[:en]Hallo again to all of you !

It’s Saturday the 27th of December 2008 and I arrived back safe and sound on the 23rd of December.

I hope that you celebrated the Christmas period with your friends and family and wish you a very happy 2009.

As mentioned in my mail from Cambodia, here is an overview of our mini aid programme which was only made possible thanks to your help and generosity. As you are aware the idea for this project was born during mine and Kerstin’s first visit to Cambodia in Feb 2008 and luckily or unluckily due to the ever expanding diameter of Kerstin’s stomach I had to undertake the project on my own. I would like to take this opportunity not only to thank all of you, but especially Kerstin, for all of your support which made it possible to deliver happiness, hope, motivation and opportunities to a bitter few of the inhabitants of Cambodia.    The project itself was so successful that we have decided to do the same thing again next year either in December or in January 2010.

For all you skeptics: We are doing it, not in spite of, but rather for our offspring! , while we want our child to grow up in the knowledge that its not just a few, but rather a large percentage of the worlds population, that is dependant upon the help and support of others.

Our child, relative to our Western benchmark, will certainly not be born into a rich family, but looking at things realistically we could say that our child has drawn a lucky ticket in the lottery and has all the chances and opportunities anyone could wish for. The gulf between rich and poor has never been larger than it is today.  More than any previous generation our offspring are going to be confronted with this issue and will have to deal with the problems and challenges it represents.

It’s your children that are going to be burdened with the problems generated by the ignorance and selfishness shown by all too many people and governments. The difficulties with our programme are the dumb comments made by such ignorant people ; At the top of the list are such comments as : “you idiots that wish to fight poverty”, or  “ that is just a drop in the ocean” or “hey I have problems too but who is going to help me”

Of course with our project we are not going to solve the world’s poverty problem but any help we can give is important irrespective of how minor it is. When everyone shared your social attitude then the problems of the future generation would be that much smaller.

The projects covered in the following text were decided on by me on the spur of the moment and based on my evaluation of the situation and feelings at the time.

Should you in the future wish to support our project for 2009 / 2010 it would certainly be justification and motivation for all of us. For those among you who wish to experience a different kind of holiday, perhaps a combination of chilling out and helping others, then please feel free to contact us as we would be more than willing to give you tips and information regarding trips to Thailand and Cambodia.[:]