Be the Change Network

We celebrate Cambodian New Year this month by reconnecting with our Friends and Supporters around the globe.

A NEW YEAR, INDEED!
Our program is experiencing expansive growth on both sides of the ocean. After our family returned from Cambodia in February, exhausted from a month of sustainability work at the school, we considered giving up. And then suddenly, incredible things began to happen…..

Our ABUNDANT FOREST LIFE SKILLS TRAINING CENTER is LAUNCHED!
During the month of January Sanu Kaji Shrestra, from Foundation for Sustainable Technologies Nepal, successfully trained the villagers in the production of Biomass Briquettes, an alternative cooking fuel made out of local waste materials. We learned the incredible challenges to building community in Cambodia, where fear and oppression remain a destructive force and where well-intended, donor-driven programs undermine community solidarity. Village leader, Bun Vanna, heads the production facility, sleeps at the school to protect it, and fears for his life if he is not able to pay the workers. We hired and trained a Phnom Penh staff to help the villagers develop the market for their briquettes under the brand name SMART CHOICE FUEL and then something MIRACULOUS happened….. the price of cooking gas in Cambodia rose 300%!!!!

Suddenly, our briquettes are very popular and we are getting calls daily from villages that seek training!
A quote from our Country Director, “Yes, we picked up 45 bags of briquettes = 2,250kg from Chrauk Tiek at this time and sold them totaling 1899kg in Takeo Province then we had 351kg left when we got back to Phnom Penh. At this point, we have now have 10 bags briquettes about 350kg leftover in PP office. Oh! yes, it feels so proud to sell so many briquettes so well in Takeo.”

SCHOOL FUEL
The briquette program has the potential to sustain many schools. Villagers can donate waste material and then buy back cooking fuel, creating income for the school, creating jobs in the community, and reducing environmental destruction at the same time. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Next we will tackle the challenges of transportation and distribution, developing the market, organizing a training program and outreach to other schools and organizations.

SUSTAINABLE SCHOOLS for CAMBODIA
That’s our new goal. To achieve it we have a new and highly experienced, 25-member Board of Advisors who will be spending the rest of 2008 growing our organization from one that supports one school, to one that supports many. Our mission will be to build a replicable model that helps local communities start income-generating businesses to support their own school in a sustainable way.

Library and Music Program
Our new facility is 75% complete. The new music teaching team consists of three teachers: music, dance, and voice performance at $80 per month for teaching 6 days a week. The importance of the music program is profound; it is the thread that rebuilds the fabric of community. We also hired a full-time librarian for $50/month, so the students have more access to the library during recess and free time.

A Medical Facility
This has been both a need and a dream for a long time. And now, The College of Nursing at Belmont University in Nashville is helping us develop a sustainable medical program, via professor Susan Talpin, who worked for 2 years training nurses at a Phnom Penh hospital. A student nurse team led by Susan will be visiting the school at the end of May to conduct a 2-day medical clinic, a hygiene workshop, train a health teacher, assess nutrition/malnourishment of the students, and gather information for long-range sustainability planning.

Book Tour in honor of Mother’s Day
Sales of BONES THAT FLOAT, A Story of Adopting Cambodia by Kari Grady Grossman remain the bow of our fundraising ship.

Come see Kari’s presentation “How a Mother’s Love Can Change the World? And tell your friends!

Friday, April 18: PHILADELPHIA: Khmer Art Gallery, 319 N. 11th ST, 6:00-8:00 PM
Monday, April 21: COLORADO SPRINGS: Poor Richard’s Bookstore, 6:00-8:00PM
Sunday, May 4: DENVER: First Universalist Church, 4101 E. Hampden Ave, 9:30–11:00AM
Saturday, May 10: FORT COLLINS: Greyrock Commons, 2265 Shooting Star Lane, 4:00-8:00 PM (childcare provided)
Saturday, May 17: SAN FRANCISCO: Holdenreid Home w/Cambodia Tomorrow, 50 Cerritos Ave, 6:00-8:00PM
Sunday, May 18: DENVER: Colorado Ambassadors for Peace, St. Francis Event Center, 1030 St. Francis Way, 6:30-8:30 PM
Wednesday, May 21: BOULDER: Huffaker Home, 801 Columbia Place, 6:00-8:00 PM
Wednesday, June 18: VANCOUVER ISLAND, BC: Courtenay Recreation Centre, 411 Anderton Avenue, 7:00-10:00PM

For complete information and driving directions see our calendar.

