Korsang, a service center for drug addicts in Phnom Penh, has also become a place where deportees from the United States gather. Many have also found employment and an outlet for skills and cultural interests acquired in the United States. (Jeff Gritchen/Staff Photographer)
Holly Bradford is the founder and CEO of Korsang, an expanding center offering services to Cambodian drug adicts and U.S. deportees. (Jeff Gritchen/Staff Photographer)12/30/2008
By Gren Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)
Korsang Kormix
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - An upstairs room enshrouded in cigarette smoke may seem like an odd setting for the headquarters of an international nongovernmental organization.
But then, there is little about Korsang, a place dedicated to saving Cambodian drug addicts, that fits preconceived notions.
In a corner of the smoky room sits Holly Bradford, the mother hen of Korsang.
Perched behind a computer terminal, tucking her feet beneath her and wearing a "Free Burma" T-shirt, with a head of short, gray, spiky hair, Bradford doesn't look like your typical CEO.
She is a study in contrasts. She favors the loose informal clothes of expatriates to the more formal dress of local business people. She curses like a sailor,
Holly Bradford is the founder and CEO of Korsang, an expanding center offering services to Cambodian drug adicts and U.S. deportees. (Jeff Gritchen/Staff Photographer)yet is a product of the New Age concepts of harm reduction.
Despite the rough banter, Bradford is a driven and successful woman.
Growth mode
Under her leadership, Korsang has grown tenfold in four years and is the foremost employer and gathering place of U.S. deportees in Cambodia.
Beginning with a $50,000 grant and five employees, Korsang now has a $500,000 budget and 68 employees. It receives funding from UNICEF, USAID and the World Health Organization and continues to expand.
Korsang, which employs Cambodian-American deportees to work in programs, started by providing needle exchanges to fight HIV/AIDs among intravenous drug users on the streets of Phnom Penh.
Since then, it has expanded to include an infirmary, adult education and social services and referrals.
It is home to the country's first government-supported methadone pilot program for heroin and morphine addicts.
Korsang, which Bradford plans to turn into an entirely deportee-run program one day, is also very democratic.
"The way Korsang grows is we ask the kids what they want," Bradford says. "So, everything we do comes from the street up."
That's what led to the formation of KorMix, a rap group that just released a music video. The group's signature song "Why" is about the ruination brought on by smoking yama, a particularly nasty form of methamphetamine popular in the slums.
Plans are under way for the group to tour.
But Korsang isn't about launching kids into stardom. Most often, it's just a safe place where the down-and-out can shower, eat and rest before returning to the dangerous streets that are home.
With little fanfare, Korsang's unique approach has brought it to the attention of news organizations and filmmakers.
"Now we're getting a little recognition for the work we do and some awards," Bradford says. "It's crazy. It's off the hook. I mean how solid is that? It's a good program."
It also serves a community with needs so deep and prospects so bleak they almost defy description.
Bradford says Korsang services more than 1,000 intravenous drug users, 2,300 yama smokers and a variety of "blue huffers," or inhalers of aerosols, solvents, etc.
Most of Korsang's success can be traced to the interactions between the deportees and the street kids.
With their American swagger and style, although they are frowned upon and ostracized by the older Cambodian public, the Korsang guys have cachet with the street youths.
U.S. culture's impact
Even in the back streets of Phnom Penh it seems U.S. culture sinks its roots. It is not unusual to see scores of people huddling around a television set watching American programming, or to hear hip-hop music and see break dancers practicing spins and freezes on a dusty mat.
Wicket, a deportee who uses only his nickname, says his compatriots bond with drug users because of the common traits they share.
"It's just the way we are. When we go out on the streets with the drug users our connection is that we're on the outside," Wicket says. "We have both current or former drug users, so we can relate like that. We're not out there preaching to them. We're out there being a friend. We're out there offering them services."
If there is a criticism of Korsang, it's that some of its workers are still using drugs. And while that can lead to inevitable conflicts of interest, it also makes the deportees more real to the kids.
Whatever vices members of her staff may have, Bradford is unabashed in her admiration.
"They have a magic and a charm about them that I don't think a lot of NGOs can match," she says.
In the courtyard is Mao Tuch. A 23-year-old who looks about 12, he is talking about an abscess he got from shooting heroin. He says through translation that it has become difficult to shoot the drug because the veins in his arm have collapsed.
He thrusts his arms out to show a constellation of red pinpricks straddling the blue of his veins. Mao says he now uses his pelvis or pays someone to shoot drugs into his backside.
On one wrist is a 4-inch scar he sustained when he fell from a tree while sniffing glue.
It is for the Maos of Cambodia that Korsang exists.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291
But then, there is little about Korsang, a place dedicated to saving Cambodian drug addicts, that fits preconceived notions.
In a corner of the smoky room sits Holly Bradford, the mother hen of Korsang.
Perched behind a computer terminal, tucking her feet beneath her and wearing a "Free Burma" T-shirt, with a head of short, gray, spiky hair, Bradford doesn't look like your typical CEO.
