New website for The Cambodia Project blog

Please check out our website www.eycambodia.org which includes recent event and blog stories. Thanks! Drew McDowell drewmcdo@msn.com

June 09 Update!

Dear Friends,
So much has happened, and I am relieved to finally be taking the opportunity to share some of the great progress we have been making. Once again, I apologize for not communicating more regularly. On several levels, my e-newsletters make the events real for me, since they connect me to my community(s) outside of my life in Cambodia, and are a great opportunity for me to reflect on a life that all too often moves too fast.

Since I last wrote we had a few milestones; Aziza School had it’s 3 year birthday on May 1 (and 3+ years since I went to Cambodia), Lakeside School turned 1 on June 1, and June 24th was the 4 month mark since the of many of our students families from the Dey Krahorm slum.
Three years brings with it an opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments and a chance to share with all of you what we do. We also have the challenge of growing pains as we take on initiatives in all directions, and a longer list of great opportunities to invest in our student’s futures.

Two noteworthy accomplishments that I am proud of are (#1) the community involvement that we see with our student team leaders, who are the primary force behind the operations of the schools. These students are amazing, and as they volunteer they get work experience and extra opportunities to learn. The other accomplishment (#2) is our medical clinics and dental services, which we offer weekly, not only for our students but for the whole community. We treat and educate a lot of sick people, ease their suffering, and prevent disease from spreading or their problems from getting worse, which is the root of much poverty. The medical training we have been offering to our older students and staff, as well as other NGOs, is designed to have them be a front line resource for their community (aka barefoot doctors), complete with certificates, taught graciously by Dr. Annie Chen-Green from New Zealand.

These results are on top of our regular classes of English, computers, and leadership we provide to over 200 students at our 2 schools.

Our focus is not only on skills that we know will bring job opportunities, but also on life skills and holistic education. We have many great partners and volunteers who bring our students art, photography, soccer, dance and yoga. One great partner is Kundalini Yoga Cambodia, who has trained 2 of our students to be yoga teachers. Read about this great program and our opportunity to support our student to become a certified teacher of kids yoga.

The Eviction: Village Earth previously sent my letter of some of the events and trauma we were experiencing after the eviction, and I have now posted a student’s letter regarding her experience of the eviction; see the Student Letter posting. Reflecting back, little good came of this for the people we work with, but there are many instances of human triumph, and I am convinced that nowhere is the human spirit stronger and more resilient than in the slums of Phnom Penh. Our photography teacher Maria posted some moving pictures and comments on her blog (a true work of art). http://blog.onphotographycambodia.com/2009/01/27/bassac-river-front-in-phnom-penh-cambodia-before-2-am-24th-of-january-2009--after.aspx

In the aftermath of the eviction, many of us fought hard to serve those who were too traumatized to take care of themselves and their families. Our student team leaders had an excellent opportunity to demonstrate their leadership skills, and worked very hard to help their community. While we only helped a small portion of the people that were evicted, Aziza School was an emergency response center, and it was a time where I worked harder and with more focus than I ever have. Many, many thanks to the people who have donated so we could help people in crisis.

My friend Nader, who passed away in March, was a big help during this crisis, and will be missed.

An unfortunate reality is that you rely on me to paint the picture of what our students are like, and I truly cannot find the words to express what beauty and greatness they possess. I wish I could just open my mind and you could see what I see. We hope that you will “invest” in them, and their potential.

Our little organization isn’t as small as it once was, and we produce results more than ever. To do what we do requires the compassion and commitment of you, and we hope that you can give, find others to give, hold a fundraiser, or do what you can. We need people to invest in the futures of young people with great potential. Let me know how I can assist you.

Thank you,
Drew & the Aziza Team

PS – There is a video by Al Jazeera English that I am in; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emYlQf-7piA

Aziza Yoga Program

We have many great partners and volunteers, including the Kundalini Yoga Cambodia, who has trained 2 of our students to be yoga teachers (www.KundaliniYogaCambodia.org). It’s not so much the yoga style that’s popular in the west with strenuous contortionist poses, but rather a series of stretching and strengthening with controlled breathing designed to bring mental clarity and inner peace. The classes are well received, and the feedback is that the students feel refreshed and the yoga helps them with stress; a reality of life in the slums.

