmental issues, KEAP has been designated by the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh to serve as distributor, outside Asia, of a volume of proceedings, Toward an Environmental Ethic in Southeast Asia. The 184-page book was published in 1998 by the Buddhist Institute’s Environmental Ethics in Southeast Asia Project (EESEAP). It is based on a regional seminar organized by the Buddhist Institute at a meditation retreat near Phnom Penh in November 1997 with support from the UN Development Programme’s Environmental Technical Advisory Program (ETAP) and the German Heinrich Boell Foundation, associated with the German Green Party. The regional gathering brought together religious leaders/representatives (Buddhist, Islamic, indigenous peoples, Catholic) and environmentalists from seven Southeast Asian countries and Sri Lanka. To order the publication, send a check or postal money order for $25 in U.S. funds to: KEAP, P.O. Box 657, Crestone, CO 81131/USA.

The volume is provided as a complimentary gift to those who donate $100 or more to any of the projects listed in KEAP’s environmental program area.

·        NEWS FROM CAMBODIA. A senior Sri Lankan monk teacher who teaches at the recently re-opened Preah Sihanouk Raj Buddhist University in Cambodia has reported to KEAP that the first class of monk students will sit for their diploma exam between the 17^th and 20^th of January 2000. The handful of monks who graduate will represent the first university graduating class of monks in Cambodia in 25 years.  The graduates are pledged to teach for one year of service at the five monk secondary schools in the provinces, where there is a dearth of qualified teachers. Gradually, the standards of the Cambodian Sangha are being renewed, although help is needed from the worldwide Buddhist and non-Buddhist community for Cambodian Buddhists to help themselves.

·        DHAMMA AND KHMER CULTURE BOOKS AVAILBLE. KEAP’s home office in Colorado/USA has several thousand Khmer-language Dhamma and Khmer culture books for distribution to Khmer Buddhist wats and other interested not-for-profit parties in North America, Europe, Oceania, and elsewhere. The book reprints, which include some 200 titles, are available for a donation to cover the cost of handling & shipping, including the transportation costs from Cambodia. Help learning in Khmer Buddhist wats in your neighborhood or country. Email us for a list (in preparation) of publications available. As most of you don’t have Khmer font software to be able to download the list (which includes a transliteration and translation of the titles), send us a postal address and a few dollars to help defray costs.

·        FUNDRAISING TOOL. The author of A Field Guide to Cambodian Pagodas, published in Phnom Penh in 1997, has volunteered to write a guide to Buddhist wats in Siemreap, the home of the famed Angkor era temples as well as KEAP’s field office. The guide would be published by KEAP and sold to the thousands of tourists in Siemreap as a fundraising tool for KEAP. We ask for your help in raising the approximately $4,000 required for initial printing costs. Please email us if you can help or suggest someone who can help. The writer will do the work in April 2000 and then take a month or two to prepare the illustrated manuscript for printing.