She is a study in contrasts. She favors the loose informal clothes of expatriates to the more formal dress of local business people. She curses like a sailor,
Holly Bradford is the founder and CEO of Korsang, an expanding center offering services to Cambodian drug adicts and U.S. deportees. (Jeff Gritchen/Staff Photographer)yet is a product of the New Age concepts of harm reduction.
Despite the rough banter, Bradford is a driven and successful woman.
Growth mode
Under her leadership, Korsang has grown tenfold in four years and is the foremost employer and gathering place of U.S. deportees in Cambodia.
Beginning with a $50,000 grant and five employees, Korsang now has a $500,000 budget and 68 employees. It receives funding from UNICEF, USAID and the World Health Organization and continues to expand.
Korsang, which employs Cambodian-American deportees to work in programs, started by providing needle exchanges to fight HIV/AIDs among intravenous drug users on the streets of Phnom Penh.
Since then, it has expanded to include an infirmary, adult education and social services and referrals.
It is home to the country's first government-supported methadone pilot program for heroin and morphine addicts.
Korsang, which Bradford plans to turn into an entirely deportee-run program one day, is also very democratic.
"The way Korsang grows is we ask the kids what they want," Bradford says. "So, everything we do comes from the street up."
That's what led to the formation of KorMix, a rap group that just released a music video. The group's signature song "Why" is about the ruination brought on by smoking yama, a particularly nasty form of methamphetamine popular in the slums.
Plans are under way for the group to tour.
But Korsang isn't about launching kids into stardom. Most often, it's just a safe place where the down-and-out can shower, eat and rest before returning to the dangerous streets that are home.
With little fanfare, Korsang's unique approach has brought it to the attention of news organizations and filmmakers.
"Now we're getting a little recognition for the work we do and some awards," Bradford says. "It's crazy. It's off the hook. I mean how solid is that? It's a good program."
It also serves a community with needs so deep and prospects so bleak they almost defy description.
Bradford says Korsang services more than 1,000 intravenous drug users, 2,300 yama smokers and a variety of "blue huffers," or inhalers of aerosols, solvents, etc.
Most of Korsang's success can be traced to the interactions between the deportees and the street kids.
With their American swagger and style, although they are frowned upon and ostracized by the older Cambodian public, the Korsang guys have cachet with the street youths.
U.S. culture's impact
Even in the back streets of Phnom Penh it seems U.S. culture sinks its roots. It is not unusual to see scores of people huddling around a television set watching American programming, or to hear hip-hop music and see break dancers practicing spins and freezes on a dusty mat.
Wicket, a deportee who uses only his nickname, says his compatriots bond with drug users because of the common traits they share.
"It's just the way we are. When we go out on the streets with the drug users our connection is that we're on the outside," Wicket says. "We have both current or former drug users, so we can relate like that. We're not out there preaching to them. We're out there being a friend. We're out there offering them services."
If there is a criticism of Korsang, it's that some of its workers are still using drugs. And while that can lead to inevitable conflicts of interest, it also makes the deportees more real to the kids.
Whatever vices members of her staff may have, Bradford is unabashed in her admiration.
"They have a magic and a charm about them that I don't think a lot of NGOs can match," she says.
In the courtyard is Mao Tuch. A 23-year-old who looks about 12, he is talking about an abscess he got from shooting heroin. He says through translation that it has become difficult to shoot the drug because the veins in his arm have collapsed.
He thrusts his arms out to show a constellation of red pinpricks straddling the blue of his veins. Mao says he now uses his pelvis or pays someone to shoot drugs into his backside.
On one wrist is a 4-inch scar he sustained when he fell from a tree while sniffing glue.
It is for the Maos of Cambodia that Korsang exists.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291
8 comments:
That is what typical Ah Pleu-oversea is like, more or less. The US education suck. It left virtually all of them behind only to end up as westerner's slaves such as tomato picker, potato digger, ..., and drug dealers.
Not all!Some, yes. But you sound like one too 5:40PM. No one is without fault or mistake in this lifetime.
Thank to people like Holly Bradford and person who able to show this on youtube.
God bless you all.
Can't you read, 9:35. I never said "all".
5:40,
If you said US education is suck, and why you study english language too..you stupid fuck!! stop abusing your ownself dumbfuck...
5:40, if US's education is so bad why people ALL over the world sent their kids to get education there?
BTW, I know few girls sold their body to guys to take them to US.
Guys,
Ya talking about 5:40! this punkass is the one! he's talking shit about US, but he sold himself to white dude to come here...badly!
Fag pleu undersea..
5:40,
This Pleu undersea sold himself to white fag to come here, and his mother is a whore..working on the street in SVY PAK!!
Ah Pleu 5:40 just the dumbfuck fag..from SVY PAK BROTHEL, coz his mother is a whore working on the street there...he called US educations suck, but he's studing it too...fucking dumbshit fag from svy pak!!
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