Field Notes and Updates

From Field director

Ben Gooding 1/26/08

Sras school: Construction began on January 12th of a second building at Sras Public School. Our contractor, Mr.Von Ratha and his team are operating efficiently and as expected. The British School of Beijing, our major donor for this project, has at all times been cooperative and patient, and has understood the difficulties inherent in undertaking development work in Cambodia, particularly with regard to timelines.

New Projects: The community leaders of Angkor Thom district have requested that we provide assistance to the villages of Preah Koh Chas and Kokkak. These villages have a low level of access to potable water, and desire wells and filters. Preah Kos Chas is actually two villages: part of the population moved away from the original site during the civil war and never returned, so we will be dealing with a total of three villages: Kokkak, Preah Koh Chas 1 and Preah Koh Chas 2.  Our proposal for each village is as follows: 10 pump wells, 5 pit wells and 20 filters.
For the three villages this will cost approximately US$10,000 in total. This project is due to start in March/April.

Jan/Feb visit from TF: Scott Coats has made his long-awaited return to Siem Reap, much to the relief off staff and the community at large. Board members Robert Youngberg and Jim Minton have visited several of our projects, participated in site work and contributed their expertise and knowledge on a developmental level. Their presence here was much appreciated by the staff at TF, as it gave them an insight into the way we work here, and the difficulties and satisfactions we are met with on a daily basis.

Well drilling team: TF will initiate training/recruitment of well-digging staff to assist us in some of our projects. We are increasingly asked by village leaders about well provision, but are not able to accommodate them with our current resources. We have used a reliable contractor for two years, but he cannot travel long distances to establish one or two wells, as it is financially impractical to do so. We propose to use our established crew in Sras village to undertake local work that they find accessible, and use them to train our own crew who will travel further afield when we accumulate enough orders.

Water testing: We have conducted some basic tests of the water going into and coming out of bio-sand filters at several sites, with general results indicating that Ecoli/coliform levels are drastically reduced by the filters up to 80%.  As we continue to acquire new equipment, we can assure that we are providing clean drinking water to people.

Benjamin Gooding
            Project Director
            Trailblazer Foundation,                      
            Siem Reap,
            Cambodia.