Thanks to our amazing Steemit community I was able to make a donation of USD $400 that directly impacted over a hundred Cambodian school children. I was honoured to be the conduit for this process. No banks or corporations where involved in this transaction and the money went directly to the kids. This post is the accounting and story of that process.
Last month I wrote a [post](https://steemit.com/teamsteem/@jockey/teamsteem-why-i-gladly-voted-for-him-as-a-witness-and-an-explanation-of-the-witness-system-sbd-from-this-post-donated-to) explaining why I voted for @teamsteem as a witness. Not wanting anything for the post I offered to decline payout or donate it wherever @teamsteem wanted. His suggestion was that I donate it to children here in Cambodia who needed it.
I was delighted to do this expecting the payout to be around USD $50 but during that week the price for SBD bumped the payout to just under USD $400!
*This is a significant amount in Cambodia and I wanted to ensure the money made the biggest impact possible!*
## Finding A Competent NGO
The moment the post payed out out I stashed the $400 under my bed and began making some enquires into where the money would best be donated. Donating directly to people is one option but a *good* and *effective* NGO can make the biggest impact in my opinion. Now I just had to find one...
I have only been in Cambodia for a few months with few previous contacts in the country. I have done some work with NGOs and charities before and I am sceptical and wary of them. I have seen enough examples of corruption, fraud and misrepresentation that I knew I would have to vet the organisation personally.
I made a number of enquires in Phnom Penh. Although there are some amazing people doing work here there are also NGOs and charities that have bad reputations. As an example the UN trials into the 1.7 million people killed in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge has taken [11 years, cost USD $300 million and resulted in 3 convictions](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/world/asia/cambodia-khmer-rouge-united-nations-tribunal.html). *Nuff said!*
I took several weeks asking around and I found 3 groups doing interesting and compelling work. The organisation that eventually received the money is [Choice Cambodia](http://choice-cambodia.org/blog/) although there were two other interesting groups. One of which I will be writing a post on soon and donating the SBD to their project as I was deeply compelled by their work... *But that is another post!*
## Visiting Choice Cambodia's School & Projects
Visiting Choice Cambodia was a pleasure. The moment we crossed the river leaving Phnom Penh and started down the dirt roads - my heart sang. Country roads like these reminds me of various parts of my own youth in Asia. I was heading out to the school with some young Australian volunteer teachers and an english couple.
Although I love children I was not there to interrupt classes or hang out with children. I was there to check that Choice Cambodia was honourable and going to do a good job with the donation in my pocket that I had been entrusted to handle. My experience and intuition told me these people were good. I want to just express a few bullet points here about what I saw.
- Choice Cambodia has been operating for 12 years. In an extremely poor area they provide free food, schooling, uniforms, *bags*, transport, english and computer classes to the children in this region. For some of these children the lunch they receive at Choice is the biggest of the day.
- Choice purifies water at their school and delivers it free to villages in the area. Wells were dug by international organisations without checking the quality of the water. The well water is contaminated with [Arsenic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic) and is a big problem . *This topic deserves its own post!*
- Choice's current location is being taken from them and they are moving to a new location with an interest free loan for 5 years.
- Choice provides village services and facilitates the sponsoring of children for $50 per month. More information can be found [here](http://choice-cambodia.org/blog/sponsor-a-child/f-a-q/).
- Choice has a number of it's former student's currently working for them. This says a lot to me and you can meet the Choice team [here](http://choice-cambodia.org/blog/about-choice/team/). These students are paid a wage and some of them are attending University on this wage.
- Choice is sponsoring one young student to study medicine here in Cambodia. The yearly fees to study medicine is approximately $4,000 (if I remember correctly). I feel sure that some of these students who are already bilingual could do well on Steemit and pay for their tuition fees through Steemit posts. I have offered to teach and assist Choice or any of its students Steemit should they wish! 😃
I don't want this post to be too long but suffice to say that I could see the hard, positive work Choice is doing and I felt confident to give them the donation. To me the fact that so many of their previous students were now working to teach the next generation said a lot to me.
