Showing posts with label Overseas Cambodians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Overseas Cambodians. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Monday, October 25, 2010
Cambodia must heed increasing international calls to respect human rights: CCHR
Cambodia must heed increasing international calls to respect human rights
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) welcomes the European Parliament's adoption on October 20 of a resolution recognizing the deterioration of the human rights situation in Cambodia and the drift towards a de facto one party political system. CCHR supports the European Parliament's call for the European Union to end the impunity with which the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) has violated the rights of its citizens by ensuring that its undemocratic and repressive policies have financial consequences. CCHR also calls on the RGC to heed the increasing local and international concern over its human rights record, acknowledge that its current policies and practices are not leading to the development of a fair and just society and take measures to overhaul its priorities to ensure that it is focusing on the best interests of the Cambodian people.
In its October 20 resolution, the European Parliament acknowledged that the European Union is Cambodia's single largest donor, support which is grounded in a 1997 Framework Cooperation Agreement between Cambodia and the European Union. Article 1 of the Agreement states that respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights constitute "an essential element" of the Agreement. The European Parliament's resolution urges the European Union to take steps to ensure that fundamental freedoms, as enshrined in Article 1 of the Agreement are respected, "that attacks on civil liberties have consequences" and that the European Union makes "the continuation of its financial aid conditional upon an improvement in Cambodia's human rights record."
In June this year, Cambodia's international donors pledged US$1.1 billion dollars in aid to Cambodia on the same day that the Supreme Court upheld a spurious defamation conviction resulting from a complaint from the Prime Minister against opposition parliamentarian, Mu Sochua. Year-on-year increases in aid pledges from democratic nations reinforce perceptions amongst the ruling party that it can continue to sustain itself in power on the back of international financial support and a domestic strategy described by the European Parliament as "using a politically subservient judiciary to crack down on all government critics." As proposed in the European Parliament resolution, it is vital that the nations of the European Union and other donors take concrete steps, through reviewing their aid and trade policies towards Cambodia, to ensure that the litany of human rights abused recognized in the resolution - "the stifling of fundamental freedoms, a brutal policy of land-grabbing...the suppression of all forms of criticism and protest, the persecution of the parliamentary opposition and civil society activists, the use of the courts for political ends" - cannot continue with impunity.
The recent condemnation of the international community - expressed by parliamentarians in Ireland, Canada, the United States, and now the European Union - and a series of protests in the last few months from ex-pat Cambodian communities, has proven that people around the world are starting to take notice of the human rights situation in Cambodia. This weekend many Cambodians celebrated the anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords, which gave Cambodia a chance to introduce and consolidate a stable liberal democratic system capable of providing a mechanism for the healing of previous divisions and the reconstruction and economic development of Cambodia for the benefit of all its citizens. It is time for the ruling party to focus their efforts on improving the lives of citizens rather than the consolidation and protection of their own executive power. They have a duty to all Cambodians to do so.
For more information contact:
Ou Virak, CCHR President
Telephone: +855 12 40 40 51
email: ouvirak@cchrcambodia.org
John Coughlan, Senior Legal Consultant
Telephone: +855 89 58 35 90
Friday, April 20, 2007
Truancy battles hit home [in Lowell, Massachusetts, USA]
In Lowell, advocates visit families, find deeper issues
April 19, 2007
By Alexander Reid, Globe Staff
Boston Globe (Boston, Mass., USA)
April 19, 2007
By Alexander Reid, Globe Staff
Boston Globe (Boston, Mass., USA)
Every morning after breakfast Salean Chhliv would grab his books, say goodbye to his mother, and head out the door. But he wasn't going to school.
"We hung out at my friend's house," he said with an embarrassed smile. "We drank, we smoked. It was like a party. I did it once, then again and again after that. It was great."
A year short of graduating from Lowell High School, Chhliv dropped out altogether. But he didn't stay out. He went back, even graduated last year, but not without a big push from Pitou Phat, a caseworker with the immigrant advocacy group One Lowell.
Using a style that meshes the role of a social worker with that of a truant officer, Phat and his colleagues manage to do what parents and teachers often can't.
"We say, 'Look at your parents. See how hard they work,' " said Phat during a break after one of several home visits. "I tell them, 'They do this for you, so you won't have to work so hard. But you must go to school.' "
One Lowell works with school administrators in targeting students who are chronically absent. The effort was launched four years ago with about $230,000 from foundations, federal, and state sources. The effort started with one part-time caseworker who handled 23 cases the first year. Since then it has added two full-time staff and another part-time caseworker. Phat and Ana Suarez, the agency's other full-time caseworker, handled more than 150 students between them in the last school year.
