Art providing income and therapy for Cambodian children

October 2, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

In the fight against poverty and crime in Cambodia, a grassroots non-government organisation has taken up a very colourful approach.

With brushes, pots of paint and canvasses big and small, hundreds of children are literally painting against poverty. The children's artistic creations are being exhibited around Australia.

Presenter: Esther Han
Speakers: Felix Brooks-Church, director, Cambodian Children's Painting Project; Justine Carter, art exhibit attendee; Sakal, art exhibit attendee

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

ESTHER HAN: For the children of a small port city in Cambodia, the idea of having their art displayed on the walls of hip art galleries around Australia may seem a bit far-fetched.

But that's the reality for more than a hundred children who are part of the Cambodian Children's Painting Project, which is based in Sihanoukville.

It's launched the paintings roadshow to boost awareness and funds.

Felix Brooks-Church is the Project's director.

FELIX BROOKS-CHURCH: Our whole focus is to use art as therapy and also as a means to get them off the beach, alternative income, and in schools with full sponsorships. And now we have 120 children in school.

ESTHER HAN: The subjects of the paintings range from elephants to monks walking in the rain to the very abstract.

It's also obvious the paintings reflect the children's thoughts and experiences.

FELIX BROOKS-CHURCH: A lot of them come from such extreme conditions and abusive households and so art is a way for them to get out their emotions.

So in the beginning they paint a lot of very dark, scary pictures. Some of the ones we were looking at, they look like a skeleton boy with a smile, but just shrouded by darkness and another one with a face crumbling. I mean this is a child's impression of life or impression of themselves, who knows.

But this is the beginning and you can actually look at the stages over the course of a year and the child might be painting that dark, kind of ominous picture, and in the next painting, beautiful flourishing colours of his culture or really how he feels.

It's all about creative outlets; it's all about reconnecting them with their social peer group.

ESTHER HAN: When you set up this project, did you have any idea that 15-year-olds, 12-year-olds could achieve a painting like this?

FELIX BROOKS-CHURCH: Not only are they so talented, but they're self-taught, they teach each other.

Boh Siningh, just a little kid working on the beach, collecting cans, begging, and now he's a flourishing artist. He's one of the biggest breadwinners in his family by selling art. A nd not only that, he's taken it upon himself to teach some of the younger kids art, teach them English, he also initiated a bicycle workshop.

ESTHER HAN: A painting that is a stand out is by a boy named Sok Piset.

FELIX BROOKS-CHURCH: His style if very much like Jackson Pollock, pouring the paint all over. At first you think it's random, but if you look closely, it is a design and it is expressing how he feels.

What's remarkable about this piece and more so the artist is Sok Piset is 15-years-old but he is extremely, mentally handicapped. Probably learning and acting like a five-year-old. But he is able to create these works of art that surpasses, as far as abstract and impressionism, surpasses any other children.

ESTHER HAN: The Painting Project not only helps children be less vulnerable to exploitation, but it also gives mentally disabled children a new lease on life.

FELIX BROOKS-CHURCH: Unfortunately their situation's very dire, there's no mental health facilities, there's so safety net for children like this.

A lot of times they're kind of thrown to the waste, they don't get a proper education and they actually become a burden to family that is already struggling because of poverty. And so they're often outcasts and some of the most poorest beggars are mentally handicapped.

But what's impressive about him, he's actually the breadwinner of his family. We've switched it, and through this project, not only does he have an income but he has an income enough to support his entire family and he's an amazing, amazing strong individual.

ESTHER HAN: It's his painting that's the show stopper.

JUSTINE CARTER: What drew me to this was the light and shade of the colour. There's just a texture to it, and the shapes and the colours and the background is just, it's absolutely awesome, there's a life to it.

ESTHER HAN: And the paintings were even more meaningful for Sakal, who was born and raised in Cambodia.

SAKAL: You see some of these really, really good pictures painted by 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds and its beautiful paintings, sort of reflects my own story in Cambodia. And it's a good thing now that we can help these children out because I myself also an orphan through the Khmer Rouge regime as well.

Innocence lost, reason for HOPE

Artist Roger Dixon, the founder of the Cambodian Children’s Painting Project, oversees his young charges’ work at Serendipity Beach’s Serendip Bar, which also houses a gallery of paintings for sale.

