Cambodia's Disabled Fight Poverty, Inequality

A former Khmer Rouge soldier who lost both arms to an anti-personnel landmine. (Photo: http://npac.ca/)

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
By CATHERINE WILSON
ASIA SENTINEL

Cambodia remains littered with millions of unexploded devices left over from 30 years of civil war, the brutality of the Khmer Rouge and conflict with Vietnam.

The government itself believes that as many as 2 percent of the country's 14.7 million people are disabled with landmine casualties a significant proportion.

Poung Mai, who lost both legs when he stepped on a landmine, is one of those victims. He and Chhum Sopheap, who has suffered from polio, are seated on the ground in the midday sun next to the ticket kiosk inside the entrance gates to the National Museum in Phnom Penh with a basket of books to sell, each one carefully wrapped in plastic to lessen the inevitable damage from perpetual sun and dust.

Cambodia's Disabled Fight Poverty, Inequality

Landmine explosions/casualties still affect thousands

Monday, 28 March 2011
Written by Catherine Wilson
Asia Sentinel

Cambodia remains littered with millions of unexploded devices left over from 30 years of civil war, the brutality of the Khmer Rouge and conflict with Vietnam.

The government itself believes that as many as 2 percent of the country's 14.7 million people are disabled with landmine casualties a significant proportion.

Poung Mai, who lost both legs when he stepped on a landmine, is one of those victims. He and Chhum Sopheap, who has suffered from polio, are seated on the ground in the midday sun next to the ticket kiosk inside the entrance gates to the National Museum in Phnom Penh with a basket of books to sell, each one carefully wrapped in plastic to lessen the inevitable damage from perpetual sun and dust.

Re-cycle your old shoes...and help disabled Cambodians

June 10, 2008
Chicago Tribune (Illinois, USA)

Flip-flops are popular in Cambodia's largely shoeless culture, but they're not the best footwear if you're trying to ride an indoor stationary bike.

So Cori Parks, an American spinning and fitness instructor who is helping train disabled volleyball players and other Cambodian athletes, is asking for donations of old stiff-soled cycling shoes.

She'll take any size, condition and even lonely singles; just don't send tennis shoes because she can get those at the local market. She also can't use shoes with cleats.

Half of the 11 stationary bikes she currently has were donated by Frog's Fitness in Southern California. Parks is looking for two or three pairs of most sizes to equip riders on an as-needed basis.

To donate shoes, get them to Nicki Anderson at Reality Fitness personal training studio, 39 1/2 W. Jefferson Ave., in Naperville by July 4.

The shoes will help land mine victims, the deaf youth development center and other local Cambodians who want to train with Parks who is helping the Cambodian National Volleyball Team (Disabled) in a program called Stand up Cambodia.

"It's an effort to emphasize sports for the disabled and to help the nation heal," Parks said, referring to Cambodia's brutal and tragic past. "When (Stand Up Cambodia) goes for funding, it is often denied because donors like to give to "health" projects, like vaccines, water sanitation and food distribution...which perplexes (Stand Up Cambodia organizers) because they can't figure out how sports isn't associated with health OR national reconciliation...especially since there are some older guys from different sides of the war on the same team."

In 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge took power and tried to rebuild the country's agriculture on an 11th Century model. Western medicine was eliminated, cities were evacuated and the entire population was sent on forced marches. It's estimated that between 1 and 3 million people were killed, while hundreds of thousands fled across the border.

Here's a Q and A with Parks, an awe-inspiring former Peace Corps volunteer from Encinitas, Calif., who has lived all over the world, but now resides in Cambodia with her husband and two children.

Q: How did you end up with a fitness career in the developing world?

A: I started out as an Interpreter for the Deaf (ASL) and had the wonderful fortune of being an AFS (American Field Service) student for my senior year in Australia. My host sister was deaf and my mum was a teacher for the deaf. This was the kindling of so many things for me: ASL interpreter, ESL (English as a Second Language) degree, Peace Corps, cross cultural living, deaf education, teaching and adult training.

When we lived in Kenya, I spent a lot of time killing time at the gym; my son was in pre-school and I wasn't working. I turned to fitness more as a coping strategy while my husband worked in Burundi, than for fitness. From there I got certified through the American Council on Exercise and spent time during each home-leave to the U.S. upping my credentials which now include YogaFit, WellCoaches Fitness Coach and Spinning ™

Through my years in Kenya, Madagascar and Egypt, I taught First Aid/cpr, group fitness, did personal training, trained trainers and channeled my energy toward what is now culminating in my dream life.

I have a small spinning and personal training studio so I can continue to be an instructor for the many expats also living outside their comfort zone who, like me, turn to fitness for both the benefits of being fit and coping with the stresses of living and working outside their culture but that also has an overt mission to offer training to people who would otherwise not get it.

Q: What is the fitness scene like in Cambodia?

A: There are pockets of exercising people around town. They are going by 5 a.m. doing aerobics (lots of punching grapevines is what I've seen) to tinny Asian music. At the Olympic stadium they do it too at 5 p.m.. You just show up and join in with the leader of your choice who has a boom box. By 7 a.m. the tai chi in the park people are winding down as are the hacky sackers (circular soccer with a bean bag). I won't be joining them. They play for keeps.

Q: Why spinning as opposed to a sport without equipment?

A: I'm a spinning instructor! My hope is that I can work with people who might not otherwise get a chance to do spinning to train their cardio endurance and learn about their heart rate. Nothing is as good as just playing your sport to get good at your sport, but this will be an opportunity to cross train in a way they never got to do before.

Q: Do you see signs of Cambodia's tragic past?