Because of the size of the high school -- 3,700 students -- the problem of truancy is too big for a program such as One Lowell to make a significant impact on overall attendance. In fact, the average number of days that students were absent at the high school has not changed dramatically in recent years. Last school year, that average was 18.2 days, almost double the state figure.
But the One Lowell effort has brought some students back. And school officials welcome the program.
"We're happy to have One Lowell," said Kerry Lynch, coordinator of student support services at Lowell High. "They're more involved with the families than we can be."
The initial focus of One Lowell was the high school, but it has since broadened its reach to the middle schools. The parents of most youths in the program are immigrants, many from Cambodia; English is their second language, and customs and attitudes toward school are different.
In all cases, the students have accumulated more than the maximum number of absences allowed by the district. Under school policy, students lose credit for courses after five unexcused absences per semester. Students with 10 consecutive absences can be dropped from the rolls.
"It's often more than a wayward child that we're dealing with," said Victoria Fahlberg, executive director of One Lowell. "Sometimes it is a student who skips school because it seems boring or irrelevant. But that's not true across the board. The reasons can be complicated and difficult to fathom unless you go into the homes and engage the whole family."
The key to unraveling these reasons begins with a home visit. Lowell's diverse population requires caseworkers who are fluent in Spanish and Khmer. Acting on referrals from school administrators, the caseworkers contact parents to arrange a meeting in the student's presence. For some parents, it's the first they've learned of their child's truancy. Phat said most parents are shocked when they find out.
"Moms and dads send their children to school, then they go to work," said Phat, 50. "They think everything is all right. We call them and tell them their child has not been going to school. It's very upsetting. They don't believe us."
Once emotions are settled, a long talk follows. Phat and Suarez explain to the student the value of an education. They talk about life without a diploma and the hard road that lies ahead without an education.
"Kids think in the present moment," said Suarez. "They hear from their parents that they should go to school and they shrug it off. They think this life -- not having to work, no responsibilities -- is going to last forever."
But almost every case calls for more than a stern lecture. Chronic absenteeism is usually a sign of deeper issues, and solutions are not simple.
Fahlberg recalls the case of two girls, one 12, the other 13, who were missing school because they had to stay home and tend to their infants. In another case, parents were forcing their son to work and earn money to buy food and pay rent. "The family's day-to-day priority was survival," said Fahlberg. "Education didn't rate."
Some families need help navigating the system.
Tommy Thet's parents kept him out of school for more than 30 days last year because of recurrent asthma attacks. His parents didn't know about the school's policy requiring doctor's notes for excused absences. Thet's parents were informed that he would have to repeat the sixth grade. Phat arranged a meeting at the school between Thet's father and administrators. Thet, 13, was allowed to attend summer school to make up his lost instruction.
"It's a simple thing, but no one ever explained it to them," Phat said.
One of Suarez's cases involves a father-son conflict. To protest the authority of his father, Jaime, Alex Alcantaro, 14, stopped going to school. "I had enough of school," said the younger Alcantaro. "I'd argue with my dad and then get to school and have to deal with the teachers telling me what to do. I felt like it was a waste of time."
Suarez received the case in March 2006 after Alcantaro had missed about 30 days of school. Alcantaro agreed to attend summer classes at Stokolosa Middle School. Suarez also had the family sign up for counseling to help ease tensions, and she encouraged Alex's father to drive him to school every morning .
"There was so much tension between them," she said. "Alex wouldn't take school seriously because he was so angry at his father. Counseling was good for them."
Lowell High headmaster William Samaras said chronic absenteeism is often a precursor to students' dropping out altogether.
"Many can come back and make up for lost time, but a lot of times the students have lost connection and no longer see it as part of their lives so they don't return," he said.
Along with One Lowell, the high school has other approaches to minimize absenteeism. An electronic phone system makes calls to the homes of students who are absent. School personnel call homes at night to reach parents who may be at work earlier in the day.
Lynch, the student support services coordinator at the high school, said students are also allowed to sign up for the "buyback" program, which allows them to make up absences by attending classes in the afternoon or on Saturdays. "They spend an hour in the program for every hour they've missed in unexcused absences," said Lynch.
Lynch said One Lowell is a welcome addition to the array of programs designed to get and keep students in school.
Besides home visits, One Lowell caseworkers make referrals, helping to plug families into the social service network, directing them to agencies that provide fuel assistance or counseling.
And the work continues even after the youths go back to school. Every two weeks the caseworkers receive attendance records and also conduct follow-up visits to make sure their students stay on the right track.
Phat, a father of four himself, said he can relate to what his client families are going through.
"I like children," he said. "Each one has potential but with no education, they have very little chance."
"We hung out at my friend's house," he said with an embarrassed smile. "We drank, we smoked. It was like a party. I did it once, then again and again after that. It was great."
