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Cambodia Children for Change

children_for_changeThe Khmer Rouge genocide is a historic atrocity that devastated the people of Cambodia from 1975-1979. The country is still struggling to rehabilitate its debilitated economy and depleted resources.

After the genocide, families’ structures were left fragmented and splintered. The disruption of the family unit left little hope or vision of the future. Many families in Cambodia chose to have their children earn income to help sustain the family as opposed to attending school.

These children are at high risk of exploitation. The Children for Change in Cambodia organization is dedicated to helping children who have been exploited, are being exploited or who are at a high risk for being exploited. It has created programs, as well as classes and services designed to encourage success for this demographic.

The Children for Change is a nonprofit organization in Phnom Penh that serves to heal historical wounds through the use of education and exposure to opportunities.

The school sits on the outskirts of Phnom Penh in one of the red light districts. It is a small and community-based organization that strives to help children in the most vulnerable areas.

The school offers various programs unique to the area. Program Design, Academic Bridge to Success, Vocational training and Program Assessment are examples of programs specially designed to enhance the academic experience for students.

The Children for Change in Cambodia also conducts social action projects. These assist students in giving back to their communities. The purpose is to emphasize the importance of community, to instill pride in their communities and to learn from community leaders and other role models.

In Cambodia, primary schools have the most students, followed by the lower secondary and upper secondary schools. Private and traditional schools segregate by age. This serves as a further deterrent for older kids to start school when they are not considered the proper age.

The Children for Change, Cambodia welcomes students of all ages and all levels. All of the classes have multiple ages. The ages of the students range from five to 16 years of age. Classes are based upon the level of education of the students.

In addition, the organization has emergency services for their students in need. For example, they give temporary housing to students when it is no longer safe to go home or to those who are experiencing homelessness.

Those that need emergency housing are not uprooted from school or familiar surroundings. This is important because many of the students have had transient lifestyles. The organization is sensitive to the unique needs of the population it serves.

The Children for Change, Cambodia provides educational services and social support to young students that are at high risk of trafficking. Quality education and skill-building techniques increase the likelihood of excelling in society.

– Erika Wright

Sources: Cultural Quest, The Children for Change, Cambodia, Time
Photo: Flickr

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WCP Nominee Advocates for Children in Cambodia

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The World’s Children’s Prize (WCP), first established in 2000, honors advocates for children’s rights. 2015 Nominee Phymean Noun, based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, works to keep children from working in landfills and puts them in schools.

After the genocide caused by Pol Pot from 1975 to 1978, Cambodia’s infrastructure essentially collapsed. More than one-fourth of the country’s eight million people were killed through labor camps, famine or imprisonment during the Pol Pot regime. Pol Pot sought to create an agrarian utopia, where people would simply live off of the land.

However, Pol Pot feared the educated or those who seemed to be smart and killed them. If one had glasses, went to school, had soft hands or had educated parents, one was likely to be persecuted by the Khmer Rouge, who carried out Pol Pot’s orders. Libraries, cultural artifacts and historical archives were destroyed as well.

By persecuting and murdering the educated and driving people from cities into labor farming camps, organizations such as hospitals, schools, news agencies and police stations collapse. There was no monetary system. After the genocide stopped, Cambodia was wrecked by famine, a lack of infrastructure and extremely limited domestic resources to improve the lives of its people. Consequently, Cambodia is one of the least developed nations in Southeast Asia.

Around 90 percent of the population lives in rural villages, which often lack access to health care, secondary education systems and even developed roads that can lead to these resources. The average income is around $2.76 per day, which is barely above the line for extreme global poverty.

The extensive poverty in Cambodia is exacerbated by the lack of funding for education in the country. Sixty-six percent of students do not move on to secondary school. The government provides approximately $1.75 per student per school year, and those who choose to go into teaching choose a salary below the poverty level. One-fourth of Cambodian public schools lack a toilet and one-third lack electricity. Class sizes are, on average, above fifty.

Cities have become a place for families to migrate in the hopes for a better life. However, the jobs for those who are uneducated and lack the funds to start their own business are often dangerous. Waste picking, in which individuals sort through trash in landfills to find products that they can sell, is an increasingly common profession, especially for children.

