Voices from Rural Cambodia: See a Problem, Share a Blessing!

I have a DREAM (Cambodian way)!

You may ask me “What is your DREAM, Meang? Truthfully, my dream is NOT about having a SUV, super beautiful lady around me or to be a political commentator. Due to heavy raging civil war, my parents decided to send me to a local Buddhist temple for a peaceful life and education. I was so sad and left my tiny and deprived village of about 100 families mid 1989. However, 20 years has gone, things and living standard has not changed much! Then you may react, hey, Cambodia is so peaceful now and a lot of developments are taking place around the clock. Unfortunately, it’s not. We still need a lot of HEALING and HELP!

Let me not present to you a huge and impossible assignment but some small elements that can be achievable as we join hands. Whenever, I visit my home village and other villages around, I cannot comprehend the sizes and shapes of problems, hurts and needs roaming around. Oh this is a very destitute community belong to Brasat Bailaing district, Kampong Thom Province. This commune (rural town) is called SAMMAKI which is comprised of 5 distant villages (approximately 800 families) filled with low standard farmers.

First, let me share with you some critical issues and needs: ( QUITE GENERAL here):

1^st problem: according to the local authority, domestic violent still one of the critical virus eating up such rural area. Illiterate parents can hardly raise up good and healthy children.

2^nd problem: A lot of fathers, roughly 70% tend to spend late afternoon with other men drinking local palm juice wine (freshly collected). They become so irresponsible by letting their children staying and doing tones of chores with their mothers at home.

3^rd problem: verbal conflicts arise when mothers cannot handle all the work loads and scold children in the presence of the fathers. Often times, the heavy head & drunken fathers either go straight to sleep or make noises in the house. They ignore and neglect their house’s duties and sometimes trigger physical conflicts after no-winning debates with the mothers.

4^th problem: children are encouraged to go to school but parents cannot help them with their basic school needs or take time to tutor them more at home. Most kids don’t have proper (new) clothes for their school, not to mention about having clean & neat uniforms of white top and blue skirt or pant. Some go to school barefoot. Heart breaking conditions.

5^th problem: sanitation, clean drinking water and health education are far from their grasp. About 10 out of 100 families may have owned shabby toilets. About 20 per cent of 100 households prefer to boil water for drinking. And about 20 per cents of 100 people care to wash their hands before eating.

6^th problem: average size families have 7 members with one or two mosquito nets. Coincidentally, 2007 was the heaviest year for Cambodia to be invaded by dengue fever. However, 2008 was much lighter and yet we don’t know about this year because July, August are yet to come.  
7^th problem: the commune has 5 primary schools and a middle school but all the young teachers are from other far towns while the resident teachers are typically passed the golden age.

 8^th problem: Although they are farmers, still half of the 800 families do not have enough rice for their whole year needs. They totally depend on rain falls for their farming works. “No rain, no planting of rice”. For them to survive, they turn to plant fruit trees, seasonal vegetables and raise animals at home. 

How can you partner with us in solving this matter and math problem and improve quality of life and make a different in such a remote community that seen NOT a single visitor so far?

Please read more information from our website Pro LIFE projects

Thank you! (Orkun)