A CHARITY concert staged by staff from radio station Kiss 89FM and students from Mekong University raised US$2000 for a small primary school in Kampong Speu province earlier this week, and that’s only the start says Kiss FM station manager Ros Marie.

Profits from the sale of four hundred tickets to the booked-out We Concert III, will be used to built classrooms at the Krang Chek Primary School in Kampong Speu, Ros told the Post, the culmination of two years of effort on her behalf.

“In 2009  I went to Krang Chek primary school which is constructed on the top of a hill. I saw a miserable primary school in which less than one hundred children were studying per day. The classrooms had no good roofs, they were covered by palm leaves and had no walls, and there was only one teacher at the time.”

After her visit, Ros Marie started organising charity appeals on behalf of the school, an effort that culminated in this week’s concert.

“I expect that in the next three years, government will build classrooms for them too. But at the moment, I can not stand to see these children study in these conditioins. So I teamed up with teenagers in Phnom Penh to collect the money to build classrooms in which the children can study very well.”

As well as music, We Concert III included a fashion show and comedy performances staged by members of the Cambodian Mekong University Students Volunteers for Community.

Its spokesman, Chim Poly, says while the group has staged similar concerts to raise money for charity in the past, this year’s blew away existing fundraising records. “Our colleagues are not the professional musicians. But some of them can play music, and others can sing or dance. We had many people coming to see the concert because they wanted to use their money to help the poor in the community. The concert was a great success.”

While Mekong University students have fundraised on behalf of the NGO Happy Tree and the Physical Rehabilitation Centre in the past, Chim says this year they was approached by Ros Marie to assist Krang Chek Primary School, and were happy to help.

“We want to do what we can to help people. This year, we will help the school to build more classrooms for the children, and next year we will do something else.”