Residents rejoice as court reopens case

Villagers from Trea village, in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, outside the Supreme Court after learning that their land dispute case would be sent back to the Appeal Court (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Wednesday, 09 November
Kim Yuthana
The Phnom Penh Post

More than 200 residents and monks gathered outside the Supreme Court yesterday, welcoming its decision to send back to the Appeal Court a 13-year-old land-dispute case in the capital’s Meanchey district.

The case, which opened two weeks ago, was filed in 2000 by 320 families in Stung Meanchey commune’s Trea village. They claimed a 1998 municipal court verdict had unjustly awarded 20 hectares of their land to Rotha Phirom, Vorak Satha and Kim Heang after the trio filed a lawsuit.

In 1999, the Appeal Court upheld that decision, despite villagers’ claims that they had lived on the land for years.

TPRF Grant Provides Food for At-Risk Children in Cambodia

A grant of US$25,000 ensures nutritious food for over 500 children

SOURCE The Prem Rawat Foundation

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A grant of US$25,000 from The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) ensures direct food aid to impoverished children living at a toxic landfill site on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.

This is the third TPRF grant since 2008 to Cambodian Children's Fund (CCF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the education, health care and safety of marginalized Cambodian children whose families are trapped in persistent poverty.

An estimated 1,200 families live and work at the 100-acre Stung Meanchey landfill, scavenging through the garbage for scraps of plastic and metal to sell to nearby recycling centers. Children often work at night and are under constant threat from roving gangs and child traffickers. Domestic violence and child abuse are widely reported, as are manifest health problems resulting from malnutrition and environmental hazards.

For six years, CCF has been providing food, medical attention and education to children from destitute communities like Stung Meanchey. TPRF has helped to support their program each year since 2008. Paul Saunders, Board Chairman of CCF, writes, "Too many of Cambodia's children suffer in silence. Thanks to TPRF's commitment, CCF will continue to lead Cambodian children and their families beyond survival to a safe environment." The renewed funding by The Prem Rawat Foundation will ensure that over 500 children in CCF's Educational Centers receive the consistent and quality nutrition necessary for their development.

At CCF facilities, meals using fresh local produce, herbs, aromatics and meat are prepared on-site by experienced cooks trained in balanced nutrition and good hygiene practices. In addition, rice is distributed to 72 daycare 150 Satellite School students and their families as weekly school attendance incentives, and over 1,600 people are served nutritious subsidized meals in the Community Center Cafe each month.

TPRF's president, Linda Pascotto, observes that "TPRF is proud to support the Cambodian Children's Fund, which is making a huge difference to neglected children by offering them the chance not just to survive, but to grow up healthy and able to develop their own skills, talents and possibilities."

About The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF)

Created in 2001, TPRF promotes Prem Rawat's vision to address fundamental human needs so that people everywhere can live their lives with Dignity, Peace, and Prosperity. For more information, visit: http://www.tprf.org

Sayreville dentist's efforts helps desperately poor kids in Cambodia

December 25, 2008
By LEO D. ROMMEL • Staff Writer
MyCentralJersey.com (New Jersey, USA)

SAYREVILLE —The original game plan for Dr. Bernhard Kabitze was to head to Chicago, attend a dental association meeting, then head home.

Instead, he capitalized on an opportunity to help hundreds of needy children on the other side of the globe.

The 40-year-old dentist, whose office is at 314 Ernston Road in Parlin, unexpectedly started a charity craze at that Chicago meeting two months ago, raising $67,387 in a matter of hours for A New Day Cambodia, a nonprofit organization that donates funds to Cambodia's "garbage-dump-scavenger" children.

Kabitze said he was hesitant to donate at first, but a presentation given at the meeting by Bill Smith, the creator of the aid organization, helped changed his mind.

"(Smith) did a presentation about his organization, and he used slides on a projector screen," Kabitze said. "(Smith) said that he and his wife have been going to Cambodia since 2002. They always took pictures of what they saw."