A year short of graduating from Lowell High School, Chhliv dropped out altogether. But he didn't stay out. He went back, even graduated last year, but not without a big push from Pitou Phat, a caseworker with the immigrant advocacy group One Lowell.
Using a style that meshes the role of a social worker with that of a truant officer, Phat and his colleagues manage to do what parents and teachers often can't.
"We say, 'Look at your parents. See how hard they work,' " said Phat during a break after one of several home visits. "I tell them, 'They do this for you, so you won't have to work so hard. But you must go to school.' "
One Lowell works with school administrators in targeting students who are chronically absent. The effort was launched four years ago with about $230,000 from foundations, federal, and state sources. The effort started with one part-time caseworker who handled 23 cases the first year. Since then it has added two full-time staff and another part-time caseworker. Phat and Ana Suarez, the agency's other full-time caseworker, handled more than 150 students between them in the last school year.
Because of the size of the high school -- 3,700 students -- the problem of truancy is too big for a program such as One Lowell to make a significant impact on overall attendance. In fact, the average number of days that students were absent at the high school has not changed dramatically in recent years. Last school year, that average was 18.2 days, almost double the state figure.
But the One Lowell effort has brought some students back. And school officials welcome the program.
"We're happy to have One Lowell," said Kerry Lynch, coordinator of student support services at Lowell High. "They're more involved with the families than we can be."
The initial focus of One Lowell was the high school, but it has since broadened its reach to the middle schools. The parents of most youths in the program are immigrants, many from Cambodia; English is their second language, and customs and attitudes toward school are different.
In all cases, the students have accumulated more than the maximum number of absences allowed by the district. Under school policy, students lose credit for courses after five unexcused absences per semester. Students with 10 consecutive absences can be dropped from the rolls.
"It's often more than a wayward child that we're dealing with," said Victoria Fahlberg, executive director of One Lowell. "Sometimes it is a student who skips school because it seems boring or irrelevant. But that's not true across the board. The reasons can be complicated and difficult to fathom unless you go into the homes and engage the whole family."
The key to unraveling these reasons begins with a home visit. Lowell's diverse population requires caseworkers who are fluent in Spanish and Khmer. Acting on referrals from school administrators, the caseworkers contact parents to arrange a meeting in the student's presence. For some parents, it's the first they've learned of their child's truancy. Phat said most parents are shocked when they find out.
"Moms and dads send their children to school, then they go to work," said Phat, 50. "They think everything is all right. We call them and tell them their child has not been going to school. It's very upsetting. They don't believe us."
Once emotions are settled, a long talk follows. Phat and Suarez explain to the student the value of an education. They talk about life without a diploma and the hard road that lies ahead without an education.
"Kids think in the present moment," said Suarez. "They hear from their parents that they should go to school and they shrug it off. They think this life -- not having to work, no responsibilities -- is going to last forever."
But almost every case calls for more than a stern lecture. Chronic absenteeism is usually a sign of deeper issues, and solutions are not simple.
Fahlberg recalls the case of two girls, one 12, the other 13, who were missing school because they had to stay home and tend to their infants. In another case, parents were forcing their son to work and earn money to buy food and pay rent. "The family's day-to-day priority was survival," said Fahlberg. "Education didn't rate."
Some families need help navigating the system.
Tommy Thet's parents kept him out of school for more than 30 days last year because of recurrent asthma attacks. His parents didn't know about the school's policy requiring doctor's notes for excused absences. Thet's parents were informed that he would have to repeat the sixth grade. Phat arranged a meeting at the school between Thet's father and administrators. Thet, 13, was allowed to attend summer school to make up his lost instruction.
"It's a simple thing, but no one ever explained it to them," Phat said.
One of Suarez's cases involves a father-son conflict. To protest the authority of his father, Jaime, Alex Alcantaro, 14, stopped going to school. "I had enough of school," said the younger Alcantaro. "I'd argue with my dad and then get to school and have to deal with the teachers telling me what to do. I felt like it was a waste of time."
Suarez received the case in March 2006 after Alcantaro had missed about 30 days of school. Alcantaro agreed to attend summer classes at Stokolosa Middle School. Suarez also had the family sign up for counseling to help ease tensions, and she encouraged Alex's father to drive him to school every morning .
"There was so much tension between them," she said. "Alex wouldn't take school seriously because he was so angry at his father. Counseling was good for them."
Lowell High headmaster William Samaras said chronic absenteeism is often a precursor to students' dropping out altogether.
"Many can come back and make up for lost time, but a lot of times the students have lost connection and no longer see it as part of their lives so they don't return," he said.
Along with One Lowell, the high school has other approaches to minimize absenteeism. An electronic phone system makes calls to the homes of students who are absent. School personnel call homes at night to reach parents who may be at work earlier in the day.
