Our volunteers are wonderful people and their latest mission is to begin the process of monitoring BMI levels in our fabulous kids.
As many of you will know, ABCs and Rice provides two meals a day to every child as well as sending 6kg of rice home on a bimonthly basis.
The two meals consist of rice, vegetable and meat or fish. Our ability to provide this is a tale of growth which shows the difference ABCs makes in the lives of these children.
When ABCs first opened, the seven most desperate children were given the most basic meal of low-grade rice mixed with a lot of water and (if they were lucky) one egg. This was their only meal a day, for some them it was also the first regular meal they had ever experiences.
As the school and support grew we were able to feed another seven and add more egg. This created the most basic omelette that was watered down to stretch across the children who needed it most.
As we continued to grow we could provide rice for more and more students daily, until every child was receiving a portion of rice for breakfast everyday. Then we could provide a small amount of vegetables with each meal, this was followed by meat with every meal. We started a farm to help provide even more meat and vegetables.
ABCs had grown from being able to feed the seven neediest children a small portion of watered-down rice to feeding every child a small meal of rice, vegetables and meat everyday!
This advanced even further when some of our amazing supporters started 'Pack the Essentials' and while we provided breakfast, they were providing lunch. EVERY ABCS CHILD WAS RECEIVING TWO MEALS A DAY!
As the years have progressed we are feeding more children with more food at home and at school daily and so the next step, suggested by volunteers Justin and Nadine, was to find a way to monitor the progress of children and measure the difference month by month and create a record of the difference being made to not only the education, but also the health of every ABCs child.
So far they have measured and weighed every single one of over 200 students and are now in the process of calculating each child's BMI and what this indicates about their health. It's a long and arduous process. (It turns out translating Khmer names into English isn't the easiest task when it has already been done differently several times!) Shout out to our guys for soldiering through and completing the task, thus making it easier to be carried out in the future!
We're excited to see the results and the impact that we're making. Stay tuned for the results...