Chefs sizzle for charity

Chefs Sunny de Ocampo, Don Hancey, Stephen Clarke and Peter Manifis.

24/Aug/2010
InMyCommunity.com (Perth, Western Australia)

SEVEN well-known chefs with big hearts will come together on August 30 to raise money for Cambodian children.

Cocktails for Cambodia aims to raise $30,000 to help three groups – the Paul Dubrule Hospitality School, The Children’s Surgical Centre and The Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity.

It’s hard to imagine what life is like for people who live in Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in Asia, but Don Hancey, one of WA’s most accomplished chefs, has seen first-hand the suffering and is driven to make a difference.

Five years ago, he established the Yes Cambodia organisation.

This year Don’s friends – Russell Blaikie of Must Winebar, Stephen Clarke of Clarkes of North Beach, Peter Manifis of Incontro Restaurant, Eat Good Life’s Sunny de Ocampo, Theo Kalogeracos of Little Caesars Pizzeria, and master oyster shucker Jerry Fraser – have come on board for the fourth Cocktails for Cambodia event.

Don said the event was not only about raising money, but also raising awareness.

“In the past five years, we have continued our support by raising funds and working on special projects but it’s never enough; every time you go over there, you see other areas of need,” he said.

“I’ve not known anyone that has gone there and not come back and wanted to do something.”

Don said the biggest problems were lack of health and welfare and lack of education.

“When you help educate kids through the hospitality school you empower them; it means they can get a job,” he said.

“A lot of these kids support their parents.

“Give a kid an education and you’ve given them a survival tool for life.”

- The event is at West Coast TAFE Joondalup Hospitality & Tourism Centre and will include a charity auction.

Tickets available at www.yescambodia.org

Local couple reaches out to needy in Cambodia, Thailand

Children in Cambodia
Sean Dodds connects with a child
Sidney resident Chris Dodds with one of the children

Thursday, February 14, 2008
Sydney Herald (Australia)

One's a country that has become a popular, exotic and an affordable vacation spot. The country to the east is still in shambles, trying to rebuild from a genocide that wiped out 1.7 million of its people and destroyed all social and economic systems.

Thailand and Cambodia are the two countries that two Sidney residents, Chris and Sean Dodds, decided to visit. They didn't visit to see something exotic or experience another culture through night clubs and fancy dinners. They went to help.

"We could have just sent money," Chris said.

"It probably would have been more efficient," her husband, Sean, said. "But to show the people that you care by being there, and really taking it home and sharing that with everyone you meet, that's a very important part of short-term mission trips."

The Dodds, originally from southern California, did not go alone. They went with a team of seven from their former church, Calvary Chapel Pacific Hills. This was Sean's fifth trip.

They flew into Bangkok and met up with a missionary originally from their church in Chiang Rai, though she has been living in Thailand for 28 years.

"Rose (Martinez) has set up six orphanages, and they blow out of the water every preconception I had of orphanages," Chris said.

Sean added that Martinez has a connection with children that is special, and the orphanages, which started with two people donating $50 a month, a dirt floor and six orphans, are a place that the children are cared for very well.

"She raises the children Thai," Sean said. "She doesn't try to raise them as westerners." The children raised in Martinez's orphanages in Thailand and Cambodia have gone on to hold government positions, teachers, translators and more.

After spending time in Thailand, they crossed the border into Cambodia and went to a town which travel guides warn: "if you've been in Poipet for 15 minutes, that's 15 minutes too long."

"Nothing can prepare you for what you see," Chris said. "Sean told me about it, and showed me pictures, but I wasn't prepared. I cried the whole way through. There were kids running around the streets without clothes, and I thought where are their parents?"

"Most were lost to AIDS contracted and spread through work in brothels, and sometimes the parents leave to work in Thailand for months at a time," Sean said.

It was in Poipet that the Dodds and their team met Chomno who created and runs Cambodian Hope Organization (CHO). Chomno's entire family was murdered by the Khmer Rouge government during 1975-80; he alone survived the killing fields. He has now devoted his life to educating Khmer children and parents.

"Often times people will come to families and offer to buy the children," Chris said. "I used to think these people were horrible that would sell their child."

"But a person comes to you offering $1,000, you have three other children to feed and you only make $1 a week, it becomes hazy," Sean added. "They often promise the parents they will teach the child a skill, but they are instead sold into the brothels. They're used up by the time they are 20 to 21."

Chomno has classes to warn parents the truth behind these schemes and what really happens to their children. Chomno also goes to the public schools and delivers vitamins for the children. He also offers classes for children to teach them a trade to give them other options besides death or prostitution.

Just last year, with money donated by Calvary Chapel Pacific Hills, they removed mines in the village that were left by the Khmer Rouge. There were nine removed from the playing field alone. Chomno also works heavily in helping get children out of human trafficking.

"Once the kids are used," Sean says, "they are dumped on the border. Those are harsh words, but to go into detail and say it any other way is too difficult to talk about at all."

Chomno and Martinez combine their efforts in Poipet to help orphans, single moms and women just out of the brothels find a support system in one another and in the family of Christ.

The Dodds and their team put on a conference for the teachers of both Martinez and Chomno's various ministries called "Walking in the Spirit." They talked about the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit along with giving marriage and parenting classes. The conference ended with a question and answer session that the audience loved more than was participated.

"As I was getting ready to leave, a woman came up to me and hugged me," Chris said. "We couldn't communicate yet there was a connection. I had done something for her, meant something to her. That was a great hug."

"Everyone should get out of their comfort zone and go to a place where people don't think the same," Sean said. "The living conditions there are beyond appalling, yet in some senses the people are more content; it's what they have always known. But going will impact and change your life."