Here, the young members of the HK based NGO, “Humanity in Focus” continue to share their memories of their time in Cambodia, and what they learned in the process. Hopefully, this can inspire YOU to make a difference in the world!
iCUBED.us Interviewer – Chris Lau
Humanity in Focus – Various Members
iCUBED.us: Do you have any memorable moments to share from your time in Cambodia?
Astina (Young Global Citizenship Programme 2009 Participant)
I believe many of us might have heard about the dumpsites in Cambodia before, but I can assure you that the “real thing” is nothing like anything you could possibly imagine. The largest dumpsite in Cambodia was situated in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. While Phnom Penh is "on its way" in terms of glamorous developments, and it seems like it is where people are richer as compared to those living in the villages, a group of minorities out there are still mostly forgotten and unnoticed. They do not only live on picking up garbage scraps, they are physically living on the garbage dump site.
When we arrived, we were immediately surrounded by tons of flies when we got off the coach. An exaggeration it may seem, to use the word “tons”, but the impact was indeed that dramatic to our group of students, accustomed to living in an environment with very few flies, if at all. At that moment, I felt “trapped” by flies that could at any moment invade and enter my body with the greatest “military” force backing them up. For a while, you might still be able to win the battle over them by moving around non-stop. But against this, you really have no way out – the strong smell of decomposed garbage. I remembered vividly that after the first minute of our “journey”, I asked one of our group leaders right in front of me, “Hey, are you breathing with your mouth or nose? I really can’t stand the smell when I breathe with my nose but I’m afraid if the gases are toxic, and that if I open my mouth…” Before I finished my line, he gave an answer I will never forget, “We are here only for an hour. Look at them, they are living here. This is what they are breathing in every day.” So speechless and ashamed was I, that I took a deep breath, and walked ahead without another word.
What came next was something that struck me the most. I noticed a little girl squatting beside the main road. It was not uncommon to find kids around the garbage mountain; we were even told that many were in fact born there. What was it then that drew my eyes toward this little girl? It was a pair of desperate eyes, a pair of eyes that was trying to communicate to me. I stood there, not knowing what to do. “Want to give this to her?” asked a Cambodian volunteer, at the same time giving me a pack of biscuits. I went up to the little girl, and knelt down, saying, “Hello!” to her in Khmer (Cambodia language), and asked her for her name. There was no reply. I then gave her the pack of biscuits. She did not seem to know that it was something edible and just grabbed it tightly in her hand. So I opened the pack of biscuits for her. Again, she grabbed it tightly in her hand, and looked at me. I illustrated to her with my body language that she could put the biscuit into her mouth. She hesitated for a while, and did as I told her. After the first bite, she immediately finished the piece of biscuit as if she had not eaten anything for a long time.
During that short one minute or so, she did not say anything, not even a smile. But there was now a fragile linkage between us. That little girl must have been very lost at that moment – something between fear and security, hopelessness and care. I saw the simplest form of “sadness” in her. There were no tears, but you could naturally see it through her eyes. I started to wonder – what the life of this little girl had been like? Probably, there was never someone in her life offering her a piece of biscuit, or biscuits never came in a complete form to her…
Senia (Young Global Citizenship Programme 2008 Participant):
I was with my teammates in a village in Sihanouk-ville to do family visits when we saw a weeping woman carrying a baby in her hands. The baby was down with fever and the mother, without any money, was unable to bring her child to see the doctor. It was a Saturday and the local NGO was on holiday, which meant that the mother would have to wait till Monday until she could get help. Yet babies’ lives are fragile, and we couldn't imagine what would happen after 2 days, so we asked our local volunteer whether we could do anything to help, but the volunteer said that it wouldn't be wise for us to do so. So we left, sullen and with tears in our eyes.
We felt disappointed that we couldn't do anything about the situation. In the midst of our depression, the volunteer received a phone call and said the NGO gave us permission to take the baby to the clinic. We turned back immediately with hope, and brought the mother and her baby to the clinic. The baby had gotten a fever just because there was no money to buy her any milk powder. The mother was unable to breastfeed the baby because she herself was in lack of nutrition. The father had left the family with all valuables a month ago. It was tragic. It was just a very simple cause, a cause that should have been easily fulfilled, but so simple a thing could not be done in poverty, and thus putting the life of this baby at risk. Luckily it was nothing serious and we supported the family with an additional 2 cans of milk powder. Months later, the volunteer sent us a picture of the baby through e-mail, who was healthy and happy. It touched us so much to realize that such little we did, could bring so much a change to others' lives.
Christine (Young Global Citizenship Programme 2009 Participant):
First of all, is the family visit to the slum area; in the slum area's visit, I can feel love and sacrifice which I cannot see even in a rich place like Hong Kong. Although every family is very poor and all of them are facing difficulties in making a living, they are willing to sacrifice their food to help their neighbors, especially for the elderly who have no earning ability. This really touched my heart and made me reflect how selfish I am as a Hong Kong citizen, who may not care about my neighbors, or the needy in Hong Kong.