I was extremely impressed with everyone I met both at Choice Cambodia and in the village. These are lovely and inspiring people!
## Lets Get To The Numbers!
Here is the accounting from the Steemit donation:
- Total payout from post: USD $398.24
- Transaction fee and research costs: paid by @jockey
- Total donated in the name of TEAMSTEEM & STEEMIT COMMUNITY: USD $400
*This donated money purchased bags for over 100 school children to attend school!* ☀️
I think Choice Cambodia was wise to spend the money in this manner because children of a certain age are allowed to attend Cambodian public school in their district. To attend school they require the mandatory school uniform of shirt, dress or shorts, *and a bag!*
Choice is able to produce the uniforms for the children with a seamstress they work with, get them to and from school, assist with food and drinking water but is unable to produce the required bags.
*Steemit was able to help with this! Well done team! 😉*
The receipt for the donation has been provided above and Choice Cambodia have told me that they will update their donations page to reflect our donation next month which will be visible on their website [here](http://choice-cambodia.org/blog/financials/choice-donations-2018/).
*I did not take any close up photos of the children as I did not intend to post them. However the photo of this little boy with one of the bags bought with our donation was sent to me by Choice Cambodia. I was unsure if I should include it in this post. According to Vanny at Choice both the girls and the boys liked the Princess bags! 😉*
## Direct Giving On Steemit - Instant & Global Without Banks & Corporations! 😃
Cutting banks and corporations out of direct giving is *awesome!* We don't need them. Things are changing and Steemit provides an amazing to directly impact someones life directly. I am extremely excited by the transparency and accountability this process will inevitably produce. I look forward to watching some of the organisations which give the terms NGO and charity a bad name withering away.
Although valuable our donation was only able to purchase bags for half the kids currently being assisted by Choice Cambodia. Should anyone wish to donate any further amount I will be happy to cover the exchange fees, ensure the money gets immediately to Choice Cambodia and undertake sending a photo of the receipt back. Alternatively donations can be made directly to Choice Cambodia via their website [here](http://choice-cambodia.org/blog/financials/donate/) and banks in Australia and the EU.
I was inspired to engage in these processes by many amazing people here on Steemit. One in particular is @benjojo who in response to a post I wrote - unsolicitedly supported me to teach Steemit to Indonesian youth. Although I am not in Indonesia now it is still my intention to return this year to undertake the work. There are pitfalls that need to be navigated and visa issues which need to be overcome first but I am looking forward to it immensely.
I have learnt a lot through teaching Steemit and now I have seen how it can directly impact people without banks or corporations standing in the middle. I will continue with this work and share the knowledge I gain. I will write a future post on my approach to direct giving and finding good projects to work with.
I will also shortly be writing a post about an organisation that does sterling work with street children who are extremely vulnerable here in Phnom Penh and donate the SBD from that post to their cause.
## Bravo Steemit!
If Choice would like me to assist them or their students to lean Steemit I will be happy to help. In the mean time I will write a future post to try and raise another tranche of donations for them.
At $50 a month the cost of sponsoring a child is very reasonable. My understanding is that most of these children live at home and this money goes towards extra food and necessities. In the future I am contemplating starting a radio show on Steemit. Perhaps the income from that show could sponsor a child for the Steemit community.
*There are many amazing opportunities for this kind of work on Steemit!*
I would like to thank all those I can see that voted and supported this process. You guys rock!
@teamsteem, @canadian-coconut, @v4vapid, @pfunk, @ausbitbank, @vcelier, @pnc, @hanshotfirst, @berkah, @carlobelgado, @geofftk, @mrs.agsexplorer, @jlufer, @greenstar, @mitchiesfoodrace, @generation, @hintenberg, @paniopan, @patrice, @hitmeasap, @brianturner, & 74 other voters! =)
I would also like to send my sincere gratitude to Vanny and the entire [Choice Cambodia](http://choice-cambodia.org/blog/about-choice/about/) team! You rock too!
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*Jockey loves you All, Cambodia and Steemit!* 😉 Jockey votes for @teamsteem as a witness!
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