However, while waste-picking, the risk is high: sometimes individuals are crushed by machines or receive injuries from stepping or falling onto sharp objects. In Phnom Penh, the country’s capital, 3,000 people work as waste-pickers. Half of waste-pickers are children, which is illegal. This work earns them 50 cents to a dollar per day.

Phymean Noun has spent the past 13 years fighting for the education of children working in these dumps. She grew up during the Pol Pot regime, during which she lost many family members and worked in a labor camp. When she was 15-years-old, the loss of her mother threw her into the caretaker role and she had to give up her schooling that she hadn’t even been able to start until she was nine.

When she was older and working, she encountered street children who were fighting over the scraps of chicken bones leftover from her meal. This experience was life-changing; she quit her job and dedicated her life to improving the lives of children in Cambodia, particularly those who work as waste-pickers.

Noun has established three schools near Phnom Penh garbage dumps to educate children in both Khmer (the Cambodian language) and English. She provides money to families under the promise that they keep their children enrolled in school and out of the dump. Children enrolled in her schools also receive access to health care and clean water. She also built a children’s home for orphans and abandoned children.

By empowering children in Cambodia and giving them access to an education they would not receive otherwise, there can be more hope for the Cambodian people. With the majority of its population under 35, the education of youth is absolutely critical to help lift the country out of poverty. Through the funds awarded by the World’s Children’s Prize, Nean can further her work and continue to improve the lives of these children in need.

– Priscilla McCelvey

Sources: Angkor Project, USAID, World Bank Data, World Bank, World’s Children’s Prize,
Photo: World’s Children’s Prize

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Four Girls for Families: Youth Making a Difference

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In 2010, a trip to Cambodia changed the lives of four young girls. As two girls witnessed the health problems caused in Cambodia due to unsanitary drinking water, they both decided to start a mission to help families protect their health. Four Girls for Families began when sisters Rae (11 years old) and Emmy (eight years old) Specht traveled to Cambodia with their family during the winter of 2010.

While in Cambodia, both sisters were introduced to the harsh living standards of the local people. The two sisters decided to make a difference when they discovered that 75 percent of deaths in Cambodia were the results of drinking unsanitary water. Once they arrived in the United States, the Specht sisters began to brainstorm with their friends Clara Walker (10 years old) and Maddie Joinnides (11 years old). Four Girls for Families was born.

With the aid and support of their parents, the four girls began to create homemade jewelry, crafts and T-shirts to raise awareness about unsanitary drinking water in developing countries. The money the girls raised during their sells was used to buy water filters that would be delivered to Cambodians in need.

The water filters used by Four Girls for Families are designed to kill 99.9 percent of bacteria and are given to individual families. In a country where 65 percent of the population does not have access to clean drinking water, water filters play a vital role in protecting the health of families.

Nearly five years later, Four Girls for Families has become a non-profit organization that still continues to provide water filters to rural places in Cambodia. From 2011 to 2014 Rae and Emmy Specht, Clara Walker and Maddie Joinnides have raised nearly $40,000 and supplied 2,000 water filters to families.

This past year, the organization has gained more support in its hometown of Bellport, New York, which has allowed Four Girls for Families to provide 300 water filters to families this past spring. Four Girls for Families relies on fundraisers and profits from their online shop. As the organization gains more acknowledgement and support, all four girls continue to think of ways to provide more water filters to Cambodia.

– Erendira Jimenez

Sources: Four Girls for Families, YouTube, Bellport
Photo: Four Girls for Families

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New Futures Organisation Addresses Poverty in Cambodia

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New Futures Organisation, a nonprofit established in 2007, dedicates its time to improving conditions in impoverished communities in Takeo, Cambodia by exposing youth residents to education, technology and empowerment. The members of New Futures Organisation establish village schools in communities that normally cannot afford the resources needed to provide children a proper education, as well as drop-in centers for at-risk students and orphans. As the children in the village schools grow up and transition into university, New Futures Organisation continues to help them find jobs and sponsorships they can use for university costs.

