2010 "Jetstar Best of the Best" Award Winner - Sorell School, Tasmania.

Ms Moya Sharpe, from Sorell Primary (also the winner of SchoolAid's 'Outstanding Individual Teacher' Award 2010), returned from her first visit to Cambodia in 2007, and having been so moved by her experiences with communities in Cambodia, approached Sorell Primary's Student Representative Council with an idea to fundraise for Cambodian orphan children in need.

Since that year, Sorell School has held an annual 'Hush-a-thon', where students are sponsored to sit in silence for 5 minutes while they watch a student-produced presentation about the kids in Cambodia who are helped by their fundraising.                                                                   

The Sorell Primary School students and school community are in regular contact with the trustees of Camkids charity and students are regularly informed by email and feedback from staff visits about how their money is spent, and the impact their philanthropic action has had on the lives of so many Cambodians. 

Over $4,200 was raised in 2010 to support kids in need in Cambodia which has been hand-delivered directly to Cambodia by school staff members to support kids living in orphanages.  Through Camkids Charity (www.camkids.org) , the students' money has been spent on rice, dentist visits, school books, vegetable seedlings, fish for the ponds and fruit trees. The Sorell kids are passionate about their fundraising and the kids they are helping- the fabulous feedback mechanism allows them to develop and strengthen their in-reach capacity as they see the tangible differences they are making through their activities.

SchoolAid has received an update from Dom Sharpe, Camkids Trustee for The Cambodian Children's Charity. 

Read this for your dose of inspiration for the week! :

"This is by far the poorest community we are helping and we need to do more. Annie will take it slowly and step by step and we trust One to One and their approach. Small things can happen now. For example, One to One delivers a 1hr English class when they go there. We can make this a daily event for little money. We are meeting Annie later in the week and have some ideas to talk over. There are 2 small communities. 60 families in one and not sure how many in the second. They are recycling villages, they make their money from collecting cans and plastic. At least half of the young children had no clothes at all. The sad realisation today was that the little ones followed us, talked to us, smiled and laughed with us but the older adolescents, young adults had no hope drive or passion in their eyes. It was devastatingly sad. The young children's future is unmistakably  mapped the same unless someone tries to do something. We can be that someone."