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Posted July, 2009
For the second year in a row a group of CCF students will attend the Global Youth Leadership Summit run by the Anthony Robbins Foundation at the University of California in San Diego. This year’s all-girl group is 5 strong and, if anything, their ambitions as well as their enthusiasm and expectations about what they will discover and learn in the days between 23rd and 28th of July are even higher than those of last year’s happy pioneers.
They all want to use their English in a real environment, not just a classroom. How Americans and the other foreigners they will meet live and work is a subject of intense curiosity. “I want to learn about their cultures and the way of their living,” says Srey Lin, while Nay Houy declares that; “I really really want to see the differences between Cambodia and America.” Academic interest is also high. “To learn about real leadership,” is Srey Nick’s intention, evidently reflecting the group’s hope.
They also share some fears and apprehensions. How do they feel about flying, a first for all of them? “Excited and scared,” says Sok Noeurn, a thought echoed by all. And what about when they get there? Any worries in advance? “Well, we don’t know the culture and we don’t know the people we’ll meet, so that’s a bit scary,” is Srey Lin’s view, which goes unchallenged by the others.
But what do they want to get out of the Summit? A lot. These girls, whose life journey has already been so hard, have no intention of letting their yesterdays dictate their tomorrows. “I want it to help me study higher and higher and become a good leader,” says Nay Houy. Srey Lim’s hope is that it will “.. help me become a good lawyer in my country,” while Srey Nich suggests, with a smile, that it will help her reach her ambition to be “a good Prime Minister.” But Mory Net captures both the lessons of all their pasts and their intentions for their futures when she talks about her own ambition to become a doctor and says of the Summit; “We hope it will help us very much, so one day we can change lives too.”
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Posted July, 2009
Truly remarkable things. Any student community anywhere would be proud of the galaxy of talent, ability, grit and charm that CCF is lucky enough to have in its ranks. When the backgrounds and burdens that every one of these students bears is taken into account, their achievements shine even brighter.
And achievement deserves recognition and reward and that’s what CCF’s Annual Awards ceremonies are about. Each facility sorts, sifts and selects from among its own and goes on to celebrate its champions with a range of awards. The most improved are as recognised and cheered as the academic best. So too are those who have excelled in making the enormous transition from a life fenced in by poverty and anxiety to one in which their own abilities can be discovered and nurtured and in which their own spirits can thrive. And maybe the most moving and acclaimed of the awards goes to the Best Spirits, to those who, by their approach and example, have inspired, delighted and sometimes humbled those around them, be they staff or students.
Nor, on these days, is the work and effort and daily success of the wider student community forgotten. The Award winners stand out in outstanding company whose daily triumphs are hard and well earned. As Scott, speaking not just to the Award winners but to all the kids at CCF said;
“CCF has given you a roof and walls. You have done this work. You should be proud of yourselves.”
With each and all of the awards comes the applause of their friends, fellow students and CCF staff; the simple joy of success and the wonderful knowledge that, at each facility, their personal triumph is an excuse for a magnificent communal party!!
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Posted May, 2009
“CCF works with the families of high-risk children, rather than trying to put a wedge between the kids and their families, that there was no real judgment of poor families - just a genuine urge to help, a comprehensive community development approach, excellent safety policies, and all-around good management and care of the children. It’s one of the best NGOs I have seen, and I have seen a lot of good NGOs around the world.”
A chance encounter led Jeanine Braithwaite, a development practitioner with 17 years experience who has written extensively about the problems of poverty, to visit CCF. What follows is taken from the narrative she wrote for her friends, family and students.
Dear All,
I’m finally sitting down to write up a narrative about my second week in Cambodia. I didn’t have the time while in Cambodia, nor immediately after return.
I’ll resume where I left off—right before visiting Steung Meanchey, the huge garbage dump in Phnom Penh. I have since thought about it very much and went back twice to CCF but that’s getting ahead of the story.
Anyway, we got to CCF1 (the first building Scott obtained) and took off our shoes.
