We’re leaving for Cambodia tomorrow. I haven’t written much about the move on this blog, but I suspect the transition will bring new life to my posts here.
We’re going to further develop our work with Project Friends. Here is a video that we made to publicize Project Friends for potential participants. We made it in Japanese, but I’ve added subtitles to this version.
Let the adventures begin!
I’ve written at length about Andong Village and Abraham Hang’s work there. Today I was glad to find his story online told well and at length. You can read it here.
A tidbit from the past I didn’t know:
When I saw this take place, I began to help the poor who were being ripped off by the gang. I created my own gang and we had automatic weapons to fight the bandits as I had become a soldier as well during that time. It was now 1998. I ended up killing the leader of the bandits and gang dispersed and ceased to oppress the people. I am the only one left alive from our original group of modern day Robin Hoods, because, as I thought at the time, my good luck came from the magical powers of a Khmer Witch doctor bestowed upon me.
Abraham on the road from the school to Andong Village
This is just a photographic sketch I made one afternoon in Phnom Penh. I take photos like these as a way to observe and learn; and I enjoyed talking to the people as I photographed them. It was in February, just before Chinese New Year. I walked into Wat Lanka, a Buddhist temple, and saw several young men and one older man at work. I don’t think any of them do wood working as a profession, though I could be wrong. My impression was that they showed up and learned. Perhaps they are carving images of Buddha to earn merit, or dollars (the statues were being made to sell). Buddhism in Cambodia is very practical. Young men become monks for spiritual reasons and/or because they want a place to live, food to eat, and an education. Most are monks for a few years, and some continue for life. I didn’t know what motives these men had for their labor, but I admired the care they put into the task.
Last September I went to Cambodia with a group of Japanese volunteers, and during our time at Wat Opot I made this short movie. All the actors are kids, mostly orphaned by AIDS (having lost one or both parents).
It’s a movie about friendship and living with HIV. There is a worldwide fear of HIV, but that fear is intensified in cultures with relatively little formal education or medical awareness. When Cambodians were dying by the thousands of AIDS, their own families cast them out, hospitals wouldn’t receive them, and even crematoriums were afraid to burn their bodies for fear that workers might be infected by the smoke.
That was three years ago. Not surprisingly, people living with HIV are still stigmatized in Cambodia.
About 20 percent of the kids at Wat Opot are living with HIV. They have worked hard with the surrounding community to dispel their fears. All the kids at Wat Opot attend the nearby public schools, and they interact freely with kids in the community. That isn’t to say all the fears and stigmas have gone away, but the situation is much better than before. The director wrote the short story that this movie is based on to help more people to understand that it’s okay to make friends with HIV infected people. We hope to distribute it in Cambodia on DVD’s and via YouTube. I’m still working on finalizing some things, like adding credits in Khmer script, but now you can see it with English subtitles.
A quick qualification: this was a learning experience. It my first attempt to make a short movie, and the crew were all learning with me as we went along. We made some significant mistakes, but we also got some things right. The actors are all kids and staff from Wat Opot, plus one woman from the community who spontaneously assumed the role of Doar’s mother (and proved to be a natural). I’m proud of what we did, and I hope we’ll create more movies in Cambodia with better and better results.
Enjoy. If you want to tell others, just send them to the main page here: www.photosensibility.com (thanks).
A Japanese volunteer and Cambodian youth handling the sound
I’m spending Christmas this year with my family at an orphanage in Cambodia. It’s a decent place run with genuine love on a very low budget (much lower than the linked article). They care for kids living with HIV, who are rejected by most orphanages. And they could use some money, if you’re looking to give, because they run on a shoestring.
That being said, and I mean it; I’m hoping for a future without orphanages. I don’t recommend starting an orphanage if you want to help orphans. I’d like to see orphaned kids being raised by their extended families, because the majority of “orphans” in the world have relatives who could take them in. Heck, a lot of them have at least one parent alive (the definition of “orphan” in Cambodia is that at least one parent has died). Often the relatives are very poor, so they think an orphanage would be better for the child, but a small subsidy would help them accept the responsibility. I don’t have it here, but I’ve read about a study showing that being raised by a dysfunctional family is better for a child than being raised in an institution.
I want to learn from an organization in Phnom Penh that has (I’ve heard) placed thousands of orphans in homes with either foster parents or extended family members. Someday I’ll post a report of my findings here.
In the meantime, read this excellent article from the New York Times which makes an excellent case for supporting families rather than starting more and more orphanages.