Would you like The Mother’s Love Book Tour to come to your town? Schedule an event for fall 2008!

Gratefully Yours,
The Grossman Family and
The Students and Teachers of the Grady Grossman School, Chrauk Tiek village, Cambodia

Sometimes the Universe rewards you for staying true to your calling.

On Saturday I not only met my personal hero, I shared a podium with her. Loung Ung is the international bestselling author of First They Killed My Father and Lucky Child, and a passionate peace activist. She is now also a supporter of The Grady Grossman School in Cambodia.

She went first, delivering a heart wrenching speech about her life’s journey from childhood under the Khmer Rouge, to American refugee, and back to Cambodia as an activist for a land mine free world. Over 150 teachers from International Baccalaureate schools in the Rocky Mountain region listened with rapt attention, their minds churning with desire to communicate these events to their students, K-12. The theme of the Denver, Colorado conference was Awareness to Action. Loung spoke to the Awareness part, and I was there to inspire Action.

Seven years ago, while waiting to adopt our son, I bought 20 copies of First They Killed My Father, and sent them to every member of our family for Christmas. Four months later, as I cradled a Cambodian baby boy in my arms, I wanted a book about the conditions in today’s Cambodia to explain why my son was a war orphan - 25 years after the war! There was no such book, and that is why I wrote Bones That Float; it remains the only narrative book out there to connect Cambodia’s history with Cambodia’s present.

It was amazing to listen as Loung’s journey reached the exact same conclusion that mine has, Cambodia needs sustainable lives and teacher support to help rural communities heal the many ills that continue to plague the rebuilding of society to this day. After showing the video of our school, I explained my vision of sustainable, school-based economic development, building a solid foundation of primary education at the grassroots level, partnered with Life Skills & Vocational training, to empower local communities with control over their educational future.

When I finished my speech, Luong gave me thumbs up and a big smile. She asked how she could help me. With her notoriety taking our awareness message to a wide audience, and mine taking our action message deep, I think we can have a powerful effect.

I am going to ask Loung to join me for the world’s largest online book discussion on April 17, 2008. A day of remorse and healing in recognition of the day the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, in the year that they are finally being held accountable for it.

I will call for volunteers to join our school supporting network. Through building relationships and listening to local communities, our partners will find a way for every school to become income-generating and self-supporting in 3 to 5 years. This is a people to people endeavor and our job is to work ourselves out of a job, to usher each school to its own, unique sustainability.

Who will join us?

Having put forth my intention that my book, Bones That Float, benefit education in rural Cambodia, I hold onto the integrity of that mission and watch the magic unfold as we attract like-minded souls. I ‘m beginning to believe that this is indeed the way the world is changed. Behold:

Philadelphia, PA. Oct. 24

I spoke to over 500 high school and middle school students at Penn Charter, an elite, private educational institution, where the dedicated staff is focusing that privilege on service learning and a passionate student body is ready to engage in helping to educate disadvantaged children in Cambodia. After a morning spent debating my experience half way around the world with the Penn Charter students, I drove 3 miles down the road to the HOPE LOGAN school in an inner city neighborhood.

Hope Logan is a “street school” occupying a creaky 5 room house, painted pastel blue on a rough neighborhood street, dedicated to educating the children of Southeast Asian refugees, K-8. Forty one of their 48 students are Cambodian. It was begun by adoptive parent Ken McBain, who was drawn by his Christian faith to offer respite from the urban jungle to a population of kids who are lost in mainstream public education to drugs, gang violence, and drop-out. I was humbled by Ken’s dedication to administer education to refugee children who fall through the cracks. Afterward, I wrote to the Penn Charter administrators about Hope Logan to suggest their service learning project incorporate this local refugee “street school” as well. What a wonderful opportunity for the children of privilege to gain a fuller perspective of the effects of war on a culture. I am blessed to be able to connect the two.