The photos that rotated on the screen moved Kabitze.

"(Smith) showed pictures of children living in horrible conditions, barely clothed, actually picking through a garbage dump to find materials that they could sell to make a little bit of money," said Kabitze, a dentist for 17 years. "This was how they were helping support their families."

After Smith told the audience that the children only made a few cents a day, Kabitze, a Piscataway resident, turned to the dentists to his left and his right and said something along the lines of, "I really feel bad for these kids. I feel compelled to give. This is for a very good cause. Even if I give a little, it's something."

Kabitze didn't know either of the dentists' names, but both seemed to listen.

"Then I guess one dentist turned to the dentist next to them and said something along the same lines," said Kabitze. "And then I guess that dentist turned to another dentist and so on."

Within four hours, the conference room inside the Hyatt Regency at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport had raised $67,387, Kabitze said.

"I don't want to take complete credit for the event, because it wasn't all me," Kabitze said. "But I guess I may have started the buzz around the room.

It's kind of like a dance. If one person gets up and dances, then another one gets up and dances, and so on and so on."

Kabitze said he will continue to attend the dental meeting each October. He said he was glad he made a difference at the last event.

"I think in the end, everyone (in the room) wanted to help those children get a better life; help clothe them and feed them," he said. "The kids here have opportunities that kids over there don't. Without (A New Day Cambodia), many of those kids may get no education at all."

Kabitze said that his office also is a contributor to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation and that during Dental Awareness Month in August, he visits local schools and speaks to children about the benefits of proper dental hygiene.

Leo D. Rommel: 732-565-7296; lrommel@MyCentralJersey.com

Person of the Week: Scott Neeson

As a result of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, millions of lives were lost, creating a particularly dire situation for children. Many of the now-grown children and their kids live in the dump as a last resort. Child prostitution remains a big problem as well. (Margaret Conley/ABC)
The Steung Meanchey garbage dump site in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, spans eight football fields. The stench of the 100-feet-deep dump carries for miles in the humidity. It is where the poorest of Cambodia's poor eke out a living, collecting scraps of glass and metal, which they then sell for less than a dollar a day. (Margaret Conley/ABC)
Executive director/founder Scott Neeson received the Ambassadors for Children Peace Award, given by the World Food Program, this year for his work for the Cambodian Children's Fund. "There is a contentment now and a fulfillment that I would never get anywhere else," Neeson said. "I'm not sure if it's happiness -- I don't know how you define happiness, but there's a knowledge now that what I'm doing is right and what I was meant to do." (Margaret Conley/ABC)

Cambodian Children's Fund Offers Safe Haven From Life in Garbage Dump

By MARGARET CONLEY
ABC News (USA)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

Nov. 28, 2008 — The garbage dump in Cambodia's capital spans eight football fields and is more than 100 feet deep. Its stench in the hot humidity of Phnom Penh carries for miles.

Steung Meanchey, the massive dump, offers up scraps of glass and metal that children gather and sell, making less than a dollar a day -- enough for one bowl of rice. Many live in shacks made of bits of wood and plastic. It is where the poorest of Cambodia's desperately poor children eke out a living.

With nowhere else to go, children head to the dump as a last resort. Many have lost their parents and this dumpsite is their lifeline.

Hope Amid the Rubble

While on vacation between jobs in 2003, former top Hollywood executive Scott Neeson saw the dump's devastation for the first time.

"It shattered my world. It was like walking from the best parts of west Los Angeles, where I was living, to the apocalypse," Neeson said. "It's worse than anything you can imagine. There are body parts, there are chemicals. I found limbs. I found fetuses, chemical waste. There are rats, all sorts of sinkholes that people disappear into."

Peak hours between midnight and 4 a.m. are the most crowded and dangerous times at the dump.

"There's an average of 24 children every day who are backed over by the trucks and tractors," Neeson said. "You see the sight of 20 to 30 kids with flashlights on their heads and motorbike batteries on their backs going through the garbage. It's just the saddest, saddest thing."