While we can’t counsel every student and the many challenges they face, we can encourage them to come to yoga weekly and have an opportunity rest their minds, which we feel will give them an opportunity to see solutions to their problems. We also see our yoga students as seeds of positive change for the community.

We have some great opportunities to further our yoga program, including; 1) a women’s yoga class, in a rooftop yoga studio, complete with snacks after class ($25 per month), 2) have our student, Sela, who has been taught to be a yoga teacher (he’s now our yoga teacher), become certified to teach children’s yoga ($200), and for Sela to travel abroad for his 1st time to attend a yoga festival in Bangkok ($400). While these may seem like large amounts of money, we believe these opportunities will enable Sela to have a career as a yoga teacher in addition to being a great teacher for our organization. Please donate to support our yoga program!

Drop me a note if you want your donation to support our yoga program; drewmcdo AT msn.com

Lakeside School: 1 Year Anniversary!

We opened Lakeside School in June 2008, in another slum of Phnom Penh, Beoung Kok. The school was started when 3 of the Aziza staff, Sokchea, Sokim, and Sreang approached me and said they wanted to start a new school. I said I didn’t think it was a good idea, since we were so busy and I felt scattered with so many of our students needs unfulfilled. As you can see, they won me over, but only by doing all the work to find the community, the house to rent, and the hundreds of logistics to start a school. It was a great sign of local involvement and passion, and I am grateful for their efforts.

I became involved as well, and had to help persuade the commune leader to let us come and help the youth in their community. I also needed to kick start some of the initiatives to keep things alive as the community transitioned and we lost students due to the forced eviction of part of the area. In time our own house, immediately on the edge of the lake, was evicted. We were notified around the 10th of March that we needed to be out by the end of the month. It became a nail-biter as the end of the month drew closer and we didn’t yet have a suitable house, but then we received some great news and were able to move into a bigger house just behind the previous house. The new location and improved space has made us stronger and more popular in the community. The students and staff worked hard through a very hot weekend to paint it and give it charm, and it looks great. Our art teacher, Nawath, continues to work with our students to create art throughout the school and make it an expression of our student body.

It would take pages to even highlight the accomplishments and interesting stories over our first year, so I’ll just recap a few:

When the water level of the lake rose after the rainy season in October, our floor became 4 inches (10cm) of water and lake life. We temporarily moved to a pagoda, but the head monk decided we hadn’t gone through the right channels and he didn’t like our female students being around the monks, so we were kicked out and weren’t even allowed to finish the first evening’s classes (while I appreciate Buddhism and have had many positive interactions, I’ve now met 2 monks with power who seem to be less than enlightened, but that’s just my opinion). It turned out that the students preferred staying in the flooded school anyway. This way they didn’t need to walk past drunk men to get to the pagoda, and didn’t seem to mind the humidity, which seemed unbearable to me. An above-water walkway was set up in the aisle with bricks and planks, and students kept their feet above the water on the desk’s supports. After a week the water went down and things went back to normal.

In December, it seemed like the right time to start a computer lab in the school. The time had not been right until then because we didn’t have control, hadn’t organized our students, and didn’t have students involved in the operation of the school yet. We didn’t want to buy computers until we knew that they would be cared for. The culture of the school is more important than anything in my opinion, though the culture won’t be right unless everything else is in place. The laws of cause and effect are as present in poor communities as anywhere, though perhaps somewhat more forgiving.

After Sokchea taught his level 1 and 2 leadership class, he started a Team Leader student group, and they were fired up and ready to take control of their school. And it is a beautiful thing, to see them meeting, finding solutions to our problems, making requests that we do more to give them education and opportunity for their future. How can I say no? So, with the Team Leaders ready for action, we needed to start a computer lab to give them responsibility. Sam and Anne at Chibodia provided funding, and Chris Merritt lent his technical expertise. In time it turned out to be one of the more successful endeavors we have been a part of. When the lab opened, only a few students had even touched a computer. Now many are quite competent and are advancing quickly, volunteering as teachers, and will soon be sending emails as they are now learning Internet and email.

The majority of our advanced students are female, and they are incredible. While the Aziza School students are like family to me (I know them and accept them for their strengths and weaknesses), the Lakeside kids have captured my heart and I almost don’t know what to do. It made me realized that I need to use my skills to help them; raise money, get new ideas, push the staff, and get results.