A: I was 10 in 1975 and teaching my dog how to roller skate and jump rope, coordinating outfits with my friends. (A Cambodian friend) was also 10 that year, and she was picking up spilled, uncooked rice off the ground to eat so she wouldn't starve. She saw her neighbors tortured. It is hard to believe we are of the same world. But she doesn't dwell. She is married and has two boys and is happy to have a healthy family with a future for her kids and herself.

My children are aware and respectful of their surroundings. We don't waste food and if we know we won't eat something we give it away before it goes bad. We often have power cuts and are really fortunate to have a landlord who installed a generator for us. But it makes noise and gives us power when others don't have it, so we turn it off by 9 p.m. because there are so many kids on our street…we would feel awful if we ran the generator and kept others up for our comfort.

Q: Can sports help with national reconciliation? How?

A: Some have said that if the world faced a common enemy, we would unite and fight for the world (guess it has to be a bigger enemy than global warming and hunger). This national volleyball team is fantastic and brings families, villages and regions pride when they're in the newspaper. As they start to compete against other teams (both amputee and non-amputee) outside Cambodia and win, people celebrate and forget the history of internal conflict and have a sense of pride as a united country. Even the team has people who used to be on opposite sides of the war. They take it out on the court.

Q: Is Cambodia able to help its disabled community?

A: It would take a pretty forth right community to simply recognize disabled people as people. I'm not even sure America is totally there. All throughout the world, if a family member was somehow disabled, it has meant hardship. If a family can only afford education for one child, they have to put their "most likely to succeed" child in. It has taken tremendous work from awe-inspiring people, like the guys at Stand Up Cambodia to say, 'what if we just make it possible and see where we end up?'

To have to live your life with any sense of shame for not wearing the same frame as another person is a profoundly missed opportunity to nurture a soul who could change the world…or their country, or their village…or their family. I don’t really know about the support systems for people who are disabled in Cambodia, but I do think there is no need for any one in any country to wait for the government to respond, when we can all do our bit with acceptance and opportunity.

Cambodian Disabled Arts Festival Promotes Equal Rights

Cambodian landmine victims Keo Vuthy, 43, left, and Sim Sameth, 27, head to prepare a water well in Veal Thom village, southwest of Phnom Penh (2005 File)

By Rory Byrne, Voice of America
Phnom Penh
07 March 2008

A festival aimed at promoting disabled artists in Cambodia has just ended in the nation's capital, Phnom Penh. Despite having one of the world's highest rates of disabled people, social, political and economic discrimination against the disabled is widespread in Cambodia. Organizers say that the aim of the festival was to try to help change popular perceptions of disability in Cambodia by promoting disabled people's abilities rather than their disabilities. Rory Byrne reports for VOA from Phnom Penh.

Hundreds of mainly disabled children took part in the opening parade of the Spotlight Festival - the first of its kind in Cambodia aimed at promoting the rights of the disabled.

The children came from towns and cities all over Cambodia bringing a big splash of color on an otherwise dull afternoon in Phnom Penh.

Hannah Stevens, the Director of the Spotlight, says that the festival is trying to show how the disabled can play a fuller role in Cambodian society, "I believe that Spotlight gives people the opportunity to prove their abilities. In Cambodia, we still have quite a problem where people with disabilities aren't integrated into society, there isn't full access to education, people aren't necessarily able to get jobs," said Stevens. "I think this project - the whole point of it is to promote the abilities of these people so that actually they're very, very capable to go to school, and to receive education, to participate in the arts and to participate in society generally."

Decades of war and poverty have left Cambodia with one of the highest rates of disabled people in the world. A 2005 report by the Asian Development Bank estimates that about 15 percent of the population is afflicted with some form of disability

That includes an estimated 40,000 land-mine survivors and 50,000 victims of preventable diseases like polio.

Like in other developing countries, disabled people in Cambodia are typically among the poorest of the poor. Many suffer discrimination in their daily lives.

Polio victim Ngin Saorath is the Executive Director of the Cambodian Disabled People's Organization.

"In Cambodia, there are a lot of discrimination towards people with disability because the people in Cambodia believe in Karma - they say that you did something wrong - because you did something very bad - in the past life, that's why you live and you're born with disability," explained Saroth.

Saroth says that disabled people in Cambodia are often denied access to education and employment opportunities.

"In the family most people they got the children with disability - they not allow the children to go to school or they just let the children to stay home and look after or cooking for the relative," added Saroth. "They feel that [a] disabled person cannot do anything - just look after the cow or take care of the sister or the nephew - so they cannot get education, they don't send their children to get education because they feel that in society there is no available job for [a] disabled person."

The Spotlight festival featured performances and workshops from a number of acclaimed disabled artists from Cambodia and the wider region.

Performers included blind Cambodian musician Kong Nay, master of the so-called "Mekong Delta Blues," who some call the "Ray Charles of Cambodia" because of his trademark sunglasses.

Also performing at the festival was acclaimed drumming team Koshu Roa Taiko from Japan. All of the drummers are deaf and play by feeling the drum's vibrations.

Mary Scott is the Country Director of the Cambodian Trust, a British NGO working to promote disabled rights in Cambodia: "The Spotlight Festival was groundbreaking in Cambodia," she said. "There has never been a festival like that where people with disabilities and people without disabilities have pulled together to bring together a cultural programme."

As well as showing how the disabled can play a full role in the arts, the festival succeeded in bringing some joy into the lives of some of Cambodia's most vulnerable disabled children.

Organizers hope that festivals like Spotlight can help to bring about a general shift in attitudes towards the disabled in Cambodia and the wider region.