Australian Brain Gym Training Helping Cambodian Children

Susan and Renska are two inspiring young Australian women who are putting their time, energy and passion where their belief is with Compassion in Action. Both have trained in Holistic Kinesiology at the Australian College of Complementary Medicine, they work in this field and are following up the first ‘exploratory trip’ made by Susan to the Sunrise Children’s Village Orphanage at Siem Reap last year.

Brain Gym Exercises Help Clear Kids’ Stress, Fear, Anger

Last year on Susan’s first trip she and her three colleagues worked with several groups of children and were rewarded by seeing an improvement in health. They also trained local teachers in simple exercises to help ‘brain integration’ and believe they were reaching 800-1000 children a day.

Susan and Renska Are In Cambodia Now And Blogging…

“We had an 8am start this morning for our training with the Sunrise staff – a mix of house mothers, a primary teacher, their teenager carer, a cook and the guy who is second in command. You might be gathering that most people that work at these places have a lot of interaction with the kids and so it’s quite appropriate that we be training cooks and security guards, as well as those more clearly directly working with the kids. We did the Introductory Workshop (not too many surprises here, we hope) and we’re starting to get the hang of it now, although each new place has its own particular challenges and surprises. At Sunrise here in Siem Reap, the staff are particularly unused to training and the concepts that we were teaching them were quite foreign. Still, they took our instruction with smiles and, working with the children in the afternoon, demonstrated to us that they had grasped what we had taught and could put it into practice.

We find it particularly heart-warming to walk into a kitchen at one of the places where we’ve worked and see the cooks sitting around a big pot, all doing hook-ups (one of the PACE* exercises), or come across random kids in the playground having their own unstructured go at one of the games that we’ve taught the staff. The people here appear keen to readily embrace any new skills that come their way.

In our lunch break today, we collected the portable CD player that Sunrise needed and Renska bravely weaved her way in and out of the crazy lunchtime peak traffic, balancing the stereo precariously on the top of the basket (into which it steadfastly refused to fit). Many a prayer was mouthed, uttered and shouted during this short but daring trip. Tomorrow (Friday) we look forward to demonstrating a number of our musical games in our Developmental Games Workshop with the newly purchased CD player. It’s another early morning start, but the games workshop has proven to be quite fun to teach so far, so we’re looking forward to it.

On a personal note, we’d both like to whole-heartedly thank all those individuals who’ve sent us emails of support and encouragement. It makes this particularly worthwhile when we know that people back home are following what we are doing with interest and enthusiasm, so thank you! And remember, always check the size of your parcels will fit in your basket before you purchase them, or better yet, take a tuk tuk when buying a CD player!

Enjoy!

*PACE stands for Positive, Active, Clear and Energetic and comprises four exercises that are part of Brain Gym®.”

Would You Care To Help These Children?

You can donate towards the cost of the purchase of a portable CD player at a cost of US$100.00 for Sunrise Children’s Village Orphanage.

If choose to help please email susan@compassioninaction.org.au with the amount so that she knows!!

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You can get involved and support Compassion in Action Inc. in any way – even if you’re not quite sure how…by contacting megan@compassioninaction.org.au or on mobile: 0411 104 503.

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If you’d like to help support Compassion in Action work financially, donations of any amount are invaluable and are most gratefully accepted.

Bank Account for deposits:
Bendigo Bank
Account Name: Compassion in Action Inc
Account BSB: 633000
Account Number: 135789451
Please email susan@compassioninaction.org.au with details of any donation, or if you’d like to donate via another method. Thanks!

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Renska is licensed with the International Educational Kinesiology Foundation and works as a Brain Gym instructor/consultant from her home in Hurstbridge. You can contact her on 03 9718 1988, mobile 0438 042 015 or email renska@happylearning.com.au