Lakeside School is a bustling success, and has all the weekly activities as Aziza School; a medical clinic, dental, yoga, art, aerobics/dancing, a kids Apsara dance group (Cambodian classical dance), youth group, 35 hours of English, and sporadic leadership trainings, guest speakers, and field trips. Having a 2nd school is very efficient, and doubles our effectiveness with only about a 30% increase to our budget. As for the future of the school and the kids will depend in part on our ability to raise money and invest in their futures. Please consider us for a donation or become a fundraiser!

Post Eviction Letters

These are some letters I wrote after the eviction of part of our community in January (the 2nd letter was sent out by Village Earth in February, so you may have already read it).

Letter #1:
[3 Days After The Eviction, January 27, 2009] Dear Friends, There was some terrible events here in the community where we have been working since I arrived here, as the community of Dey Krahorm had their houses smashed with sledge hammers and crow bars Saturday morning as the home owners frantically grabbed their belongings. I watched and assisted the best I could in absolute horror, and have been on an adrenaline rush for 3 days trying to assist my friends in the aftermath of their traumatic events. Our school is ok, since we moved into the adjacent apartment building in anticipation of this eviction. I knew it was coming, but truly thought that the government and this developer, 7NG, would handle the situation better, that Cambodia was beyond this heavy handedness, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. Many of our students are currently displaced, but we also have a lot of students that did not live in the community that was evicted who are helping those in need. The school will serve as a center offering a place for some to sleep, food, and resource center to try to find new homes, etc, and will carry on with classes as we have for almost 3 years. It is a very sad situation for many, and I am doing my best.
Blessings,

Drew

Letter #2:
[1 Month After The Eviction] Dear Friends,
It’s been 1 month since the eviction. During most of this time my ability to concentrate and work at a computer has been diminished, but I have been on the ground getting our school going again and helping our students the best I could. My inbox is very full, and I apologize for the lack of information when many of you have been concerned and have asked me for an update. I hope to write something on my blog soon, and here is something in the interim:
After the eviction the school was an open oozing wound, literally and figuratively. The oozing is the sewage problem that has arose, and the wounds are sometimes emotional, and sometimes cuts on feet, etc. Neither of them received the usual attention we give, because our problems were so mounting. A part of our daily jobs is to take care of problems, and often get involved in people’s lives on a very personal level. For the past weeks so many people all around me all had serious problems occurring at the same time, and it hurt me badly to see the suffering and not be able to help like I would like to.
On January 24th the figurative ‘bomb’ was dropped immediately outside our school. Maybe it could be better described as a mob of thugs (poor people hired as day laborers) orchestrated by the government and developer 7NG. That morning, after sleeping on top of the desks for 2 hours, I woke to the sound of chaos, and as I walked closer to the edge of the slum I saw a mass of people aimed at destruction. A destruction of houses and lives.
As the reality unfolded, my priorities were to gather information, provide logistical support, emotional support, and try to think to the next hour, 6 hours, 12-18 hours... The luxury of longer term thinking was still far off. I had to take inventory, and every resource needed to be utilized, but we had staff out of town and lots of challenges. An Emergency Response was needed to the crisis that enveloped my every sensory, in panoramic view, in the form of loud noises from houses being bulldozed, piles of rusty nail filled debris that needed to be traversed to be able to go anywhere, and a blur of things happening; my phone ringing and receiving text messages, trying to gather and disseminate information, sunburn, students crying, pressure from the officials to clear everything out, anger coming out of my body in the form of tears, irritability, not knowing what to do next, moving people’s things out of their collapsing houses… It was a day far unlike any other in my life, and I have never been called upon like I was that day.
Life continued in a similar vein for the next days, until the trauma started to wear off and we could start to think about how to help on another level, when we began addressing getting kids back into public school, housing, hiring someone to cook meals, keeping our school clean, getting our sink fixed, and giving care to traumatized people… I’ve never been so focused. I didn’t talk to anyone unless there was something that needed to be said, like “can you…?”
To write what we did would take a lot of effort. We found housing for at least 6 families/people, we’re providing daily transportation to school for over 40 kids to come 20km from the relocation site, where they are homeless, give them breakfast and lunch (thanks UWCSEA and others), delivered clothing and other donations, provide a doctor, kid activities, day care, professional counseling, and a thousand other things, some of which I am not yet aware of. Our student team leaders are amazing, and what we did could not be attempted without a mass of dynamic people. Many friends came at a time of need and their efforts were true kindness. We didn’t do it to be nice, but felt we needed to be there for them because their situation was so dire, and our emotional pain drew us to help, which we did to fill our own need. Many generous donations came in as well, some from people I have never met, and for that we are incredibly grateful. I hope to write thank you notes soon.
Today the last family will move out of our computer lab, but we still have extra students living in the school and no great solution to their housing problem. Patience often is a good strategy, and they will find solutions. We’ll be here for them and do our best to make sure they continue with their education, and are stepping in with aid as appropriate. Every Aziza student’s family that was evicted has received some assistance from us.
The people that were evicted fall into 4 categories, from a housing perspective; owners with house numbers, unrecognized owners, renters, and people from the market (market stall owners). By now, the vast majority of the owners who were recognized have taken a house at the relocation site, 20km from Phnom Penh. They didn’t want this house, and many have simply put a lock on the gate and left it empty while they have found a place to stay or rent close to their jobs in the city. They are the lucky ones. There are 335 families from the latter 3 categories living without a roof over their head, in terrible conditions, and the situations is getting worse as their resources are depleted (still living there 5 months later). The future of the people living homeless is unknown, and they feel they need to camp in front of the developers office, as instructed, in hopes that they will be given some compensation, such as a small plot of land somewhere undesirable. Included in this mass of haggard souls are some of our students. Beautiful, intelligent, hard working, committed to a better future, and trying to keep it together through an unbearably tough time, sleeping without security or hygiene. Some of our students living there are high school girls, and I worry about them the most. Actually, I try not to think about them because it is so sad. Their situation was tough to begin with, then a mob of men came and broke down their house while they scrambled to salvage their personal belongings, and now they are camping far outside of town with no toilets or running water.
Other stories turned out better, but in our research of the effects on students education in the aftermath of the eviction (which we presented to the government), we found 45 students had dropped out of school because of the eviction in just one small community. Others went through a tough time, but are getting back on their feet. It will be a life event for all who went through it. We have received some generous donations that made our assistance possible, but will need lots more to continue to help them. Thank you for caring. It means the world to me, and was crucial to getting me through a tough time.
Peace,
Drew