Bethesda, Maryland. Oct. 25th.

I spoke at The Barker Foundation to about 35 adoptive parents and adoption social workers, one of whom works State Department implementing The Hague Convention on international adoptions. Among the intelligent and engaged crowd was an adult adoptee, Paul Goodwin, who had been adopted from Cambodia as a child in 1975 by a foreign service employee who escaped from the roof of the US embassy via helicopter at the time of the Khmer Rouge takeover. What a humbling experience to meet someone who lived the history I wrote about.

Afterward, I was invited to speak to the office of Children’s Services at the State Department for National Adoption Month in November. The State Department employee who witnessed my presentation says “the government workers need to see that this is what adoption is all about.” I look forward to the opportunity.

North Haven, Connecticut Oct. 26th

Father Matt Lincoln at Saint John’s Episcopal church in North Haven had been reading passages from my book in his sermons for several weeks, so half the congregation showed up to hear me speak. I was honored by both the diversity of the audience and their heartfelt compassion for Cambodia’s unknown story. A woman in her seventies, Alberta Delguidice, told me she read the book twice and enjoyed it as much the second time. As a mother of two young children, I can’t imagine having time to read the same book twice, but I am honored by the attention that St. John’s Episcopal has given this story. It is a busy world afterall.

Schnectady, New York Oct. 27th

At the Open Door Bookstore, I met Lay Heng, a Cambodian woman with a most unlikely background, a graduate of Phnom Pehn University pursuing PhD. in education at SUNY Albany! After my presentation about sustainability for Cambodian Schools, she said to me, ” I love your program, it makes so much sense, what you are saying is so logical. ” She continued, “But for me, as a Cambodian, I cannot say what you are saying, it would mean trouble for my family.”

What she means is that a Cambodian cannot call a spade a spade, as I do, without fear of reprisal. I assume that the Cambodian government will not change, and stop the corruption in favor of supporting schools. Change must come from the bottom up, that is why community based economic development in support of a schools empower a local community with control over its own educational future. Ms. Heng was smiling when I told her, “you get your PhD and I’ll create s school supporting model that works, and then we’ll go to the government together!” With proven success on our side, they can’t say no.

Boston, (Jamaca Plain) , Massachesettes Oct. 28th.

A fantastic Cambodian meal was served at the Wonderspice Cafe, where I spoke to about 25 people with a passionate interest in social justice. The connection between what happened in Cambodia and what is currently happening in Iraq was not lost on them. The restaurant’s owner, Dhavi, is a Cambodian woman who escaped before the war, worked in Thai refugee camps in the 1980’s, and adopted a son orphaned by war. The soul connection we mothers feel has the power to transform the world.

George Mason University, Alexandria Virgina, Oct. 29th.

I spoke to 50 students in the sustainable tourism program, engaged in a semester project to create a business plan for the future “Green Lion” Eco-lodge at the Grady Grossman School. The students bulleted me with questions and a discussion of great ideas surfaced. They seemed grateful to work on real world problems and to be a part of positive change.

Upcoming….Nov. 17…..Denver,Colorado

I will be speaking to the International Baccalaureate regional conference in Denver, Colorado, as part of their Awareness to Action program, along with my personal hero Loung Ung, author of First They Killed My Father. We hope to engage students all over the Rocky Mountain region in support of Cambodian schools, working as English tutors in our future VOIP English tutoring program….stay tuned.

Who knows where the Magical Mystery Book Tour will lead next?

Would you like it to be your town? Contact me!

I’m out on the road again, this time taking our mission for education in Cambodia to audiences in Philadelphia, PA, Bethesda, MD, North Haven, CT, Albany, NY, Boston, MA, and George Mason University, VA. All of these events have been organized by inspired readers of my book, Bones That Float, A Story of Adopting Cambodia, who feel that its message needs to spread. I am deeply honored by their personal commitment to our message of sustainability, education, social justice and faith. What a way to do a book tour! This is one of those reassuring moments, when I feel glad I turned down a publisher a year ago and decided to go it alone. I like getting people involved in our movement.

