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| SALT founder Sam Schweingruber issues instructions to one of the academy's youth teams (Photo: FIFA) |
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A group of young women sporting laced-up football boots and yellow training tops stands at the roadside. It is not yet six in the morning as they await the old pick-up truck that will take them to the wooden huts on the muddy streets of the city’s edge, stopping off at many children’s homes and orphanages en route.
The setting is Battambang, a city of 200,000 people situated some 300 kilometres west of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. The driver, Sina, knows the way to the wooden huts on the boundaries of the city and is undaunted by the bumpy side roads. Each time he stops, another group of girls jumps onto the truck and before long it is precariously overloaded and buzzing ever louder with the lively chatter of its passengers.
In Cambodia, it is not only the streets that are diffi cult to navigate. Everyday life is also a struggle for many of the country’s 14.3 million inhabitants. Although the province of Battambang is known as the 'Rice Bowl' of Cambodia on account of its fertile land, its inhabitants still have to survive on an average wage of 1,800 Riel per day, or half a US dollar.