Patrick showed me around CCF, which has a computer lab, classrooms, performance space and Scott’s office. Scott Neeson is the founder of CCF. I’ll have a lot to say about him shortly. We talked briefly about CCF and then headed off to the dump in a rugged big SUV. Patrick is doing leadership training for CCF and has been there full-time about a year. Scott started CCF in 2004. Upon arrival, they looked at my tennis shoes and suggested I wear a pair of rubber boots (spares in the back). Since I was already sinking into the garbage at the edge of the pit, I readily agreed. This was a very good plan on my part, as the dump is laced with fetid water and hazardous sinkholes.
| It was a fine hot day, around 88 or 90, and the dump gave off the sulfurous fumes of hell and smelled like the open sewer that it is. When I commented on the sun, Scott and Patrick reminded me that it was a good thing it was the dry season for my visit, since during the rainy season, the dump is slick and boggy and quite dangerous. We walked a few yards in, and I looked around and though, well, my philosophy of life that there is no afterlife but we create our own hells and heaven on earth is complete justified. |
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“...we create our own hells ...” |
Through the shimmers of the noxious fumes, several children were seen picking through the trash and subsequently, dragging huge loads of trash off for further sorting. It’s hard to guess ages with the children so short (43 percent of Cambodian children under the age of 5 are stunted from chronic malnutrition), but we found one girl who I would guess to be around 7-8 wearing boots (I took her photo). The other children were in flip flops or flimsy shoes. None of them had gloves or a face mask. And of course, there were adults, too. And a bulldozer that does not stop for pedestrians—you have to be alert and jump out of its path.
Scott sprang into action. The mother of the little girl was sitting under a flimsy tarp. Negotiations in Khmer were undertaken as Scott wanted to take the girl into CCF to be evaluated and the mother refused unless Scott would give the mother rice and medicine, which he did indeed do. I guess it shouldn’t surprise to note that Cambodia has one of the worst records for the sexual trafficking of children in the world. One of CCF’s evaluation criteria is to assess whether the child is at risk to be trafficked.
Scott agreed we would come back to take the girl to be evaluated, and then Patrick and Scott and I started climbing up a huge hill of trash. At the crest of the hill, through the shimmering noxious fumes, one could see the low tarps of about 10-12 families, living IN the dump ON a huge mound of trash. This is incredibly hazardous. And think of inhaling those fumes 24/7. In spite of living in hell, one resident woman cracked a huge smile when she saw Scott, which I captured on film, along with many other sad shots of SM.
After handing her a rice voucher, we headed back to pick up the little girl and three other older children to be evaluated, and the girl’s mother for her medicine. The CCF SUV is tricked out with a large medical kit, and Scott gave her a pain killer. The kids and adults headed off in the tuk tuk, and we visited two of the shantytowns on the edge of the dump, where most of the garbage pickers live. (One shudders to think of the poverty and landlessness that motivates people to live IN the dump. Phnom Penh also has a very large population of homeless street people, whom I gather manage somehow to scrape up enough pennies to avoid living IN the dump).
Scott strode through the shantytowns, constantly pointing out the brother of this CCF child and the sister of that and chatting in lively Khmer. I was just relieved to see the children in the shantytown and not working IN the dump, although several kids were observed sorting out metal from garbage that their parents had brought to their hovels and dumped for the kids to work on. After the rice vouchers were all handed out, we said adieu and headed to the CCF satellite day-care facility, where SM residents could get clean fresh water. (CCF also provided the water jugs. I have rarely seen living quarters with so few daily objects in them as I saw on top the hill of the dump).
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On top of the hill but at the bottom of the heap;
“I have rarely seen living quarters with so few
daily objects I them...” |
Scott had mentioned that they had an international visitor who broke down crying in the dump and had to be taken out—it is so grim. I’m made of sterner stuff, and I view it as an important part of my work to witness extreme poverty, but I did tear up behind my sunglasses when the clean and well-fed young children at the CCF facility came up for a group hug.
