Asia's Hope includes nine orphanages for 250 children in Cambodia and Thailand. This scene is in Battambang, Cambodia. (Photo: Courtesy of John McCollum)
John and Kori McCollum have adopted Chien, left, 10, Pak, 9 and Xiudan, 3. Chien is Vietnamese, Pak is Korean and Xiudan is Chinese. (Photo: TOM DODGE | Dispatch)A Clintonville man's heartache eventually leads to the creation of orphanages and schools to help the hopeless in Asia
Friday, July 11, 2008
By Meredith Heagney
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The first time John McCollum visited Cambodia, he saw naked, starving children begging for food.
Some men calmly asked a revolting question: Would he like to have sex with a child?
The 2000 trip was a crash course for McCollum in the scourge of poverty and the sex-trafficking industry in Southeast Asia.
By then, McCollum and his wife had already adopted Chien, now 10, who is Vietnamese, and Pak, 9, who is Korean. They later adopted Xiudan, 3, who is Chinese. Their parents had either died or given them up.
"My heart was really broken," said McCollum, 37, owner of Element, a Clintonville design firm. "I saw these little kids and thought, 'These could be my kids.' "
With no opportunities to make money, many of the girls orphaned in Cambodia and Thailand end up as sex slaves, McCollum said. Boys often are pulled in to help run the operation or deal drugs.
McCollum had grown interested in Asia while researching international adoption. He tagged along with Dave Atkins of Wooster, then a pastor, on a mission to Cambodia. Soon after, the two scribbled a mission statement on a napkin while sitting at a Denny's restaurant in Mansfield. Asia's Hope was born.
Today, the nonprofit group operates nine orphanages for 250 children in Cambodia and Thailand. It runs a school for 120 students in kindergarten through sixth grade in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, as well as residential centers for Christian college students.
The mission has expanded to offer vocational training and job opportunities as the children grow up. In Thailand, Asia's Hope has a widow's ministry that invites women to live and work on a farm to support themselves and grow food for the orphanage.
On Wednesday, McCollum and eight other members of his church, Central Vineyard in Clintonville, left on a trip to Cambodia and Thailand to start a new jewelry cooperative. Young women will earn income by making jewelry for sale in the United States. The group will be in Cambodia for three weeks.
One group member, Libby Glover of Victorian Village, didn't even know about the sex-trafficking crisis until she met McCollum.
His enthusiasm for the mission is contagious, she said. "He lives and breathes for these children," she said.
The upswing in tourists visiting Cambodia has led to an increase in prostitution, some of which involves children, said Thak Chaloemtiarana, of the Southeast Asia program at Cornell University.
He thinks reports of the ubiquitous child sex trade in Southeast Asia are somewhat overblown, although, "You will find what you're looking for," he said.
According to American standards, the poverty in Southeast Asia is quite shocking, he said. Most Westerners who travel there are middle-class and used to a certain standard of living, so seeing families living off a garbage dump is an eye-opener.
"Of course, building schools and providing education and training, that's great anywhere you're doing it," he said.
Eventually, McCollum hopes to start a coffee shop and cafe in Phnom Penh to offer more jobs.
The overarching goal is to give orphans ways to support themselves. Typically, Cambodian children would grow up and work in whatever business their parents did.
For these orphans, whose parents have been lost to AIDS, malaria or land mines, there are no moms and dads to follow.
Asia's Hope employs 70 people in Cambodia and Thailand and has an annual budget of about $400,000. McCollum is lining up churches and businesses to sponsor the orphanages, which cost between $10,000 and $15,000 to start and $2,500 a month to operate for 25 children.
"These are kids who spent the first few years of their lives being told they're worthless and they have no family and no future," McCollum said. "Now we tell them, 'You're part of God's family. You have brothers and sisters all over the world who want to take care of you.' "
McCollum, who typically visits Cambodia twice a year for three or four weeks at a time, hopes someday to spend the summers there with his children. He wants to give them a sense of global awareness, he said. And he wants them to meet the hundreds of other kids whose future he is working to improve.