After seeing the desperate circumstances of the dump with his own eyes, Neeson vowed to give these poor children a second chance in life to escape their impoverished surroundings.

"This country is so broken," said Joseph Mussomeli, former U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia. "It has been 30 to 40 years of a nightmare -- genocide, civil war, foreign invasions, rampant corruption; anyone who has had any education has been annihilated."

In 2004, Neeson left the film industry and moved from Tinseltown to Phnom Penh to found the Cambodian Children's Fund, or CCF.

"The plan was much more modest," Neeson says of his initial vision. "It was to come here to set up a facility for 45 children, and to raise them to be not just well educated and good parents, but also community leaders."

His vision has flourished; CCF now hosts more than 400 children. Funded with private donations and child sponsorships, CCF provides a home, food, health care and job training to children in critical need. The facilities continue to expand and the progress is visible.

As executive director, Neeson knows the name of every child and has seen how far they've come since CCF opened its doors.

Kunthea, a 14-year-old girl who fled an abusive home, has found her livelihood at CCF.

"Sometimes my father used violence on my mother; they fight," she said. "I try to go between them and he also beat me. He used sticks to beat my mother."

Kunthea learns English at CCF, as well as food hygiene and nutrition at its Star Bakery. Her passion is being there, making nutrient-enriched breads and distributing them to the local community.

Wearing a tall chef hat as she rolls dough in the bakery, filled with the smell of freshly baked cookies, Kunthea seems worlds away from her life at Steung Meanchey. She also volunteers her time teaching village children to read.

"In the future, I want to open a shop to help my parents and all my siblings," she said.

Neeson has high hopes for Kunthea.

"She hasn't yet come to terms with her own potential," Neeson said with pride. "I'm hoping that in a year's time she will be looking at doing things much more meaningful for Cambodia."

CCF's Contribution

Besides offering a safe haven from the garbage dump, CCF is a place where the children learn computer skills, attend classes and beauty school, and are taught traditional dances and songs.

They learn to sew and make bags with their own handmade-in-Cambodia designer label, Srey Meanchey, which loosely translates to Little Miss Garbage Dump.

In addition to support at the facilities, CCF has arranged for many of those living at the dump site to have access to fresh water, mosquito nets to help prevent against disease and health care at no charge. These services can be vital to the survival of the families.

At the dump site, Neeson found 16-year-old Saroeurn. Motherless, he had called Steung Meanchey his home since he was 3 years old. Saroeurn used to work day and night at the site, rummaging through trash. "He'd work at the dump until he was exhausted and just found a place to lie down amongst the garbage, sleep, wake up and continue picking garbage," Neeson says. "And this was year on year, he was doing this."

Saroeurn has become a chef at the local restaurant, Metro, where he cooks steak and other specialties. He serves as a mentor and role model to CCF's younger students, dreaming of life beyond the dump.

Neeson's Personal Journey

Nearly every day Neeson continues to makes the trek to the dump site, providing hope in a world that seems hopeless and looking for the community leaders of tomorrow.

His new home in Phnom Penh is far from his former lifestyle, hanging with Hollywood big wigs and spending weekends at Catalina.

"I had a big motor yacht. I do miss it," Neeson says. "Now I spend Sundays at a garbage dump."

In July, Neeson was awarded the Peace Award by the non-profit organization Ambassadors for Children, for his devotion to serving the disadvantaged, abused, and abandoned children of Cambodia.

Far from Hollywood, Neeson continues to pave the way for hundreds of children in Cambodia to have their own happy ending.

"There is a contentment now and a fulfillment that I would never get anywhere else," he said. "I'm not sure if it's happiness -- I don't know how you define happiness -- but there's a knowledge now that what I'm doing is right and what I was meant to do."

