Fri, Dec 8, 2006 By Heather J. Carlson
The Post-Bulletin (Rochester, Minnesota, USA)
DODGE CENTER -- For teenager Naomi Wente, a bulky scrapbook serves as a constant reminder of why she has dedicated herself to helping strangers living on the other side of the globe.
Open the book and inside are dozens of photos of men, women and children living in Cambodia; of children scrambling across a giant landfill; of orphans posing with Naomi for the camera.
A year ago, the 15-year-old Dodge Center girl said she knew little about Cambodia. Then she and her family traveled last December with a group of Rochester Community and Technical College students and instructors to the Southeast Asian country. After seeing Cambodia's staggering poverty firsthand, the Triton High School student decided she needed to find a way to help.
"I wanted to be able to do something to make a difference," she said.
So the teenager focused on something basic that most Americans take for granted -- a toilet. The teenager began raising money to install toilets, septic systems and wells in Cambodia's villages. So far, she has collected more than $2,000 toward her campaign called "One Toilet at a Time."
In Cambodia, having toilets means more than improving sanitation. It can make the difference between whether teenage girls continue to go to school, said Kim Sin, who worked with Naomi's mother, RCTC speech instructor Lori Halverson-Wente, to organize the Cambodia trip. Sin's family fled the country when he was a child to escape the violence during the Khmer Rouge's reign. He now works for RCTC's media services department.
Sin said often when girls begin menstruating they are too embarrassed to use the primitive public bathrooms, which are usually simply a hole in the ground. The girls then either opt to go into a nearby forest despite the risk of landmines and kidnappings. Or they simply stop going to class altogether.
Sin said he has been impressed by Naomi's commitment to help other teenage girls in a foreign land.
"It's wonderful," he said. "The future of Cambodia relies on having girls have the education to become future government leaders."
Naomi's fundraising efforts got an unexpected boost recently when she won two tickets to Las Vegas as part of a drawing sponsored by Farr Development to celebrate its Towne Square project in Byron. Her dad, Mark Halverson-Wente, got the call saying Naomi had won the tickets.
"I said, 'Naomi is 15 and I don't think she will be going to Las Vegas any time soon," he said.
So Farr Development offered to give them $1,500 instead -- money Naomi will use for her return trip to Cambodia later this month. She will once again join the RCTC group headed to Cambodia to share the donations she has collected so far.
"Cambodia has such an impact on me spiritually and emotionally," Naomi said. "I just felt like a different person. It felt like there were more than the walls of my high school. There's a whole world out there."
Open the book and inside are dozens of photos of men, women and children living in Cambodia; of children scrambling across a giant landfill; of orphans posing with Naomi for the camera.
A year ago, the 15-year-old Dodge Center girl said she knew little about Cambodia. Then she and her family traveled last December with a group of Rochester Community and Technical College students and instructors to the Southeast Asian country. After seeing Cambodia's staggering poverty firsthand, the Triton High School student decided she needed to find a way to help.
"I wanted to be able to do something to make a difference," she said.
So the teenager focused on something basic that most Americans take for granted -- a toilet. The teenager began raising money to install toilets, septic systems and wells in Cambodia's villages. So far, she has collected more than $2,000 toward her campaign called "One Toilet at a Time."
In Cambodia, having toilets means more than improving sanitation. It can make the difference between whether teenage girls continue to go to school, said Kim Sin, who worked with Naomi's mother, RCTC speech instructor Lori Halverson-Wente, to organize the Cambodia trip. Sin's family fled the country when he was a child to escape the violence during the Khmer Rouge's reign. He now works for RCTC's media services department.
Sin said often when girls begin menstruating they are too embarrassed to use the primitive public bathrooms, which are usually simply a hole in the ground. The girls then either opt to go into a nearby forest despite the risk of landmines and kidnappings. Or they simply stop going to class altogether.
Sin said he has been impressed by Naomi's commitment to help other teenage girls in a foreign land.
"It's wonderful," he said. "The future of Cambodia relies on having girls have the education to become future government leaders."
Naomi's fundraising efforts got an unexpected boost recently when she won two tickets to Las Vegas as part of a drawing sponsored by Farr Development to celebrate its Towne Square project in Byron. Her dad, Mark Halverson-Wente, got the call saying Naomi had won the tickets.
"I said, 'Naomi is 15 and I don't think she will be going to Las Vegas any time soon," he said.
So Farr Development offered to give them $1,500 instead -- money Naomi will use for her return trip to Cambodia later this month. She will once again join the RCTC group headed to Cambodia to share the donations she has collected so far.
"Cambodia has such an impact on me spiritually and emotionally," Naomi said. "I just felt like a different person. It felt like there were more than the walls of my high school. There's a whole world out there."
5 comments:
good for you...but this is too little to do anything....go and ask hun sen may be get more....good luck
why do you discourage people with good heart? Everyone in society contributes by small or big measure. She is doing that in her own capacity, what I suppose are you doing to help?
You are right 5:52AM, AND you are not wrong 4:36 AM.
William James, the father of Psychologist, said: The groove gets deeper with each repetition. The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
So we need only, in cold blood, act/speak kindly toward one another because those actions get deeper and become our habit.
If you can help people, just help. More or less will make the differences.
Thanks for all your help to my peoples Cambodian. The only way Cambodian get off from poverty we have to change the goverment, leadership and get rid of those corruption official. Please help to support Human Rights and Democracy in Cambodia.
Naomi is my daughter - and if you have any questions about this project, please contact us...it's for real :)
It is true that there is so much to do - and isn't that true in so many places? I remember once hearing a woman screaming while I was 17 and in a large city, I knew there was no way to help and that was my first sense of WOW where do you begin (I was working as an activist at the time and wondered - can I ever make a difference)...
We were similarly told by a famous Cambodian here in our area to pass out pencils if we want to help - then he paused and did say, dig a well, that will help.
Meanwhile, Naomi has done what she can, where she can and how she can. Other students in our group are doing the same.
The project has gained so much attention and she has raised $1000.00 extra since this article was published. Just today, for example, my son and his best friend raised 355.00 from folks in our small town.
We are part of a larger group of college students and instructors going to Cambodia in just a few days it seems! We personally will deliver these funds and our friends are now arranging the details of the projects. A friend who is a Monk is supervising several others. When we arrive, we will also be building a food pantry shed to store food for a school, purchasing chalk boards, bringing school uniforms, and other more personal volunteer projects that promote intercultural communication.
We agree - it is a small effort. However, we hope to bring back the stories of the Cambodian people and to share ours with them - we hope to have an intercultural exchange and begin someplace...
Contact us for more information: Lori.Halverson@Roch.Edu
Our website is www.cambodiarctc.project.mnscu.edu - we will be blogging when we are there and invite any interested folks to contact us - who knows, maybe we'll meet up in the villages in Cambodia!
Thanks All - and yes, my son tells me blogs should be short - opps - forgive me :)
Lori
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