"When people ask me how many kids I have, sometimes I tell them 250," he said. "I'm not really their father in a day-to-day sense, but I do feel a responsibility."
Friday, July 11, 2008
By Meredith Heagney
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The first time John McCollum visited Cambodia, he saw naked, starving children begging for food.
Some men calmly asked a revolting question: Would he like to have sex with a child?
The 2000 trip was a crash course for McCollum in the scourge of poverty and the sex-trafficking industry in Southeast Asia.
By then, McCollum and his wife had already adopted Chien, now 10, who is Vietnamese, and Pak, 9, who is Korean. They later adopted Xiudan, 3, who is Chinese. Their parents had either died or given them up.
"My heart was really broken," said McCollum, 37, owner of Element, a Clintonville design firm. "I saw these little kids and thought, 'These could be my kids.' "
With no opportunities to make money, many of the girls orphaned in Cambodia and Thailand end up as sex slaves, McCollum said. Boys often are pulled in to help run the operation or deal drugs.
McCollum had grown interested in Asia while researching international adoption. He tagged along with Dave Atkins of Wooster, then a pastor, on a mission to Cambodia. Soon after, the two scribbled a mission statement on a napkin while sitting at a Denny's restaurant in Mansfield. Asia's Hope was born.
Today, the nonprofit group operates nine orphanages for 250 children in Cambodia and Thailand. It runs a school for 120 students in kindergarten through sixth grade in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, as well as residential centers for Christian college students.
The mission has expanded to offer vocational training and job opportunities as the children grow up. In Thailand, Asia's Hope has a widow's ministry that invites women to live and work on a farm to support themselves and grow food for the orphanage.
On Wednesday, McCollum and eight other members of his church, Central Vineyard in Clintonville, left on a trip to Cambodia and Thailand to start a new jewelry cooperative. Young women will earn income by making jewelry for sale in the United States. The group will be in Cambodia for three weeks.
One group member, Libby Glover of Victorian Village, didn't even know about the sex-trafficking crisis until she met McCollum.
His enthusiasm for the mission is contagious, she said. "He lives and breathes for these children," she said.
The upswing in tourists visiting Cambodia has led to an increase in prostitution, some of which involves children, said Thak Chaloemtiarana, of the Southeast Asia program at Cornell University.
He thinks reports of the ubiquitous child sex trade in Southeast Asia are somewhat overblown, although, "You will find what you're looking for," he said.
According to American standards, the poverty in Southeast Asia is quite shocking, he said. Most Westerners who travel there are middle-class and used to a certain standard of living, so seeing families living off a garbage dump is an eye-opener.
"Of course, building schools and providing education and training, that's great anywhere you're doing it," he said.
Eventually, McCollum hopes to start a coffee shop and cafe in Phnom Penh to offer more jobs.
The overarching goal is to give orphans ways to support themselves. Typically, Cambodian children would grow up and work in whatever business their parents did.
For these orphans, whose parents have been lost to AIDS, malaria or land mines, there are no moms and dads to follow.
Asia's Hope employs 70 people in Cambodia and Thailand and has an annual budget of about $400,000. McCollum is lining up churches and businesses to sponsor the orphanages, which cost between $10,000 and $15,000 to start and $2,500 a month to operate for 25 children.
"These are kids who spent the first few years of their lives being told they're worthless and they have no family and no future," McCollum said. "Now we tell them, 'You're part of God's family. You have brothers and sisters all over the world who want to take care of you.' "
McCollum, who typically visits Cambodia twice a year for three or four weeks at a time, hopes someday to spend the summers there with his children. He wants to give them a sense of global awareness, he said. And he wants them to meet the hundreds of other kids whose future he is working to improve.
"When people ask me how many kids I have, sometimes I tell them 250," he said. "I'm not really their father in a day-to-day sense, but I do feel a responsibility."
1 comment:
Thanks, Mr McCollum. You just made my day. I hope you will get all the support for your organization. I think you are what humanity is all about.
Some day I hope to join your cause. Perhaps I can offer some help in the medical field and also teach English.
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