While school in Cambodia is free, many families living in rural farmlands lack the funds necessary to pay for uniforms and books. Cambodian schools in the region are typically located in the heart of Takeo, miles away from the villages. During rainy seasons, the dirt tracks taken by children commuting to school become inadequate for walking. Children are also required to help their families with farming duties. All of these factors make it difficult for many children to attend school full time.

There are currently seven village schools in Takeo that provide education to over 100 students. These schools are cost-free to families who live in rural regions, and are centrally located so children can access them even during rainy seasons. Classes are held to fit the schedule that comes with farm work.

New Futures Organisation originally started as an orphanage and drop-in center for at-risk youths. The drop-in center houses many orphaned children while helping them reconnect with extended family members, or find good homes when the first option is not available. The families that take in orphaned children are provided with care packages each month to make up for the additional money, food and toiletries needed to house these children. The drop-in center also remains open for them to work on homework, earn tuition and receive hot meals when their home life is not fit for such accommodations.

Many of the children living at the drop-in center and attending the village schools aspire to attend college. New Futures Organisation helps these students achieve their goals by providing and finding sponsorships from organizations and community members, giving them emotional support and helping them become empowered adults so they can lead in their communities.

Other projects sponsored by New Futures Organisation to alleviate poverty in Cambodia include teaching English classes to children and adults and hosting local blood drive banks at health centers in Takeo. They also help local police officers by teaching them English and helping them communicate effectively with tourists and westerners.

– Julia Hettiger

Sources: Matador Network, Idealist, New Future Organisation
Photo: My Travel Affairs

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Cambodian Street Children

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In Cambodia, a country whose economic index consistently ranks lower than the regional Asia-Pacific average, many strides have been made in recent years in order to alleviate poverty levels, strides that have moved the country into the lower-middle class. Attempts to meet the Cambodian Millennium Development Goals, or CMDG’s, have also prompted successful efforts aimed at poverty alleviation, resulting in a decrease in poverty levels from 50% in 2007 to below 20% in 2012, according to the Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey.

Despite these broad strokes of progress in recent years, a third of the Cambodian population continues to live below the national poverty line, which was set at US$0.61 (R2,470) in 2007. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has also revealed that close to 40% of Cambodian children suffer from hunger, while 22% of the population continues to live in severe poverty.

Cambodia has struggled to recover from the legacy left behind by the Cambodian genocide —conducted by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge — that killed an estimated 3 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. One of the legacies of Pol Pot’s reign of terror, for instance, can be observed with regards to the structure of Cambodian demographics. Due to the Khmer Rouge’s systematic targeting of senior citizens, who were considered unfit to work as farmers in the Cambodian countryside, and the significant baby-booms that occurred at the conclusion of Pol Pot’s reign in the 1980s and 1990s, youths now make up a disproportionate percent of the Cambodian population. Out of a total population of 14.0 million, around 5.1 million (49.5%) are children under the age of 18.

Of this 49.5%, studies have also found that about 18% of children age 5 to 17 are engaged in economic activities, with the average age at which a child starts working set at 10.4 years old. These children are deemed street children, for as defined by the United Nations, “any boy or girl for whom the street in the widest sense of the word has become his or her habitual abode and/or source of livelihood, and who is inadequately protected, supervised or directed by responsible adults.”

A study conducted by the Cambodian Street Children Network (CSCN) discovered that these children take to the street for a variety of reasons. Traditional norms in Cambodian society, for instance, foster a mentality in which all members of the household are expected to contribute to the family’s livelihood. The fact that poverty is widespread in Cambodian society and that only 7% of occupations can earn more than US$3 a day, while 38% of occupations yield less than US$1, contributes to a scenario in which income generated from begging comes to be regarded as a “career;” especially as it can yield up to $15 a day in tourist-dense regions such as Siem Reap, home to the Angkor Wat mega-complex. Add to this the fact that many of these street children come from outer provinces in order to escape or alleviate poverty at home, have lost at least one parent or are orphaned by diseases such as AIDS — it is no wonder that the street is regarded as an opportune place to reap a profit.

