Health Center’s Construction Update

The roof has dried properly and we are now working on water-proofing it.

[The roof top part, photo was taken from the back side]

Are you wondering why our roof is so thick? You would surely understand once you have experienced one of the heavy rains falling in our area. Once it starts raining, you can’t even hear what the person next to you is saying! We have planned our roof to be thick enough so as to minimize the huge noise from the rain.

[Even after putting roof, we still have enough sun light ]

We have also started to extend our road up to the mountain where there is a stream with flowing water year-round. We plan to install a pico hydropower turbine there, with the funds generously provided by Family Care Foundation. We already have a solar power generator and we will soon install some more. Our plan is to use all forms of renewable energy from natural resources, in order to provide enough power to meet the electricity needs of our Health Center. We are also planning to install windmills in the future.

[ The Health Center roof top. We will install more solar panel on it]

[Road construction up to the mountain]

Health Center Construction Update

We have started working on the remaining part of the roof. As the yellow arrows indicate on the picture here below, the slope of the roof on the building front will be angled so as to let in as much natural light as possible, both sunlight and moonlight.

[Can you now visualize our roof design a little better?]

Meanwhile, it is with great gratitude that we received a donation from the Taipei Yunfu Rotary Club, to help cover the costs of the Health Center construction. Thank you from the bottom of our heart for your generosity!

[Rehabilitation Pool is also under construction]

Our House for Visitors

Our house is built in an energy-efficient way, with all the necessary facilities to ensure that our visitors are as comfortable as possible.

The roof is put in an angle that allows a constant air circulation inside the house, keeping the temperature indoors cool. The roof also has 2 layers, the outside layer is made with locally available grass, that ensure good heat insulation. There is a gap between the layers so that the under layer’ surface is kept dry, in order to prevent humidity build up inside.

The house is still on the way to be developed. We will soon put a mosquito screen at the entrance, in order to keep the bugs out. While the good air circulation keeps us comfortable inside, it also carries in a lot of mosquitoes; luckily, the constant air flow prevents them from feasting on us. For the moment, our open environment is also an open invitation to a wide variety of insects, and we are sleeping inside mosquito nets.

Water is no problem for us, as we are blessed with pure water running from the uphill mountain 8km away. We searched for a long time for an uncontaminated water resource that would be available year-round. Our major problem now is the naughty elephants which destroy our water pipes from time to time, stopping our water supply. This is the ups and downs of a life in the middle of nature.
Building such a house is a kind of experiment as well. We are testing new techniques and see how they work, in order to apply the successful ones for our Health Center under construction.

Rain, Rain, Rain!

Cambodia is now celebrating Pchum Ben, a 15-day long Buddhist festival to honor ancestors. People visit pagodas, offer prayers and prepare meals for the monks. We can hear the monks chanting all day long, from very early in the morning!
These days, we have lots of rain; during heavy precipitations, there is so much water flowing from the mountains that the access bridge to our Health Center is completely submerged one meter deep. When this happens, we have no choice but to use a boat instead of a car to move in and out.
We took this problem into consideration when building our road, by digging ditches along both sides of the road behind the access bridge, for water control and rainwater storage. It was not enough however and right now, we are digging additional ditches before the bridge as well. The ditches will be built at different elevations, each with a gate so as to secure proper water flow and minimize the impact of heavy rainfall. Furthermore, the water retained will be used for agriculture whenever needed, and will be channeled back into the stream, so as to secure a steady water supply throughout the year.

Slowly but Surely

Sorry for the long silence on this blog. Life sometime brings unpredictable changes, and that’s what happened to us these past months.

Two volunteer experts who had been working with us on the development of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) system in Phnom Penh needed to leave Cambodia in April, for family reasons. They were key players in our endeavor, and it was a big loss for us. As a result, we had our hands fully occupied in Phnom Penh to keep the operation running while reorganizing it with other collaborators.

We didn’t forget about the ongoing construction of our Health Center however. We needed to slow down the preparations for a while but our work for the Health Center has continued without interruption.

We have just completed the concrete roofing works. As it takes a month for the cement to dry, we were anxious about the process, as Cambodia had entered into the rainy season in May. Heavy rains may cause the cement to loose density before it dries, making it too porous to provide effective insulation.

