February 2011 - Exciting New Products and Education Initiatives!
Cambodian Threads is pushing forward after a great holiday season. We are making big moves on our education projects and our product line! Recently, we coordinated a meeting with the Heng family to pick up another batch of beautiful hand made silk products and discuss future goals.
New Products for Spring 2011!
Prek Bongkong Village in Cambodia is a very unique place. Its proximity to Phnom Penh makes it accessible, yet when we cross that mighty Mekong River and the ferry lands on the dusty dock it is clear that we have arrived at a rural, farm-based sanctuary. That feeling only grows when trotting through the bumpy paths, swallowed by old growth palms and banana trees. It’s the kind of escape that East-coast urbanites like me dream of.
Recently, the Hengs and their growing network of silk weaving family members have been practicing their art diligently to refine their products. And they surely are succeeding! Cambodian Threads is excited to introduce new products for our spring 2011 collection. Keep an eye out for more long silk scarves like the ones we have been providing, but also new fashions like beautiful, shorter square scarves, raw silk scarves, silk bags, and silk ties. We have been working with the Hengs for months to develop this new spring line and are thrilled to present it!
Education Initiatives
Our scholarship search is also moving forward. We have created a survey to evaluate eligible candidates from the Prek Bongkong community. This scholarship will seek to find two graduating high school students to study at a University in Phnom Penh. The key factor to this equation is their high school final exam scores which will be published this summer. We hope to find the right students by evaluating both our surveys and their examination scores. It looks promising for the students to begin this autumn. More information to come…
Another education initiative that we at Cambodian Threads envision is a volunteer English teaching program in Prek Bongkong. The idea is to have native English speaking teachers from Phnom Penh come out and help a group of students on the island to learn English. We have some connections through Language Corps, Pannassasstra University of Cambodia, and other English teaching forums to seek quality teachers that would be interested in volunteering. It would likely be held on the weekends starting this June. We are coordinating with the director of Prea Takov Secondary School to use their classrooms, but Naysim Heng also suggested her home as a venue option. This program would be a great way to help the students in the community become more confident in their English communication and to encourage future opportunities.
We here at Cambodian Threads are working hard to improve education in Cambodia and to develop the finest quality silk products. We greatly appreciate your support and thank you for your holiday contributions! See you further down the road…