In addition to these contributing factors, Cambodia also has a weak law enforcement set in place to protect street children. For instance, despite a Labor Code which establishes the minimum age for employment at 15 years, CSCN has noted that there is a pervasive and blatant disregard for this law, and others. According to the latest CSCN study, conducted in 2011, children under the age of 18 engage in a variety of street activities including, but not limited to, begging. The study found that, among various activities, 19% engaged in begging, 17% in scavenging, 7% in construction work, 5% in selling petty goods, 5% in stealing and 3% in picking insects.

The phenomenon of Cambodia’s street children is inextricably connected to Cambodia’s levels of poverty and its current ineffectiveness in dealing with a significantly youthful population. In light of this, it is thus important to reflect that Cambodia has been making strides to alleviate levels of poverty within the country since the 1990s. Many organizations, such as the CSCN, the Anjali House, an education center created for former street children in Siem Reap, and the ChildSafe hotlines, managed by English-speaking Khmer social workers, have also been set up in recent years in order to directly address the issue of Cambodia’s many children who take to the streets to survive.

However, in order to most effectively rescue Cambodia’s street children, more drastic steps need to be taken to alleviate poverty and to strengthen a corrupt and failed justice system — factors which ultimately foster and enable a Cambodian street child’s existence.

– Ana Powell

Sources: Asian Development Bank, Cambodian Street Children Network Canodia, The Heritage Foundation World Bank
Photo: Campus Gup Shup

Mine Sniffing Rats, the Future of Detection?

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An unlikely candidate to saving lives comes to mind when looking at the Gambian pouched rat. Almost blind, but with an extraordinarily strong sense of smell, these rats can detect the most minute odors that can lead to saving human lives.

With this unique sense of smell, these rats in rural Africa are being trained to detect land mines in Africa that are remnants of civil war. Being light enough to not trigger the mines, these rats can sweep over a minefield quicker and more effectively in two hours than the traditional 2-3 days through the human method of metal detectors.

Mine-laying became a common military practice in the late 1970s, and while thousands of mines may have been laid, very few were actually detonated during wars. In countries like Cambodia, mines that have been unaccounted for have have lead to 64,00 casualties since 1979, as well as 25,000 people living with amputations.

As land mines are a hidden threat, they pose a danger to unsuspecting passersby; children on their way to school, and men and women just doing their daily tasks, can all be susceptible to this realistic terror. This is why training the Gambian rats is so useful and important to these rural areas.

With this keen sense of smell, researchers have found that they can not only detect the minute smells of land mines, but can also detect diseases like tuberculosis faster and cheaper than with a laboratory microscope. The rats are able to do this by smelling the bacteria that lives within an infected person.

This amazing realization has saved thousands of dollars for developing countries as the World Health Organization’s current endorsed detection machinery, which costs $17,000 with each individual test requiring $17 for equipment.

Studies have recently suggested that the Gambian pouched rat can do even better. With its keen, sensitive sense of smell and ability to be trained, the future possibilities for the functionality of this amazing animal are astounding.

– Alysha Biemolt

Sources: NYTimes, NYTimes, Child Fund
Photo: Mirror

Khmer Rouge Leaders Jailed for Life

Khmer Rouge leaders
Cambodia’s U.N. backed war crimes tribunal has sentenced the last two surviving Khmer Rouge leaders to life imprisonment for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The now frail 88-year-old Nuon Chea and 83-year-old Khieu Samphan were leaders of the Khmer Rouge — a fanatic Maoist regime that ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 causing the death of at least 1.7 million people from overwork, torture, starvation and execution.

Chea served as deputy to the leader Pol Pott who died in 1998 and was perceived to be the ideological mastermind behind the regime whose pet slogan was “To spare you is no profit; to destroy you, no loss.” Khieu Samphan was the Maoist regime’s head of state.

Until now, no senior leaders of the regime have ever been prosecuted.

The Khmehr Rouge took power in 1975 and, driven by Maoist Ideology, sought to create an agrarian society. Intellectuals, officials and minorities were executed as enemies of the state or worked to death at rural cooperatives. The capital city Phnom Penh was emptied and its residence were forced to work in the countryside and join the revolution.