Thanks God! Rain was kept at bay! One month later, the cement had cured completely without problem. From the photo, you may think: “the roof is only half done!” Well, yes… Now that the concrete has set nicely, we are going to put translucent plastic sheets on the rest of the roof, in addition to solar panels. A key point of our Health Center is that it will be environment friendly and energy efficient, using as many natural resources as possible. The transparent plastic sheets will allow more sunlight inside the Center in daytime, as well as moonlight at nighttime. You cannot imagine it? You will see it soon!

Construction Up-Date 2

The father of one of our workers passed away in the beginning of February. Since all our workers belong to the same community, they all left the construction site, in order to help with the funeral. We had no choice but to leave the building site idle for an entire week.The work has now resumed and we are about to put on the roof.


We are planning to organize an opening ceremony on March 23rd, 2009 with GRAPHIS and SIDE-BY-SIDE INTERNATIONAL, the main donors of the health center. We have only one month left…..

The Road Branch to the Health Center is opened!

At the end of January 2009, the repair works on the road branching out from Road No. 4 to the Graphis Health Center were completed. It was a very rough rock littered dirt road overgrown with grass, which made access to the Health Center difficult and dangerous.

Thanks to the support from the local authorities and from the main donor, GRAPHIS, a Japanese students group, we could manage to repair this road section in three weeks!

The local authorities contributed heavy machinery and workforce for 3 weeks. GRAPHIS provided the funds needed to cover all the costs, including fuel, food for the works and other costs.

It now takes just 5 minutes to access the health center from National Road No. 4, instead of half an hour.



There is still more work to do in order to keep the road smooth throughout the year. As it is not paved, we are planning to cover it with tiny red stones that will act as gravel to prevent it from becoming slippery when wet.



We dug a ditch on both sides of the road. During the rainy season, the ditch will work as drainage. In the dry season, we will fill the ditches with water, to be used by the villagers.
We also plan to raise fish in the ditches. It will be a valuable source of proteins for the people of this area who rarely have opportunity to obtain it.
The ditches will be connected, to keep water moving and prevent it from becoming a breeding ground for malaria-spreading mosquitoes.

The Road to the Health Center

The Graphis Health Center currently under construction is located 8 km from the National Road No. 4.

Why didn’t we build the health center along the National Road itself?

The main reason is we didn’t want to create additional accidents from more traffic that the health center would inevitably generate. Once the health center opens, it would inevitably attract many people, coming in and out of the center, walking across the road, erecting food stalls around and so on. If the health center were located along the already busy and accident-heavy National Road No. 4, it would become an additional cause of traffic accidents.

We decided therefore to build the center a little bit away from the main road, but not too far so as to be able to drive emergency patients quickly from the main road.

Up till now, the existing road branching out from National Road No. 4 to the health center was quite rough. It took at least 25 minutes to drive from the main road to the health center on this dirt road.

Now, with the support from GRAPHIS, a Japanese students group, as well as from local authorities, we have started to repair the road section to the health center, to ensure quicker and safe access.

Local authorities are providing heavy machinery such as excavators, shovel car and trucks, as well as workers. GRAPHIS provided the funds to cover all the costs, including fuel, workers’ food and other expenses.

Thanks to their generous contribution, we have started the repair work of the road section on December 23, 2008.

Once the road repair is completed, travel time from National Road No. 4 to the health center will be reduced from 25 minutes to only 5 minutes!

Construction up-date

From May till November, Cambodia is rainy season. We could not do much on the construction of the Health Center.

We have finished columns and connected them on the ground.

We made columns 1.5 times thicker than Cambodian current standard. In Phnom Penh, lots of construction work is going on (now slow down because of global economic crisis) but many of them are poor quality.

We don't want our Health Center having crack in the walls or any other inevitable damage within few years.

We are monitoring progress in every stage carefully.

Unfortunately, we had too much rain in October / November and it washed cement away from the last two columns before it dried. We needed to demolish those two columns because it's too sandy and not solid enough. After this, we decided to stop construction until rain stops.

Now, we enter dry season and we are ready to catch up with construction schedule!

Community is looking forward to seeing the Health Center starts operataion. Also, GRAPHIS, the donor of the Health Center is coming to celebrate the Health Center Opening Ceremony. We need to complete the construction by March 2009!!!