There are dozens of children who still work at the dump. CCF has saved 400 children from this hell on earth, and there are another 100 or so in an orphanage run by a different charity. There is also a school run by a different NGO, but those children are allowed to continue working at Steung Meanchey. CCF families must agree that their child will not work at SM and the families are compensated with rice and medical care to cover the lost earnings from the child at CCF. CCF provides clean water to everyone in the community, CCF family or not.
The next day we talked more about the way that CCF operates with families and the community, its child safety policy, and its procedures for selecting children and how they are fostered at CCF. I was very pleased to see that CCF works with the families of high-risk children, rather than trying to put a wedge between the kids and their families, that there was no real judgment of poor families—just a genuine urge to help, a comprehensive community development approach, excellent safety policies, and all-around good management and care of the children. It’s one of the best NGOs I have seen, and I have seen a lot of good NGOs around the world. So our family is now sponsoring a CCF child.
So the message is one of hope, even amidst the worst poverty I have seen. It is sadly enough not that uncommon for extremely poor people in the poorest countries to be garbage pickers, and after I sent round some notes about my trip, I heard from several Bank colleagues about living situations around garbage dumps in the poorest countries—including deaths from mudslides--but no one I consulted had photos of people actually living IN the dump. And now I find that Hollywood has taken up the topic in the Academy-Award winning Slumdog Millionaire, which is well worth watching.
So, for those of you who have been moved by this account, I suggest you visit www.cambodianchildrensfund.org which is CCF’s website. I found out about CCF from people from www.offthematintotheworld.org/ and ambassadorsforchildren.org. The first sponsors the SEVA challenge, to get off the yoga mat and bring your yoga practice into the world, and the second arranges many humanitarian assistance trips around the world.
I’d like to close with a few words about Scott Neeson, the founder of CCF. In my rather considerable experience in poor countries around the globe, I have encountered a number of people motivated by their religious beliefs to provide charity to the world’s poor, and I’ve met a number of secular doctors who volunteer even in conflict zones, but I’ve never before met a Hollywood producer who made movies like Titanic (!) and chucked it all to live year-round in Cambodia, dedicated to saving the people who inhabit his little garbage-infested patch of the world. Besides throwing over coverage in People magazine, the Academy Awards, and his yacht, Scott has hit upon a very sound strategy for helping not just the children as individuals, but their families and their entire community. Normally, I only find such a high-quality NGO as a local part of an international organization, like Save the Children or CARE. Scott seems to have created CCF’s policies through thinking it through on his own, without a headquarters and some previous decades working in international development. He knows each one of his CCF kids by name, and most of their family members, when yes, they “all look the same” to an outsider like me. Not a sanctimonious saint, he rather seems quite like a genuinely happy person to me, one who has found his culminating life’s work. And more than 400 children and their families have a chance to escape harrowing poverty, thanks to this one man’s vision and ability to build an organization like CCF to help.
I’m glad for work that I witnessed the terrible poverty of Steung Meanchey, but I am far happier that it wasn’t just seeing it, but that by joining forces with CCF, I could do something about it. And of course, my work with Cambodia will be of far better quality because I know about the urban poverty at its worst in Phnom Penh, but it was even more satisfying to help on a personal level through sponsoring our CCF teen. And CCF provides safe emailing if you sponsor a CCF kid as my family and I now do.
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| With CCF’s help, these girls take their first steps towards a new future, but there’s a long way to go before the people of the Steung Meanchey community can hope to escape from their increasingly desperate and harsh circumstances. |
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Posted May, 2009
CCF is thrilled to announce that The Prem Rawat Foundation has renewed their commitment to our nutrition program with a grant of $20,000 for 2009. The goal of the grant is to improve the health of the children and families in our care through complete and adequate nutrition and free access to clean water.
An estimated 45% of Cambodia’s children suffer from malnutrition, and with the help of generous donors like The Prem Rawat Foundation, we are able to counter this crippling problem. Each day, the 464 children in our care receive three complete meals and nutritious snacks, which allow them to gain weight, build their immune systems and focus on the rigor of classroom activities.
