Rotary Peace Fellow Path Heang discussed luck and the long road from a Khmer Rouge labor camp to the World Bank.By Tiffany Woods
Rotary International News
Photo by Alyce Henson
15 June 2006
Copenhagen, Denmark — Path Heang was just a boy in Cambodia when in 1975 the Communist Khmer Rouge forced him into a labor camp.
Separated from his parents, who also were sent to camps, he spent the next several years in various work facilities. He toiled in rice fields, dug canals, collected dung for fertilizer, and herded cattle. Once, when some of the cows wandered off, as punishment a Khmer Rouge official tied him to a tree crawling with biting ants.
Heang worked from 7 a.m. to sundown, and ate only two meals a day: soup and watery rice porridge for lunch and the same for dinner. For an entire year, he wore the same pair of pants, shirt, and scarf — regardless of whether they were wet or dry. They were all he had. If he got sick, no one took care of him. He slept on the ground and sometimes on a makeshift bamboo bed.
One night, he awoke to find himself tightly wrapped in a woman's arms. Her warmth felt so good that he drifted back to sleep. When he awoke, she was gone. Then he noticed something warm wrapped in his scarf. He unfolded it and found some leaves. The woman had risen early, gathered the leaves, boiled them, and left them for Heang to eat. He chewed them and could taste the salt she had added to the water. The woman never returned.
"I did not know she was my mother," Heang says. A long pause follows. He doesn't want to talk about it anymore.
Luck and determination
Today, Heang, 37, is a program officer for the Cambodia office of the World Bank. He's also a former Rotary World Peace Fellow, meaning he received a scholarship from The Rotary Foundation to carry out graduate studies in peace and conflict resolution. "How I worked my way to where I am now is luck," he said modestly while in Copenhagen promoting the World Peace Fellows program at Rotary International's 97 th annual convention.
Heang reunited with his mother in 1979 when Vietnamese troops overthrew the Khmer Rouge. He eventually learned that she was the one who had visited him. She had been passing through with a group en route to another camp, and the group stayed overnight at Heang's camp.
After the Khmer Rouge collapsed, Heang went on to high school, where he secretly studied English because the Vietnamese-backed government forbade it. He already knew some words from reading labels on the cooking oil and cans of fish and corn provided to his family by UNICEF.
Twice, police discovered where he and his classmates were studying and put them in jail for several nights. After each arrest, they moved to another location. For their third hideout, they chose the third floor of an abandoned, roofless building where they met at night and wrote on the white walls.
Careers and causes
After college, Heang held various jobs, some of which involved helping poor Cambodian farmers increase their crop production, getting Cambodians to turn in their weapons to authorities, and coordinating a team that established mechanisms to resolve labor disputes in Cambodia.
In 2003, he moved to Australia to study at the Rotary Center for International Studies at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. Heang, who is married and has two children, graduated in 2004 with a master's degree in international studies in peace and conflict resolution.
After his World Peace Fellowship ended, he returned to Cambodia and worked for a research institute. Part of his job was to help political parties, nongovernmental organizations, and the government work out disputes over how elections were being run.
In August, he started his job at the World Bank and is working on a project called Justice for the Poor. It aims to get disputes involving land, management of natural resources, and local governments resolved outside the courts because they are widely believed to be corrupt.
Ultimately, Heang aims to be a senior level policy-maker, although not in the public sector. "My goal is to get into a [position] where I can help a larger portion of Cambodians," he says.
Separated from his parents, who also were sent to camps, he spent the next several years in various work facilities. He toiled in rice fields, dug canals, collected dung for fertilizer, and herded cattle. Once, when some of the cows wandered off, as punishment a Khmer Rouge official tied him to a tree crawling with biting ants.
Heang worked from 7 a.m. to sundown, and ate only two meals a day: soup and watery rice porridge for lunch and the same for dinner. For an entire year, he wore the same pair of pants, shirt, and scarf — regardless of whether they were wet or dry. They were all he had. If he got sick, no one took care of him. He slept on the ground and sometimes on a makeshift bamboo bed.
One night, he awoke to find himself tightly wrapped in a woman's arms. Her warmth felt so good that he drifted back to sleep. When he awoke, she was gone. Then he noticed something warm wrapped in his scarf. He unfolded it and found some leaves. The woman had risen early, gathered the leaves, boiled them, and left them for Heang to eat. He chewed them and could taste the salt she had added to the water. The woman never returned.
"I did not know she was my mother," Heang says. A long pause follows. He doesn't want to talk about it anymore.
Luck and determination
Today, Heang, 37, is a program officer for the Cambodia office of the World Bank. He's also a former Rotary World Peace Fellow, meaning he received a scholarship from The Rotary Foundation to carry out graduate studies in peace and conflict resolution. "How I worked my way to where I am now is luck," he said modestly while in Copenhagen promoting the World Peace Fellows program at Rotary International's 97 th annual convention.
Heang reunited with his mother in 1979 when Vietnamese troops overthrew the Khmer Rouge. He eventually learned that she was the one who had visited him. She had been passing through with a group en route to another camp, and the group stayed overnight at Heang's camp.
After the Khmer Rouge collapsed, Heang went on to high school, where he secretly studied English because the Vietnamese-backed government forbade it. He already knew some words from reading labels on the cooking oil and cans of fish and corn provided to his family by UNICEF.
Twice, police discovered where he and his classmates were studying and put them in jail for several nights. After each arrest, they moved to another location. For their third hideout, they chose the third floor of an abandoned, roofless building where they met at night and wrote on the white walls.
Careers and causes
After college, Heang held various jobs, some of which involved helping poor Cambodian farmers increase their crop production, getting Cambodians to turn in their weapons to authorities, and coordinating a team that established mechanisms to resolve labor disputes in Cambodia.
In 2003, he moved to Australia to study at the Rotary Center for International Studies at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. Heang, who is married and has two children, graduated in 2004 with a master's degree in international studies in peace and conflict resolution.
After his World Peace Fellowship ended, he returned to Cambodia and worked for a research institute. Part of his job was to help political parties, nongovernmental organizations, and the government work out disputes over how elections were being run.
In August, he started his job at the World Bank and is working on a project called Justice for the Poor. It aims to get disputes involving land, management of natural resources, and local governments resolved outside the courts because they are widely believed to be corrupt.
Ultimately, Heang aims to be a senior level policy-maker, although not in the public sector. "My goal is to get into a [position] where I can help a larger portion of Cambodians," he says.
1 comment:
Good on you Heang!!!Keep your good work of humanity. Cambodian people need people like you to be with them. Use the good role model as your unltimate Goal of your life. If you are rich in heart, you can create a rich Nation. But, if you are rich in monies, People of the whole Nation will be poorer. May God Bless you!!!!
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