Long before the Khmehr Rouge took power, Cambodia counted among the more prosperous countries of Southeast Asia, butdue to the extreme violence of the fanatical Khmehr Rouge, today it numbers among the poorest. The ideological attempt to remove the educated class has left its mark on modern Cambodia where agriculture is still the largest source of income. By the end of the Khmer Rouge regime, it is thought there were only fifty doctors left in the whole country for a population of 14 million.

The average annual wage in Cambodia is only US $256, and out of 187 countries Cambodia ranks 136th on the U.N. human development index.

Cambodia is still in a phase of recovery from the Khmer Rouge days and the first imprisonment of the regime’s leaders is a long awaited justice. Many Cambodians whose lives were destroyed and families split up due to the crimes of the Khmer Rouge are frustrated with the time it has taken to finally achieve some justice, which many feel is still not nearly enough.

Chea and Samphan will now serve the remainder of their lives in prison. A separate trail for genocide started a few days ago. The trials for crimes against humanity and genocide were split in order to bring the men to justice more quickly.

– Charles Bell

Sources: Poverties, World Bank, Crimes of War, BBC, UNDP
Photo: Afghanistan Times

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Food Security in Cambodia

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A series of 88 hydroelectric dams to be built in the lower Mekong basin of Cambodia by 2030 is projected to put Cambodia’s largest source of food at risk. Cambodians eat 168 more grams of fish daily than the world’s average. The construction of the dams could cut the freshwater fish population up to 42 percent.

The growing demand for electricity in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, China and Myanmar has prompted multi-national developers to begin planning 88 hydroelectric dams. Eleven of these dams will be located on the Mekong river mainstream and the 77 remaining dams will be on the various tributaries of the river.

“Cambodia is going to pay the highest price for dam development basin-wide, to the point of affecting the food security of its 80 percent rural population,” warned Eric Baran, a specialist with the WorldFish Centre.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister, Ouk Rabun, reported that Cambodia takes approximately 528,000 tons of fish from freshwater fisheries each year.

Fish is the cheapest food option for Cambodians. Consumed far more frequently than beef or poultry, fish is the primary source of protein for a population where a fifth of the citizens live below the poverty line of $17 U.S. dollars a month.

More than 40 percent of national production — about 300,000 tons of fish per year — comes from Tonle Sap Lake. Located in northeastern Cambodia, Tonle Sap is the most productive inland fishery in the world. WorldFish estimates that 1.5 million Cambodians make 95 percent of their income directly from the lake.

Cambodia has exceeded the Millennium Development Goal poverty target, and the poverty rate has halved, from 53 percent in 2004 to 20.5 percent in 2011.

However, those who have escaped poverty are still vulnerable to slight economic fluctuations. Neak Samsen, Poverty Analyst of the World Bank in Cambodia warns, “the loss of just $0.30 (US) per day in income would throw an estimated three million Cambodians back into poverty, doubling the poverty rate to 40 percent.”

The proposed site for the dam construction is the Mekong basin. Of the fish normally caught in the basin, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) found that at least 39 percent are migratory.

Building dams in the Mekong would obstruct the migratory fish from swimming between the basin and Tonle Sap.

According to the U.N. World Food Program’s country director for Cambodia, Edith Heines, “The reduction of fish stocks due to the construction of the dams could have serious implications on the health, and specifically the well-being of malnourished children under five.”

The World Bank projects future generations of Cambodians will rely more heavily on aquaculture and rice field fisheries to meet their fish consumption needs.

However, this change in food source has implications for Cambodians living in poverty, because “the poorest people will not be able to simply shift to different agriculture practices without reallocating water, building infrastructure, or exploiting other water sources.”

Although government officials argue that the money gained from the dams will go toward agricultural development, there have been no guarantees and the impoverished in Cambodia may likely be the ones to suffer the greatest losses.

– Grace Flaherty 

Sources: IRIN, The World Bank
Photo: IRIN

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Solving the Cambodian Toilet Crisis

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A Southeast Asian organization has used simple economics to create an effective solution to the Cambodian toilet crisis.

The Ministry of Rural Development reports that 61.4 percent of rural Cambodian households lack toilets. Open defecation has been proven to cause diarrhea, malnutrition, stunted growth and negative impacts on a child’s cognitive development.