Lynch, the student support services coordinator at the high school, said students are also allowed to sign up for the "buyback" program, which allows them to make up absences by attending classes in the afternoon or on Saturdays. "They spend an hour in the program for every hour they've missed in unexcused absences," said Lynch.
Lynch said One Lowell is a welcome addition to the array of programs designed to get and keep students in school.
Besides home visits, One Lowell caseworkers make referrals, helping to plug families into the social service network, directing them to agencies that provide fuel assistance or counseling.
And the work continues even after the youths go back to school. Every two weeks the caseworkers receive attendance records and also conduct follow-up visits to make sure their students stay on the right track.
Phat, a father of four himself, said he can relate to what his client families are going through.
"I like children," he said. "Each one has potential but with no education, they have very little chance."
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Mental Health Phenomenon Among Oversea Cambodians
15-03-2007
Source : Center for Social Development
By : Pongsathya Pholy
Source : Center for Social Development
By : Pongsathya Pholy
There are approximately 30,000 Cambodian Americans who called Lowell, Massachusetts their home. It is the third largest of Cambodians concentration outside of Cambodia and Long Beach, CA. Overall, there are approximately 200,000 Cambodians residing in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). It has been over 30 years since the Cambodian people went through one of the worse human tragedy under the Khmer Rouge Regime. Approximately, 2 million Cambodians and about a quarter of the Cambodian population were perished.
The process of healing and national reconciliation for the Cambodian people has been an unusually slow. There are a number of reasons that contribute to the challenges of getting the Cambodian people to get on their feet again. Presently, in the U.S., the lack of human resources continues to be a problem. The majority of Cambodians are still illiterate both in Khmer and in English. Comparatively to other ethnic minority groups in the U.S., Cambodian Americans still continue to struggle when it comes to socioeconomic and sociopolitical.
Many Cambodians are headed by single-parent household. A large number of Cambodian Americans are still dependence on government financial assistance. The rates of unemployment are high due to insufficient of needed skills and expertise. Many Cambodians are working at minimum wages ($5-$8/hr) depending on their location. There are alarming rates of domestic violence, gambling, school dropout, and youth delinquency. Many Cambodians are addicted to licit and illicit substances such as alcohol and/or opiate.
So what is the phenomenon behind all of these challenges and struggles among the Cambodian people oversea? As mentioned above, the process of healing from the physical and psychological trauma has been rather sluggish. According to many studies, approximately 50 percent of Cambodian Americans still manifested symptoms of psychological trauma such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depression, and conversion disorder. Thus, many Cambodians do not seek psychological services. And access to competence mental health providers and psychological services proved difficult. Furthermore, Cambodians do not comprehend the concept of psychological trauma nor seeking psychotherapy. And due to the culture of submission and concern of losing face for admitting their problems, prevent many Cambodians from seeking health and mental health services.
Additionally, many Cambodians are facing daily discrimination from the mainstream community.
Extracted from: Searching Bulletin of the Center for Social Development, Vol.13, # 134, November-December 2006, p16.
The process of healing and national reconciliation for the Cambodian people has been an unusually slow. There are a number of reasons that contribute to the challenges of getting the Cambodian people to get on their feet again. Presently, in the U.S., the lack of human resources continues to be a problem. The majority of Cambodians are still illiterate both in Khmer and in English. Comparatively to other ethnic minority groups in the U.S., Cambodian Americans still continue to struggle when it comes to socioeconomic and sociopolitical.
Many Cambodians are headed by single-parent household. A large number of Cambodian Americans are still dependence on government financial assistance. The rates of unemployment are high due to insufficient of needed skills and expertise. Many Cambodians are working at minimum wages ($5-$8/hr) depending on their location. There are alarming rates of domestic violence, gambling, school dropout, and youth delinquency. Many Cambodians are addicted to licit and illicit substances such as alcohol and/or opiate.
So what is the phenomenon behind all of these challenges and struggles among the Cambodian people oversea? As mentioned above, the process of healing from the physical and psychological trauma has been rather sluggish. According to many studies, approximately 50 percent of Cambodian Americans still manifested symptoms of psychological trauma such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depression, and conversion disorder. Thus, many Cambodians do not seek psychological services. And access to competence mental health providers and psychological services proved difficult. Furthermore, Cambodians do not comprehend the concept of psychological trauma nor seeking psychotherapy. And due to the culture of submission and concern of losing face for admitting their problems, prevent many Cambodians from seeking health and mental health services.
Additionally, many Cambodians are facing daily discrimination from the mainstream community.
Extracted from: Searching Bulletin of the Center for Social Development, Vol.13, # 134, November-December 2006, p16.
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