Our subsidized rice distribution scheme is the lynchpin of our community food assistance program. Families who would otherwise be unable to afford the high cost of rice can buy this staple food through CCF at a fraction of market prices. Prices are pegged at pre-inflation rates of January 2008. Through this weekly distribution process, an average of 660 people are able to afford sufficient rice, keeping families healthy and together. CCF also distributes nutritionally-enhanced bread made fresh daily from our Star Bakery, which feeds 2,400 children and adults each week. Our Community Center is home to an evening café featuring subsidized meals and a place for local families to gather.
CCF’s water program was introduced as a counter to the high child mortality rate, with the lack of affordable clean water accounting for an estimated 87% of serious illnesses. All families have 20 gallon container that can be refilled 7 days a week, at no cost. Water delivery is made to the sick and incapacitated. (see: http://alexanderhinton.com/2008/01/highlight-cambodian-childrens-fund.html)
Cambodia, along with the majority of the developing world, is sliding toward a new famine. Within this context, the Cambodian Children's Fund serves one of the most impoverished and deprived populations in the world. The Prem Rawat Foundation grant provides our community with an assurance that their basic food requirements will continue to be met. With so many ambitious plans to save the world, the beauty of Prem Rawat's work is in its simplicity: feed the impoverished. We extend our gratitude to The Prem Rawat Foundation for investing in this life-saving work.
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Posted April, 2009
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Think of Yoga and the images that tend to come to your mind are of stillness, of placid inactivity, of energy turned inwards. You don’t instantly think of community involvement, of people out and about, helping, doing things, making a real difference, making an impact that lasts. Off the Mat, Into the World (OTM) is a program that aims to inspire and guide yoga practitioners to become involved in local and global communities, to ‘take action in the world beyond the yoga class’. The SEVA Challenge is OTM’s highest level of involvement. It asks those who opt to take part to raise significant funds in support of a select few organizations working to create sustainable solutions for communities in crisis. In 2008 the SEVA Challenge focused on CCF and its participants brought all their goodwill, enthusiasm, drive and sheer hard work to bear on its behalf.
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Their outstandingly successful efforts culminated on a 2 week visit to CCF in February. This was no celebration of their work but an extension of it. During that time every one of the 24 strong group threw themselves, heart, soul and body into the world of CCF. They absorbed the shock of the toxic realities of the dump, once the home of so many of our kids, with a positivity and vigor that was impressive and expansive. They taught yoga, they played games, they read stories, taught English and helped cook and clean. They handed out clothes, hoed and sowed fields and herded water buffalo. They entertained, educated, entranced and danced with the kids and in every CCF facility they created bonds that will last for years to come: 17 of our kids got new sponsors as a direct result of the visit. For CCF the Challengers’ presence was a joy and their contributions, the personal as much as the financial, are enormously valued and appreciated. For the participants the experience was equally profound. Read their personal stories at:
http://blogs.yogajournal.com/cambodia |
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Posted April, 2009
With the right ingredients and the right circumstances you can do everything, from making bread to changing lives. At CCF’s Star Bakery they do both. CCF isn’t just about serving the kids who live and study in our facilities, it’s about serving the wider Cambodian community and in particular the people who live and work in and around the noxious garbage site that is Steung Meanchey. And one of the best ways that community can be served is by providing training that recognises, develops, hones and releases the talents and abilities of its youngsters. In an extension of its front-of-house and basic cookery training program , the Star Bakery launched an intensive 3-month training program aimed at young people from the Steung Meanchey community who are not otherwise involved in CCF. Usually these youngsters would stand little if any chance of access to the sort of high-quality tuition and job placement that CCF can offer. |
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The program, guided and directed by the Star Bakery’s director, Madalin Leang, is not easy. The students tackle food safety, hygiene, customer service, menu planning, kitchen organisation, teamwork and much else besides. Knowledge, skills, attitude and behaviour are all addressed and tested. For some the shift in outlook required by regular attendance and constant effort in unfamiliar surroundings is its most demanding aspect. On top of all this, every student must successfully complete a period of full-time work experience. |
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But the reward of effort and application is success. Heang Bunnarith, 20, knows this. The oldest of 4 children his parents, a cleaner and a construction worker, could only afford to keep him at school for 3 years and his life as a garbage scavenger at Steung Meanchey has never been easy. Now, Heang is the Community Program ’s first graduate and he can see possibilities, undreamed of only a few months ago, opening up for him. ‘I want to be a Chief Cook,’ he says, ‘and a manager in a restaurant.’ When he applied for a place on the course he said, ‘I will try to study hard until I graduate.’ He has studied and he has graduated and now he is taking the first steps to realising his own dreams. He is not alone. CCF has now placed 4 of its community graduates in jobs in Phnom Penh’s high-end restaurant scene. As a result of their own and CCF’s hard work, these young men and women now have a chance to make a real future in a field in which real growth opportunities await the right people. They will, we hope, be the first of many.
