Tiny Toones Teachers: Diamond’s Story
Diamond was Cambodia’s first B-girl before coming back to teaach with us and help other kids to fulfill their dreams.
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Tiny Toones Teacher Stories
“I used to hate my life, my family and myself before I found Tiny Toones” – Voch (22), Tiny Toones music teacher and producer
Homie, Diamond and Voch are three Tiny Toones teachers. Each hails from a different but similarly disadvantaged background and each started out as students at Tiny Toones. Diamond became Cambodia’s first B-girl, Homie has become one of the strongest dancers and leaders at the centre and Voch is a talented and creative music producer (responsible for all the beats on Tiny Toones’ Anakut album).
Now they are inspiring and educating the next generation at Tiny Toones. For us to be able to support them, we need your help. You can see each of them talk about what Tiny Toones means to them in our video collection.
“I am so grateful to have been shown the right direction. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Tiny Toones, I would still be doing bad things or be in prison” – Homie (22), Tiny Toones Teacher
To support Tiny Toones please visit our Global Giving page.
Battle of the Breakers!
If you’ve been following our Facebook posts over the past 2 months, you’ve probably seen posts about Tiny Toones staff dance battles!
When we started our fundraising drive in September, we also decided that for every $1000 we raised in donations on our Global Giving page, we would organize and film a 3 round dance battle between some of the best breakdancers at Tiny Toones!
So far we have had 2 rounds, Round 1 (Suicide vs. Kha) and Round 2 (Homie vs. Fresh). It was decided, via comments on our Facebook page, that Suicide won round 1 and Fresh won round 2. This means that when we hit $3000 in donations we will film a runner up battle (Kha vs. Homie) and then when we reach $4000 we’ll host the grand final to decide who is the best dancer at Tiny Toones! If you’d like to see more check out the facebook page and feel free to send us a donation at the link above.
Bangkok Airways Inflight Magazine
Recently, founder KK spoke to a journalist from Fah Thai magazine – the inflight magazine of Bangkok Airways – about his past, where Tiny Toones came from and the importance of having a place like Tiny Toones in a city like Phnom Penh.
The article will feature in the Fah Thai magazine on planes for 2 months and there is a very nifty electronic version of the magazine so you can check it out without having to catch a plane.
Note: Credit to Stuart Isett for the last 2 photos in the article.
Performances, Parties and Philadelpha
September has been a massive month for Tiny Toones, both inside and outside of Cambodia. We have been involved in a plethora of events from film festivals to dance classes and we were glad the month ended with the Pchum Ben holiday so we could all get a well deserved break!
In Long Beach, California, the first annual Cambodia Town Film Festival took place during September. The 3 day celebration of Cambodian culture and talent kicked off on the 14th of September and Tiny Toones was featured, with a screening of the song and music video ‘Anakut’.
Over on the other side of the USA, Tiny Toones dance teacher Fresh flew to Philadelphia to attend the annual Beyond Sports awards ceremony. The Beyond Sport awards exist to celebrate organizations providing empowerment and social change through sport and Tiny Toones was nominated and shortlisted for the second year in a row. Unfortunately we didn’t come first, but we would like to congratulate the winners Skateistan, who are doing amazing work with children in Cambodia and Afghanistan.
Back in Cambodia, and we have been working very hard to try and raise money for our September Dance School Challenge. We set a fundraising goal of $4000 and have been campaigning to try and meet it so we can continue our work here at the Tiny Toones center. We held a party at Showbox (photos on the website now), have been running dance classes every Saturday and have been collecting donations through our global giving page. For more information on the Saturday dance classes and to keep up to date with all the Tiny Toones news, please like our Facebook page.