The second thing that I want to share is the teaching memory in the village. No matter how far away the schools are from the student’s home, they come to class on-time every morning and wait for school to start. They treasure every opportunity to learn and have fun with us. They always carry smiles on their faces, and thank us even when we are simply giving them some color pens for drawing pictures or playing with them in the playground. Their smiles are so true that they deeply touch my heart. Although they are not rich in money terms, they have no shoes, no school bags, not even uniforms to wear, but they are rich in their hearts.
iCUBED.us: How receptive are the people whom you assist? How do you measure success?
Senia (Young Global Citizenship Programme 2008 Participant):
We have organized many educational campaigns before, from a simple way of spreading the word by family visits to distributing bicycles. It is difficult for us to define success, but we have been able to sense that Cambodians have placed more emphasis on the importance of education and have been more willing to send their children to school.
The impact of these projects is hard to measure in the short-term, but we believe that we are planting many seeds in the field which will grow into blossoms one day.
Christine (Young Global Citizenship Programme 2009 Participant):
In most cases people are very receptive when we approach them saying that we would like to help them. However, as we promote educational opportunities at our Slum Schools, people in slum area may not trust us (because we are foreigners) and doubt our teaching quality. Most would rather prefer sending their children to help with farm work instead of our Slum Schools.
I think there is a standard criterion that we can set to measure success. As long as a certain portion of community gets the message, start observing better hygiene standards, become less reluctant to send their children to school, we regard our work assuccessful already.
What I think we can do is try our best to gather more data before implementing the project to understand the local situations and think from their prospective what they need most. Besides, I think evaluating our projects and making recommendations for further improvement are essential steps to make the projects better and better.
iCUBED.us: Aside from overseas projects, what work do you perform in Hong Kong?
Senia:
We believe that one must first understand before they can take action. That is why we make efforts to spread awareness among Hong Kong youth. From time to time, we hold sharing’s at different places like secondary schools and university halls to share with them our experience in Cambodia, spread to them to the concept of global citizenship, and encourage them to take action. We also keep ourselves aware of the changing global situations and hold campaigns once we realize the time is right, for example, we helped to organize a protest to request for the ceasefire in Gaza in January 2009.
Apart from advocacy, we also try to educate Hong Kong youth by other means. One of our main projects is the "Young Global Citizenship Program", which has been organized since 2007. We provide an opportunity for enthusiastic youth to acquire hands-on experience on the situations of poverty in Cambodia. To prepare them for the trip, we organize a series of workshops for them to learn more about global issues and Cambodia. After the trip, they are highly encouraged to organize events to share with Hong Kong people what they have learnt during the trip. Many of these events are highly creative, including not only fundraising exhibitions but also walkathons and youth summits. Many of the participants join HIF as an executive committee member to continue contributing in our organization.
iCUBED.us: What are your plans for the future?
Yves (Founder) :
As an NGO, we hope that more people would recognize and acknowledge our work. Therefore, we have applied for charity status. Our charity status application is still pending under the Inland Revenue Department. We hope that we could become a charity officially in early October. This would greatly assist our fund-raising work in Hong Kong. [NOTE: HIF have been granted NGO status in October 2009].
In Hong Kong, we plan to extend our youth education works to more universities and secondary schools through campaigns and sharing’s. We will set up student branches in various universities in order to establish and strengthen our network in universities. Also, we are looking for opportunities to develop projects which empower the underprivileged in Hong Kong.
In Cambodia, we plan to extend our development projects to more regions. For instance, we plan to launch our Bike-to-School Campaign in other villages. We would learn from the errors made in our previous development projects so as to design better projects in the future. In addition, we are keen to develop new projects in Cambodia or in other developing countries as well.
iCUBED.us: Do you have any advice for other young people who are looking to contribute to, or establish a charity / NGO for an issue for which they are passionate about?
Yves (Founder) :
I think it is important to seek advice from experienced people in the field. This would avoid an unnecessary waste of time, resources, and effort. Their advice and comments could also help young people to think through the matters and to get better prepared for setting up and running a charity/ NGO. It is always easy to set up a new thing, but it is difficult to sustain the thing. But of course, don't give up easily after hearing some discouraging words and comments. If a young person does believe in what (s)he is doing, (s)he should be encouraged to go ahead and try to realize the dream.
Wendy (Founder):
We might not be achieving big-scale changes, but you need to have the courage to do what you believe is right, and motivate those around you to do the same…And one day when you look back, you might be surprised to see that you have accomplished much more than you could have ever imagined. Dream Wild. Act Now!
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