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Posted October, 2008
CCF is committed to rebuilding futures and bringing new hope to children and families who have been discarded and deserted. The Steung Meanchey community is where so many of our students once lived and worked, and even in times of uncertainty, as the community members’ needs evolve, so will we continue to redefine our methods and reshape our care to devote the best possible attention and respect to these families.
We are motivated in our community outreach services in part by the profound changes we have seen in the CCF students, and in 2008 we have redoubled our efforts to give Steung Meanchey families the information, security and assistance they need to live healthier lives. It has always been our hope that by fostering a sense of community and a sense of pride through our Community Center, evaluation and responsibility by community members will follow.
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Our expanding services have shown remarkable progress in uniting a formerly fragmented group of families and shaping a more positive social network. No longer reliant on local healers or unsanitary health remedies (see photo left) people in the Steung Meanchey area now have unprecedented access to clean water and free daily medical care, health education and counseling.
With the help of twice-weekly visits from a mobile medical unit, our community center health program – originally developed to serve 100 people per month – now offers care to an average of 700 children and families per month. Urgent cases are referred to area hospitals, often with Community Center nursing staff accompanying the families to serve as patient advocates. |
Our latest outreach initiative, food relief and distribution, is one of the most urgent needs CCF has faced to date. Our newly launched food program is providing rice to the most destitute families via a voucher distribution system whereby individuals have the opportunity to buy rice at subsidized prices.
By negotiating directly with local rice mills for bulk costs, CCF is able to sell the rice to community members at subsidized prices, thereby providing for a larger section of our target population and avoiding placing the recipient families in a cycle of dependence. Money from these sales is used to purchase more rice for subsidized distribution.
On the first day of sales, we sold over 1,000 lbs of rice.
The CCF Community Center has also opened an evening café offering subsidized meals made from locally purchased produce, and we frequently distribute free meal vouchers to families in need. Open for four hours each evening, the café typically serves over 500 people per month. |
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Founder and Executive Director Scott Neeson on one of his daily visits to the Steung Meanchey community – here sharing conversation and a rice voucher with an area mother. |
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Our Community Child Care Center opened in December with a planned capacity of 40 children, but due to community response and the overwhelming need of area families, we now have 58 children enrolled in our program.
We currently have three preschool teachers and are creating childcare and classroom staff opportunities for Steung Meanchey residents, many of whom are mothers of the children enrolled in our program.
In doing so, we are providing employment opportunities beyond the subsistence work of the garbage dump and are creating a supportive atmosphere in which parents can become physically and emotionally invested in the health, social and academic progress of their children – thereby working collectively with us and with other parents for their children's growth and success.
In October, 2008, the first two ‘graduates’ of the Community Child Care Center were accepted into the CCF6 residential education program. Ten months ago these little girls were adrift in a sea of hopelessness. Today they’ve found a safe new home. We think that’s pretty good cause for celebration.
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