Final note:
I have no illusions that I can change the world, or that my emotions matter to those in power in Cambodia, but I want to publicly post a few words to the people working in the Cambodian government and at the development company 7NG. Your actions leave me with anger. You lacks of skills to show consideration to human beings are unacceptable, and if you are among the top people that directed things to go as they did, you should not feel good about yourself when you go to sleep. You children should not be proud of you, and they should use the power they gain from your profits to help those less fortunate.

A Student's Experience of the Eviction:

The following letter speaks for itself, but I will comment that Ly Thy is a tough girl, and so is her mom. The eviction was a major blow to them, but I am happy to say that Ly Thy has got on her feet and seems to be doing well 6 weeks later. She wrote this letter 1 week after the eviction. She also spoke to a group of foreign NGO workers at a forum to learn about illegal evictions, and gave a powerful speech.


Hello,

My name is Ly Thy. I am a nineteen-year-old female student. I want to tell the world how my feelings are when our homes were destroyed on the 24th of January, 2009. When I first saw many people came over to our neighborhood, I thought that they were going to give us more warning as they had done in the past. Then soon the terrified moment took place right in front my eyes. Immediately, the men began to destroy people's homes with such a horrific act and no mercy. Without saying a word, they started to tear down homes violently as if they were extremely angry with the home owners.

From the beginning, as the demolition started, I was thinking about finding a knife or a bat to resist and fight back. I found a stick. Then I came to my sense of realizing that my action will not succeed and consequently I will be in deeper trouble. I imagined if I were to kill someone by accident or intentionally, I will be quickly arrested and put in jail. My future will be jeopardized.

Next I dropped a stick to the ground and let them do whatever they want. I felt intimidated. My body weakened. I froze! Every inch of my body went num. My mind went blank. I stood there silently, motionless watching my own home being destroyed.

One by one the bulldozers flattened the homes until it came to mine. My heart wrenching when I saw my own home was being smashed. We began to curse at them, using the worse words possible that we could think of, with my mother, my younger sister, my brother in law and me who were screaming, cursing and yelling at them with enormous anger and disbelief. I wanted to cry so badly. Yet, there was not one tear drop that came down. I could not understand or explain why this was happening to me. My system was in a shocked state, and it was no longer functioning and reacting the way it should be. I kept wondering why I couldn't cry.