With the Cambodian government, communities and families having failed the children who are preyed upon by paedophiles in Sihanoukville, an arts project offers a way out

January 2, 2008
Clive Graham-Ranger
Special to The Nation (Thailand)

The beach has been cleaned of debris, the sea sparkles, towels are being laid out on recliners. It's another day at Serendipity Beach in Sihanoukville. It's a tourist brochure in living colour.

But take a closer look.

Two 50-year-old farang men mingle with the sun worshippers. Gripped tightly by the hand, their beach consorts are male children, barely 11 years old.

It is said that paedophiles thrive on Sihanoukville's sea, sand and anything-goes environment. In the capital, Phnom Penh, the battle against sexual deviants has driven most of them underground following a well-publicised clampdown after critical reports in an appalled international press.

Cambodia's southern beach resort, though, has attracted less official attention.

But a group of children who earn their living as vendors on the beach are turning the tide under the guiding hand and watchful eye of what is known locally as Ibiza's art gang.

Founded in 2005 by artist Roger Dixon, a 63-year-old Englishman, the Cambodian Children's Painting Project is headquartered in the Serendip Bar at the western end of the beach.

Several of its walls are the children's art gallery, with examples of the paintings offered as saleable souvenirs hawked along the beach.

About 100 children, ages five to 15, are registered with the project. They are mentored, fed and given canvases and a wide choice of oils and brushes to create their miniature masterpieces. Each child is honour-bound to attend the local school for four hours a day.

Dixon, who spends half the year in Sihanoukville and the rest at his home and art gallery on the Spanish island of Ibiza, started the project just over two years ago.

"I came here to paint, and quite a few kids came up to me and said how they wanted to do the same," he says.

"They had all been peddling stuff on the beach for a few riel, which they took home to their families, often begging a handful of rice or the scraps from a tourist table. Many came from violent and abusive homes; none was getting the semblance of a formal education. Reading and writing was what 'other kids' could do.

"So we committed ourselves to assisting children who were neglected by their families, communities and governments and who had long since slipped through the weak social safety nets, making them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation."

Dixon was also quick to recognise the ravages of malnutrition among the children and embarked on systematically raising funds to ensure every child had healthy teeth and gums and at least one good meal a day. His pragmatic approach and the recognition he deservedly received from tourists meant the project quickly outgrew its beach location, so he negotiated a deal with the Khmer family who rented the Serendip Bar, sharing their space and, he hoped, its customers.

It was a perfect arrangement, and within a year he received full non-governmental organisation (NGO) status. Creating an NGO from scratch is an achievement in itself, but with a growing number of children relying on his scant resources, he decided to call on local assistance.

Sokha Peng became the charity's director and Pen Sopheap took on the role of caretaker and helper at the gallery. Friends from Ibiza also chipped in with regular visits, and longer-term help came from the likes of 60-year-old Anna Janssen, whose baking skills are a daily treat for the children and bring in extra cash through the sale of her chocolate-chip brownies and other confections to nearby hotels.

Barry Flanagan, the renowned Irish artist and prominent member of Ibiza's art gang, has also donated money to the cause, giving the project US$7,000 (Bt212,000) and his wholehearted blessing for bringing art and education into the lives of so many dispossessed children.

The tipping point, though, was the arrival on the scene of Felix Brooks-Church, 30. Born in Ibiza but educated in the US in computer sciences and graphics, he moved back to Ibiza to be close to his artist parents and ran a beach bar for a couple of years.

"I've known Roger and Anna all my life," he says, "and they suggested I come and see what they were doing. Within days of my arrival I was convinced I was in the right place at the right time. These kids are so keen to learn. They come here with no expectations, only a child's natural-born inquisitiveness and desire to do something well and enjoy themselves."

Brooks-Church has brought new impetus to the project.

"The project is opening a window of opportunity for them, allowing them to be creative and express themselves, to earn an income and, most importantly, to learn about other alternative possibilities for empowerment through work, education and art."

The paintings, unframed, sell for $4, with half going to the child artist and the rest towards project financing and a communal education fund to cover school costs for all the children. So far they have produced well over 8,000 paintings and sold more than a half.

The children represent an early-warning system against the ever-present threat of sex tourists. If they see or hear of any suspicious behaviour they immediately report it to one of the project's staff members, who contacts the authorities.

"It's one of our golden rules that the children do not work the beach after sunset," says Brooks-Church. "Most nights my last job is to patrol the beach and stop any kids who are out there and ask why they're not at home."

Donations can be made to the project through the CCPP website, ArtCambodia.org.

The writer is an assistant editor of the South Eastern Globe, a monthly Cambodian newsmagazine where this article first appeared.