To broaden the horizons, enhance the futures and provide a new vision for children living in poverty around the world, through health care and the gift of the Arts.

Our Vision

For groups of children living in abject poverty with the luxuries of stress-free activities that will give them hope and new possibilities for the future.

To develop exciting, varied programs of health and education in the Arts and show how important these can be to a child's lifelong well being, by:

- Adopting a holistic approach to learning, promoting the students’ physical health through hygiene training, dental support and immunizations.

- Enhancing their psychological well being through enjoyable educational activities that include dance, painting, photography, graphic design and computer training.

To offer programs that are designed as educational tools to foster a love of learning that encourages children to think for themselves and to apply this approach to any challenge they may face in their lives.

To provide a practical contribution towards the children’s education through scholarship funds and taking care of their material needs, so that their primary focus can be on learning.

To facilitate the provision of teachers and coordinate education programs for children with limited access to quality education, particularly within the Arts field.

What we do

Using a creative and innovative fusion of activities we aim to change the lives of children in the moment and most importantly in the future. Our programs hinge on collaborative cooperation of grassroots level, community-based groups, both local and international teachers, community leaders and of course the children themselves. We believe that this collaborative approach empowers both teachers and students, introducing them to new approaches to education, without undermining their valuable work. We offer children a new vision of the future by encouraging them to think independently and critically, explore their individuality and enhance their communities in ways that challenge conventional approaches to education. Our program involves a number of components:

• Identifying the Need

We network widely and work closely with child-centered local and international NGO’s, education institutes, community groups, local teachers, students and international aid workers based in the field to identify the groups Souls will target. Childrens needs are endless in developing countries which is why Souls must address a number of factors such as suitable access to children through an established organization and input and support from the local community before we begin our activities.

The individual needs of children vary dramatically depending on country, culture, age group, differential access to services, different family situations, health and sanitation, access to education, political and economic situation of their country and effects of conflict or natural disaster. Souls believes that children from all backgrounds, living in any situation can benefit from our programs. However, we have thus far tried to focus on the needs of children living in acutely difficult environments since it is there we identified the most need.

• The gift of the Arts

An integral element of The Souls Foundation program is the funding and facilitating of visual and performance art classes to children within its projects. We employ a combination of local and international teachers to perform regular classes in photography, painting, traditional dance, photoshop and computer training. The response to these classes has been astounding as children engage with and absorb new ways of expressing their creativity. Read a case study.

• Scholarship Fund

Through regular contact with the teachers and students of our programs, we identify possible candidates for our scholarship fund based on their individual drive and ambition. The successful candidates will have their complete studies funded and an allowance to help with their living costs while in education. Currently our scholarship fund supports Boramey Oum's archeology study in Cambodia. Read my story.

• Sponsoring Teachers

Teachers are very poorly paid in the countries we work in, and this constraint means they often cannot afford to volunteer their time, so we support them by giving them a regular monthly wage. The children in our programs also benefit from the financial support the teachers receive because they are exposed to committed, qualified teachers that they would not likely have access to under the public schooling system. In Cambodia for example, one of our teachers is also a professor at PUC's Computer Department.

• Providing Resources

We provide all the necessary materials needed to teach visual and performance Arts including cameras, computers, craft materials and dance uniforms; items that are usually out of reach to most of the students.

• Website

The Souls Foundation website gives the children in our programs the opportunity to gain insight into their world. Through varied artistic mediums including photography, painting, graphic design and traditional dance, children can use this space to showcase their work.

We are committed to a long-term, sustainable program, where ultimately the children will develop the skills to produce a website that will truly be their own. First, they are introduced to a specific means of artistic expression (e.g. photography), then they are introduced to the Internet and finally they learn how they can share themselves with the world through their website.







Stories

Case Study:

"It's been just one month since The Souls Foundation implemented a Khmer traditional dance teacher and a painting teacher into our shelter for young trafficking and sexual exploited victims. I used to be so anxious about the many girls who slept most of the day and often looked withdrawn and depressed, longing for the resources to provide them with new activities. But now they have new things to look forward to: a space where they can explore themselves and let go into fits of laughter or deep imagination. Last week I walked into the dormitory and found two girls lying on their beds drawing pictures and another weaving a bracelet and I felt a new atmosphere in the high walled compound. This is only the beginning of the program, but already I feel a waterfall of change."
(Antonia Marison, Project Coordinator, CCPCR, Cambodia)



Boramey's story

I am Boramey, a graduated student of the Faculty of Archaeology, Royal University of Fine Arts, RUFA.

It is honorable that Mr. Dean Armstrong has allowed me to express my feeling and fly it on the website of Soul Foundation. I am great to see some Cambodian abuse children who are under the age of 18 have been survived by Soul Foundation, which is a non profitable organization.

The foundation has provided the children through education and skills such as dancing, painting, photograph, and computer training. It is wonderful to see those children gain the knowledge. Education is the most important due to illiterate, poverty and violence.

I myself have also been survived from lack of a foreign language by Mr. Dean who is a Head of Soul Foundation? He has supported my English education at Paññasastra University.

According to my struggle and the motivation from my parents, teachers, friends and everyone around me, I can reach to my vision and know some English knowledge.

These are the following benefits I earn after I gain the English knowledge:

1. I participated in a project with a Japanese group from NANZAN University to do an archaeological survey at the eastern area of Cambodia. I could use English, I learned at Paññasastra University, both technical and communicating terms to work and cooperate with the Japanese group.

2. By the time I graduated from the Faculty of Archaeology, RUFA, I was granted a fellowship funded by UNESCO to attend a short course of petrography at Kanazawa's laboratory, Kanazawa University, Japan in November 2006.

3. I was also granted by the Motor Ford Company to do an archaeological research and site survey at Badeum Site, Steung Treng Province. This is my first opportunity to conduct a research by my own and served as a project director, even though the budget is not enough to complete the whole work. Fortunately, the project received a matching fund, which is funded by Soul Foundation.

4. The result of my English ability gives me a chance to participate in the Sre Ampil Archaeological Conservation Project.

Overall, the fruitfulness from the education gives us more chances to reach everyone's desire.

At last, I would like to express my profound thanks Mr. Dean Armstrong and SOUL for supporting me with the general English education and a fund for doing research and site survey in Steung Treng province.

I would like also to provide some ideas as well as comments to the children who were survived by SOUL have to learn more and read more. Education is the most important. It will provide people many chances for the living. Cambodia badly needs educated people to develop in the modern world. We should not ask our country what to do for us it is us who have to ask ourselves what do you do for our country? Please remember, everything starts from one!!! We all have to help ourselves and our country as well.