Unimaginable to me, with a blink of an eye, my home was gone. There was nothing left! All it left for me was a pain in my chest, fear, a sense of great loss along with a tremendous despair feeling inside of me. Then my thoughts fell to old memories. The memories of how my dad worked so hard for so long before he could afford and provide us a small place that we could call home. It was this rundown tiny home that represents his hard work and dedication, which offered a safe haven for all of us. For me, it represents not only a great memory but also an irreplaceable part of my dad that he had left behind before he passed away.

While my home was being destroyed, my mother was crying uncontrollably and attempted to run back into the house to kill herself. Our quick reaction was to save her from committing suicide. We retained and consoled her to save her life. All I could think at that point was that hopefully we could build another house, but we could never replace my mother. People's lives are so precious, and there is nothing worth more than life itself.

Moment later, as all the turbulent activities went on, I turned around wondered what could have happened to our school, Aziza. I saw the 7NG Company's people began to close the front entrance. At this very moment, I wanted so badly to intervene to stop them from closing the school entrance. At the same time, I found no strength left in me. My entire body was completely drained and exhausted after witnessing my own home had just disappeared.

Because of many students effort by working together voicing their opinions, the 7NG people agreed to leave a space one meter from the school's front door to allow access in and out of our school, Aziza.

As I tried my best to put some of my thoughts in writing this, I found I became very emotional, and it is extremely difficult for me to continue on. I feel too sad to talk about it... I am sorry for not being able to write more.

Sincerely,
Ly Thy

(translated by volunteer Paul Chuk, a semi-retired Cambodian Amercian who has returned to help Cambodian children. Ly Thy speaks and writes English quite well, but was asked to write in Khmer for this exercise.)

Update September 08

(this is the same text as the email sent September 22nd)

Dear Friends,
I hope your lives are going well, and the rising cost of rice has not forced you to end your children’s education prematurely (or whatever hardship equivalent you may experience in your respective country)!

It has been too long since I sent an update. Too long, because I feel the donors deserve more regular updates, and because too much has happened to write about it all. It’s been 6 months since I last emailed, and it has been the most eventful, productive period in the projects 2.5 year history. We now know how to get things done, and do so on a larger scale. Most notably, we have opened a new school. Read about this on the blog story "Lakeside School" we’ve grown, and we’re working in a new community (and you guessed it, it is on the side of a lake).

The miracle of our existence has coincided with many random acts of kindness with generous donors and volunteers coming and blessing us, as well as some great local partners that have showed up to further our efforts and get results. We now have a desk in an another NGO’s office, Village Focus Cambodia, where the staff can meet and work in an environment less chaotic than the slum. Our staff meetings require a large table for the 10 mostly-part-time staff. We’re still small enough to not be bureaucratic, and our team can make contributions that have a bigger affect. It now feels like the project has a life of its own well beyond my involvement.

What sticks in my mind as I think about the last 6 months is the impact we are making on the students health as we intervene in health issues and education. The stories are numerous of the lives we’ve impacted with medical care, and all of our students have benefitted from our dental program. In June, we started a partnership with a great organization, Cambodian World Family, and in those first 2 months took over 160 students to the dentist. Few had good check-ups, and most had to have extractions and fillings. Watching the extractions, repeatedly, inspired me to get serious about dental health for our students. The problem is a phenomenon of the urban poor, and it is a challenge we are up to and will fight to improve their smiles. Read more on this part of our “school” at the blog entry ‘Medical Services For Cambodia’s Future Leaders’

There are a lot of other stories I have yet to tell, and hope to do so soon. Babies have been born, students got jobs (we’ve now placed 12 students with jobs, which help them to pay for their education in high school or university), and our leadership program has made leaders, who are making a difference every day in their communities. We’ve taken many educational field trips, which have provided precious experiences for myself and the students.