However, according to a water and sanitation report published by The World Bank, more than half of the Cambodian households that lack a latrine could, in actuality, afford one. With current awareness and subsidy campaigns, latrine coverage has been increasing by only 1.3 percent per year, which means it could take more than 60 years for Cambodia to be “Open Defecation Free.”

WaterSHED is a Phnom Penh-based organization, founded in 2010. This humanitarian team works on water and sanitation marketing in Southeast Asia. The founders of this agency discovered that building toilets in Cambodia was outlandishly expensive. The price to build and assemble a toilet was between $250 and $400, but with Cambodia’s GDP per capita at around $950, having a toilet has been traditionally reserved for the wealthy.

Using a supply and demand framework, WaterSHED toilet suppliers lower their prices, increase their volume and offer a complete package including toilet installation for only $45. Families can pay for these latrines with microfinance loans targeted only at the very poor.

With this new method WaterSHED has reported the sale of 75,000 toilets in 59 of Cambodia’s 171 districts. This rate of toilet installation increases the annual coverage rate up to 7 percent.

The impact of WaterSHED’s advocacy has seen visible results. IRIN, a humanitarian news agency affiliated with the U.N., interviewed citizens in the Kompong Speu Province. In this village of 160 families, around 100 have recently installed a new toilet. The families have already seen the health benefits of their new latrines, including less frequent fever and diarrhea.

The World Bank argues that making the elimination of open defecation a top priority for policy makers in Cambodia is crucial to the productivity of the next generation. With innovative programs like those implemented by WaterSHED, the future looks brighter for the youth of Cambodia.

— Grace Flaherty

Sources: IRIN News, World Bank
Photo: Flickr

Labor Unrest in Cambodia

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Protesting has emerged in Cambodia since the first of 2014. Chevron employees demand wages to be increased from $110 to $160 a month. Over 200 workers from the multi-million dollar company, Chevron, have organized a strike for salary increases. The strike has forced 17 of Cambodia’s Chevron gas stations to temporally close until the strike is over.

The Chevron employees have also been joined by several of the country’s garment factory workers in protesting to raise not only the company’s wages, but the national minimum wage to $160 a month.

Because Chevron is a U.S. company, Cambodia is reaching out to the U.S. government officials for help. The thoughts among Cambodia’s factory and service workers have pushed the labor unrest to continue. Laborers in Cambodia‘s large textile industry staged strikes and protest late last year and in the beginning of 2014 for a higher minimum salary and has steered toward political resistance.

The Cambodia Daily states that local worker “Ly Heng, a 29-year-old gas pumper at the Stung Meanchey station, said he is only paid $75 per month and wanted to join the strike but had feared losing his job.”

Chevron released a statement stating, “We are disappointed that our unionized service station colleagues have taken the drastic action to stop work instead of following legal processes to resolve the matter that would have enabled us to continue the supply of fuel products and minimize inconvenience to the public.”

Chevron has been working with authorities to ensure the safety of civilians and the workers participating in the strike.

In the past, Cambodia has seen a fair share of wage strikes. The garment factory strike was a great success with an estimate of over 200,000 workers that participated. This made it one of the largest garment-worker strikes in the history of Cambodia.

So far this year, factories in Cambodia have enforced an inspection of current safety related policies due to the six deaths related to a garment factory accident. The deaths have resulted in not only a strike, but further inspections on current wage circumstances in Cambodia.

The strikes from the garment workers have inspired other members of the work force to fight for higher wages.

Teachers demand $250 a month because the current $75 a month is not a livable wage. According to the Cambodian Independent Teachers Union, there are 87,000 teachers in the country. Several of these teachers protested for higher wages, shocking Cambodia with the current salary that they receive.

The strike ended with Chevron’s agreement to increase the monthly wage by $20 back in May. The agreement stated that workers would head back to work and end the strike. The Chevron cashiers will have their salaries increased to $150 and petrol pumpers will make $130. Also, the Chevron employees participating in the strike will not receive a pay dock from the time spent during the wage strike.

– Rachel Cannon

Sources: The Associated Press, The Diplomat, Global Post
Photo: VOA