Chair Person / CEO Report
A short report from Cynthia and Maurie. As you will see from this annual Newsletter and if
you have been following us on Facebook you would have noticed that the last 12 months
have been exciting, packed full of good stories and perhaps our best year ever.
When I first set up Cararoo Foundation back in 2005, my goal was to develop a community
based organisation where we could get a group of families working together, with our help
to educate the children in the group. Establishing the village canteen all those years ago,
seemed like a crazy idea but it has worked in bringing groups of parents together to feed
the children, make sure they take daily vitamins, dental hygiene, remedial reading under the
guidance and supervision of our Chair Person Cynthia and sponsorship manager Arlene
(who left us in 2016 after 10 plus years of service) and now new manager Ian. By involving
the parents in this way, they are part of the solution in helping the less fortunate.
This year we took another giant step forward in developing another livelihood project in
consultation with the parents, by helping them fund a business where the parents now
make hand fans and bags which they sell at markets etc. see examples in Newsletter. It is all
about growing the community.
Last year we also handed over the management and running of our village nursery to the
Springboard Foundation, reducing the number of children in the Cararoo sponsorship
program to 60. This will now allow us to focus on the older children and helping them
graduate senior high school. Unfortunately, we must also recognise that some children are
not going to graduate, and this is something we must understand is a consequence of the
environment we work in.
On the positive side we had Ferdinand who graduated a 3-year college IT course and is now
working in the IT department of a major Bank. Jenny Rose is blitzing her 5-year college
Accounting Course, and we had 5 children move into senior high school.
With the help of our good friends from the Singapore Cricket Club Growlers Rugby we
continued our after-school touch rugby training and this year entered a team, sponsored by
SCC Growlers into a rugby championship (see story). A positive from this is that the children
were exposed to something new and three of the more senior players have been asked to
join an established rugby team.
Richard Cook from SCC Growlers also organised for students attending senior high to visit
Accenture head office in Manila and then had 20 of the senior executives from Accenture
visit our village canteen to meet with the children and experience life in a squatter village.
As we said a full and exciting year, which we could not achieve without the help and
support of our sponsors. On behalf of the children and parents we thank you all and take
this opportunity to wish you and your families a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New
Year.
Cynthia and Maurie