In August we took a bus of 45 students to Angkor Wat, Cambodia’s world heritage temple complex, thanks to some big hearted people at CKF. It was a magical experience, and all the students made it home alive 3 days later, though tired and a bit homesick since some of them had never been away before. On our last day, one of our older students, Savy, who is in a yoga teacher training, led the students in morning yoga atop a temple. After scrambling up hundreds of steeps stairs to the top, all the students were focused and engaged as they sat perched on the ancient stone blocks far above the ground for stretching, breathing, and chanting. Savy, Sela and Tonie teach yoga 2 nights a week in front of Aziza, and it is a program I am proud to say has succeeded and makes a difference for the community on a level that can’t be measured.

One 10 year old student, Da’vid, a rambunctious kid with an aptitude for break dancing, was believed to have had a reading disorder, which was to blame for his repeating the 2nd grade 4 times (yes, 4 times). This year he passed, thanks to our help with providing him a great tutor, Sok Ieng! We will continue to help him as needed, and he is very eager to study, but requires some extra care.

We were in a soccer tournament and won. The kids were really proud!

For all that we do, our operating costs are extremely low. One hundred dollars pays for 20 sick kids to get medical treatment. Seventy five dollars is enough for a class of 20 students to study English for a whole month. Fifty dollars can cover 2 weeks of our primary physical fitness program; aerobics/dancing at the top of Olympic Stadium, which generates more fun than you can imagine, every Sunday. Salaries and rent are extremely low, yet the quality is high and we have many results to show. To all the many who have made this possible, thank you from the bottom of my heart. We now face a time where we need to get more support if we want to keep doing these activities and building strong young people. Please DONATE NOW!

“The way to get things done is to not mind who gets credit for them.” Benjamin Jowett

“We just do.” Drew McDowell

Medical Services For Cambodia's Future Leaders

Cambodia’s problems are overwhelming, so how to decide who should get what? I see that amid the problems, our students are some of the highest achieving poor kids on the planet with a very real chance at a good future. One obstacle is that our students suffer from consistent attacks on their health. So, the need to offer health care for our students seemed like an investment that someone should be making, and so we are. For those of you who donate or are considering donating, close your eyes and imagine a sick child, then imagine the same child feeling well and playing with the other kids, ready to take on life. This is the gift you have given.

Aziza School has a female Khmer doctor, Chenda, coming every week, and Lakeside School has a foreign doctor, Inian, coming each week. We have a part time medical coordinator, Sreang, who is a dental student (and former Aziza student), who’s sole responsibility is to follow up with sick students and all health related issues. Additionally, all the teachers and project manager are focused on improving the health of our students and implementing our programs, with the intention of making an impact. We’ve had numerous local and foreign medical students and professionals coming to volunteer, and look forward to more ‘Barefoot Doctor’ training from Annie this November. Our medical expenses have been averaging about $350 per month, partly from some special cases where we have intervened.

All of our students have benefitted from our dental program. In June, we started a partnership with a great organization, Cambodian World Family. In our first week we took 90 kids there, and I witnessed the horror of what lay inside their mouths. Most kids had at 1-2 permanent teeth that were seriously decayed. After a cleaning, they had fillings, and from there many needed to go to the extraction chair. Even though a tooth may have decay that made it black and reduced to less than half it’s original size, getting it out can be a strenuous pull to get the roots to let go. My nausea from just watching this would make my mouth watery the dentist twisted the tooth back and forth with the dental pliers, eventually getting it to release its long roots. We would comfort them as best we could through this trauma, and follow up to make sure they didn’t have problems afterward, which surprisingly few did.

In those first 2 months we took over 160 students to the dentist, and are still taking them regularly. Their excessive problems are a phenomenon of the urban poor, and it is a challenge we are up to and will fight to improve their smiles. While it seems like an uphill battle with all the sugar they consume, the benefits are clear, with teeth filling in around those that are extracted, relief of pain, and a far greater commitment to brushing as we educate our students and supply them with tooth brushes.

We’ve also done lots of medical testing, check-ups, tetanus shots, de-worming (every 6 months), and lice shampooing. Perhaps the most far reaching and sustainable component of our health programs is the education we do for our teachers and students. We’ve had countless hours of health related trainings in our Sunday afternoon youth program, thanks to Steve, Shanti, Graham and Pat. Chenda, the doctor, is also a teacher 2 days a week, and we will be constantly working to make ‘barefoot doctors’ of our staff and some students, which will serve as the front line for medical needs.

A New School - 'Lakeside School'

Last March was my 2 year anniversary of working in Cambodia, and it was at about the same time that the staff started asking to start another school. For me, it was something I had wanted to do, but finding the time was tough. I had gone to visit other communities in hopes of starting work there in the future, but hadn’t found the right place, which I was finding hard to do.