It’s a lot of work promoting a book on your own, but I keep the faith that the hundreds of people I talk to at these presentations will become inspired to take action. Because, my friends, it is going to take action to end poverty and oppression in this world. One-to-one relationship building, that’s what grassroots is all about, and I’m a grassroots kind of girl. I believe in people.

And then something like this comes in from Mother Jones, an article entitled Did I Steal My Daughter?, penned by an adoptive mother of a child from Guatemala. Guatemala is about to follow Cambodia down the aisle of countries closed to adoption by the US government due to accusations of corruption. Cambodia holds the distinction of being the first. One of the posted comments suggests reading Bones That Float, an excellent example of these issues fully explored. I’m proud of that, because the reader who made the comment is not an adoptive parent.

I wrote Bones That Float because I needed to examine the conditions in contemporary Cambodia that create both the child care crisis and corruption. When we adopted out son Grady, I read every book I could find about Cambodia, and I bought 20 copies of the war memoir First They Killed My Father, by Loung Ung, and made my entire family read it. After going there and starting a school, I wanted a book that would tie that war history to the conditions of the present day, and there weren’t any. So I wrote one. My book remains the only one I know of to tie Cambodia’s war 30 years ago to the present state of affairs. The journey is summed up in the title “Bones That Float,” a phrase that came to me from my son’s birthmother, to describe his good fortune, to have bones that rise above suffering and float away.

Bones That Float has been out six months and we are beginning to see the ripple effect of our “spread the word” campaign from an army of inspired readers. I spent the summer traveling through 10 cities and calling-in to 27 book discussions in 11 different states, spreading our message of sustainable support for Cambodia’s Schools. One thing has become clear, this is a book that inspires ACTION.

from South Dakota…

When I called to answer questions from Liz Janza’s book group in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the first thing she told me was that she’s never traveled outside the United States. She was blown away by Cambodia’s story and how the book made her feel connected to it. After screening the Grady Grossman School DVD, her group said they felt overwhelmed and stunned by how one person really can make a difference. Our rich conversation led one participant, an adoptive parent of 2 Russian girls, to a hopeful conclusion. She said simply “making a difference is a choice.” And I had to agree with her. All it takes to change the world is making the decision to Be The Change. I don’t know any of these readers, yet they have made the personal choice to distribute Bones That Float postcards and to sign up 3 more book discussion groups in their region. South Dakota meet Cambodia!

from England…

Keira Nightingill, adoptive mom of 4 year old Sam from Cambodia, writes from her home in Gerrards Cross, Great Britain. “Our babysitter (who is 17 yrs) came round last night and it was great to learn from her that she’s using your book for her final Gcse’s exams. She had to give Bones That Float to one of her school heads to read so that he can confirm it’s okay for her to use it. Hopefully he’ll spread the word to others in the school. We don’t know where this will lead but we were excited to learn that our babysitter had chosen it. She absolutely loved the book and cried in a few places, particularly in the bits where it was hard to get food.” Way to be the change Keira!

from Philadelphia…

Last May, Philadelphia 9th grader Juliette Snyder contacted me about her desire to get involved with a sister school project in Cambodia. She had found me through Andy Brower’s blog. Well, Juliette is not your average 9th grader. Her entire family read Bones That Float. Then, in June, they traveled to Cambodia and visited our school. They became so inspired that the Snyder family made a commitment to sponsor a new secondary school through American Assistance for Cambodia. When they got home, Juliette’s older sister asked her wedding engagement guests to donate to their school in lieu of gifts. They raised $23,000!! And the new secondary school is already 40% complete! I will be speaking to Juliette’s high school, Penn Charter, in Philadelphia on October 24th, to help students form their plan for ongoing support of this school.

Way to go Juliette, Babs, and Harvey Snyder!

All these people decided for themselves to Be The Change. You can too!

Host a Book Discussion. Here’s How.

Do you have a Bones That Float “ripple” story? Please share, add a comment.