Season’s Greetings from Friends-International
Dear friends of Friends,
2010 was another year of changes and challenges for us all at Friends – we’re 16 years old now, and still as motivated and dynamic in our efforts to help marginalized children and youth as we were back when we began on the streets of Phnom Penh in 1994. In 2009 we reached out to 50,000 of these young people, and each year we want to increase our impact and help bring more young people back from the margins of society, into education, employment and with a better future in store for them.
2010 saw us move to a bigger HQ in Phnom Penh that allows administration and direct work to be under one vibrant and colourful roof – you can see the results of the children’s handiwork on the HQ gates in our new year’s e-card attached. Click on the image above to begin the animation.
1. In Cambodia we started a new project working with children on the Siem Reap garbage dump
2. We had our license renewed to enable our crucial work with injecting drug users on the streets of Phnom Penh
3. In Thailand we forged new agreements with the Government and other partners to address the issues caused by unsafe migration
4. In Lao PDR we opened new resources for the children and youth
5. In Indonesia we started a hospitality vocational training project
6. We launched a new website to bring our ChildSafe travellers tips to a wider audience, www.thinkchildsafe.org
There was great sadness also – our teams have been flat out supporting the survivors and the bereaved families in the aftermath of the terrible tragedy at Koh Pich.
All of this work is of course only made possible by your continued support, and on behalf of us all at FI and the children and families we work with, we send you our heartfelt thanks.
2011 will bring more changes, more challenges and more exciting developments, including the launch of a new cookbook from the Lao PDR program, and we look forward to the New Year together with you, our wonderful supporters… it’s all there, under our logo:
‘Together, Building Futures’
Thank you, and happy New Year to you all,
The Friends International team