For our staff, Sokchea, Sokim and Sreang, they saw working in a new community as a new challenge, an opportunity to get more responsibility, paid hours, and job security in the event that Aziza faces problems. They also share the joy of watching children blossom, and we all want to feel the high we have become addicted to, which we get every day from seeing the difference we can make with our students. I initially told them we were too busy, but they persisted, so I asked them to go and find a community, and gave them some criteria for what to look for. I wanted consistent poverty, since much of what I had been finding were slums that have a mix of household incomes. After one long day of the 3 of them searching, dreaming and networking, they returned excited to tell me that they had found the perfect community. I couldn’t believe it myself when I visited, but they had found a community overflowing with dirty, neglected, disrespectful children, gangsters, prostitutes, poor sanitation… An aid workers utopia, and just a short drive from my house!

They also found a small house we could rent for cheap, but I asked them to try to find a larger place. Miraculously, the landlord of the only big house in the area, which is laid out perfectly for a school, was about to evict the current tenants. They pleaded with the landlord to give us discount rent, which she agreed to do ($50 per month), since she is a school teacher and wanted to help the community.

The new community, called Boeung Kok Lake, has more activity than most places on earth. From a side street, you turn down a narrow alley, too tight to get a car into, so only motorbikes or walking will get you there. At the end of the seedy alley there is a steep hill up to some rail road tracks. I’ve only seen the train go by once, and it was loaded with small children playing and catching a short ride as it slowly cranked past. Once over the tracks, it is a steep downhill to the lake, and our school sits right on the edge of the swampy, garbage filled water. I hope that the lake won’t flood again this year and cause us to close the school temporarily. Following the path past the school, the cement turns to wood as the sidewalk and all the houses are on stilts over the water. These are the houses of most of our students. The community is fascinating and beautiful. People fish and grow vegetables in the water, as well as harvest the snails. Life in the water thrives on the sewage that flows directly from people’s houses into the lake. Some of the people have fish farms, while others fish using electric current. The lake is home to some large (2 foot long) eels, which bring a high price.

Now that we had the right house, we sought approval from the authorities. I thought this would be easy enough. The village chief passed us on to the commune leader, and I expected he would be happy to help us, but in fact he didn’t want us there, because another foreigner in a nearby village had been trying to organize the people in the community to fight for their rights and land titles. Luckily Sokchea is a master at listening to people, and after letting him vent his frustrations and making some promises to not be political, we were given approval.

From here, I stepped back and let the staff organize all the logistics. Along with a little help from a beautiful person named Cindy, they interviewed students and families, had desks built, electricity installed, hired teachers, had a blessing ceremony, a party, and started a school. Sounds easy, but it was a lot of work, and they did it like professionals. The greatest achievement will always be their ability to negotiate with the players found in a slum community and the challenges that brings. We were welcomed, and given help from many. The local gangsters are causing us some trouble with noise and disrupting class, and the village chief comes by sometimes when he is drunk, but he is fine so far. The nuances, I believe, are what make work in a developing country effective.

Now the school is in full swing, and we have some students who, if you met them, you may very likely decide to commit yourself to helping them to fulfill their potential. We teach English, Khmer, and will have a leadership training next month. They’ve all been to the dentist, some multiple times (those with a lot of problems), given medical check-ups, and even a few field trips.

Our best resource is our new center manager, Seng, who is a university student studying to be an English teacher, and he lives with his grandfather just a few hundred yards from the school. He is very eager, and values the opportunity to be a leader. He also has worked as an electrician, which is invaluable since we run into a lot of issues with keeping the fans and lights working, as well as power for the computer lab at Aziza School.

What has kept me motivated with my work in Cambodia has been my relationships with the students and their families. Now that we have 2 schools, it is too many kids to keep track of, which has pushed me to use my skills to think about the organization and our infrastructure. I still spend a lot of time in the communities, but my role has slowly evolved, and more of my hands-on work is meeting with the staff and empowering them.

Our little school has a rich history in just a short time, and I feel we are honored to have such great partners in every direction.

It’s a different community, but some of the things are the same. The kids are gorgeous. The problems are everywhere. Our possibilities to help are endless. I look forward to the journey.