November, December 2008 and January 2009 were manically busy months for us following signing the lease for Osborne House on the 1st November 2008. A step that enabled us to set up our 1st Cof managed orphanage and children’s centre. This was brought about by continuing problems working with Khmer run orphanages in particular concerns about their child care standards and financial management. With effect from the end of October Cof ceased working with all the other Khmer run organisations to focus on Osborne House and to later follow on with other COF projects.

The house is an old traditional Khmer house in an area of Siem Reap called Phsar Krum, only about 10 minutes from the centre and the old market area. This location works well for us as visitors and volunteers can get to us very easily. We are also close to schools and Phsar Krum market for food and clothing. The house hadn’t been lived in for many years so the first few months involved not only clearing the vegetation in the garden but cleaning, painting, building classrooms, a kitchen, toilets and a new bedroom area. As that work drew to an end we looked forward to settling down to day to day life at the house.

We felt it was important to get something happening for the children as quickly as possible so the work was tackled in two phases. The first was to build two classrooms and start English language lessons for children living in the area around Osborne House. Thanks to our hard working volunteers and a small team of local workmen we got the classrooms up and soon had 100 children a day using them. The second phase was the orphanage which needed more preparation as we needed proper sleeping areas, showers,  kitchen and of course enough money to feed and look  after the children. Fortunately we received several donations which helped us to pay for the materials and work so now everything is finished and we have 35 children living at the house. It’s going to be a struggle covering the living expenses but if we can continue to find people interested in joining our child sponsorship programme we will be okay.

Osborne House is set up as a ‘family home’ for the children and staff who live there. The importance of avoiding any form of institutionalisation of the children is fundamental to our approach to residential child care. The children are all happy and have settled well into their new home.