Lots of children pass through our program … some more vulnerable than others. Many of them stay for months or years, while others leave when they become adults. A few stay only for a short time and then return home, not necessarily because the conditions that brought them to us have changed, but because a […]
Many years ago, when things were much different around here, we got an early morning call from someone who said they worked at a health clinic. They may have said which one but if they did it wasn’t recorded. They told us that they had just discovered an unconscious woman at their front door who appeared […]
Wat Opot is a little scarier at night when everyone is gone and so when you hear the animals making a ruckus, you just hope that it is because one of them has invaded another’s sleeping space or perhaps farted in the face of one of the more dominant animals. Your mind begins to think […]
For several years now Professor Rumiko Akashi, from the Meiji Gakuin University in Japan, has brought some of her students to Wat Opot for a time of interaction with our children. This year, unfortunately, very few of the kids were here because plans had already been made to take them home for a family visit. That […]
Today was the big day for many of our children. Home visits have been arranged for every one of our 47 residents. Most went today, others will leave tomorrow or the next day, but by the 4th of September, Wat Opot will sit empty, for the first time in nearly 20 years. Most will go […]
A while back we started cleaning up the empty space in front of the boy’s dorm. We have come a long way, but now must wait for the trees to grow and that may take a while. Yesterday the children finished the bonfire area by moving some very large rocks that will be used for […]
In the very beginning, when at first we decided to build the hospice at Wat Opot, I knew from experience that I would need a refuge if I were to begin taking care of the dying. At the time I had no idea that I would also eventually need it after the dying stopped… […]
Margo Kopec is a teacher at the Institut auf dem Rosenberg school in St. Gallen, Switzerland. She contacted Wat Opot as she was doing a lesson on HIV/AIDS and wanted to see if it was possible to have her 10th grade students Skype with our kids. She wanted to have her students put a face to the […]
Mr. Ya left Wat Opot to attend the La Bottega dell Arte School in Phnom Penh. He is doing well and spends his holidays by going back to the best home he has known, Wat Opot! He shows up with that ever engaging smile, which hardly ever leaves his face. On his last visit, he showed some […]
There was an ugly piece of land behind the kitchen that could be ignored before the sidewalks were put in… it was filled in mainly with garbage and trash over the years and therefore not much good for growing anything and so we decided to make it a flower garden. Thear, the boy on […]