Yoga tour helps neglected kids

By JACKIE JACKSON
Bucks County Courier Times (Pennsylvania, USA)

It is hot and humid — the stench of Steung Meanchey's notorious garbage dump in Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh is intolerable yet unavoidable. Many children have no choice but to forage through the waste for recyclables that earn them 25 cents to 75 cents a day — just enough for a bowl of rice.

The children's stories have tugged at the heartstrings of Brittany Policastro, a yoga teacher at the Center Club in Newtown. Now she's doing something to help them.

Policastro has committed to The Off the Mat into the World Cambodia Seva Challenge by creating the “One World Many Hearts Yoga Tour.” The tour will give Philadelphia area yoga studios the chance to put their good energy to use Oct. 4 and 5. That's when each participating yoga studio will offer a 75-minute class for a minimum $10 donation with all of the funds going to the Cambodia Children's Fund. There also will be goodie bags for each participant as well as raffles in several of the studios.

But more than the goodies and exercise, participants will be helping the exploited and downtrodden.

“The Seva Challenge was created to inspire others to tap into their creativity and raise $20,000 for the Cambodia Children's Fund. This organization provides shelter, education, health care and nourishment to some of the most impoverished children that live in a place with one of the highest rates for child prostitution and domestic violence,” said Policastro.

“Initially, I felt so drawn to this cause and I didn't even know why,” she said. “But now, just from the passion I have put into creating this project and all of the amazing connections I have made, my life has already changed significantly. All of those participating in the challenge that raise $20,000 will travel to Cambodia for two weeks to work with these children. ... I can't wait to connect with these children.”

Yoga tour schedule in Bucks

OCT. 4

Prasad Yoga: 516 Second Street Pike, second floor, Southampton, www.prasadyoga.com, 1- 2:15 p.m.

Sun Dog Yoga: 17 W. State St., second floor, Doylestown, www.sundogyogastudio.com, 8-9:15 a.m. and 9:30-10:45 a.m.

Yogasphere: 18 Swamp Road, Newtown Township, www.yogasphere.net, 8-9:15 a.m.

Cindy McCain visits Cambodian garbage dump site, meets children scavengers

Cindy McCain (R), the wife of presumptive Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain, walks with facial deformity patient Le Thi Phuoc, 11, during a visit to a hospital in Vietnam's central Nha Trang city June 19, 2008. McCain is in Vietnam as part of her Asian tour to Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia to promote the Virginia-based Operation Smiles Charity. REUTERS/Kham

2008-06-23

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Cindy McCain, wife of U.S. Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting Sen. John McCain, visited the Cambodian capital's garbage dump Monday and met with impoverished children who scavenge there.

McCain visited the sprawling Stung Meanchey dump, a depository for the refuse of Phnom Penh's 1.5 million people, said Pen Kosal, an official with For the Smile of a Child, a French aid group that helps feed children who scavenge the dump.

McCain toured the aid group's office, which is located near the dump, and spoke to several children as they ate breakfast, he said.

«She was very simple and liked the children very much. She even hugged some of them regardless of their dirty clothes,» he said.

The aid group receives rice donations from the U.N's World Food Program to feed some 6,000 boys and girls, most of whom live with their families near the dump and scavenge discarded bottles, cans, plastic and other scraps to sell for a living.

Jeff Daigle, the U.S. Embassy spokesman, declined to comment on Cindy McCain's trip, saying it was private and organized by the World Food Program. McCain, a philanthropist with a long experience in humanitarian assistance, was in Cambodia on the last stop of a three-nation tour. She also visited Vietnam and Thailand.

An official at the WFP also declined comment and said the trip was not open to media coverage.

After visiting the dump, Cindy McCain was scheduled to travel to an orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS in Takeo province, 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Phnom Penh.

Another ordinary day in Stung Meanchey

A child carries a bag of rubbish he has retrieved for recycling from a dump in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. (Photo: BBC)

Child scavengers in Cambodia

A child scarvenger searches for recycling materials along a street in Phnom Penh. Cambodia's growing demand for recyclables -- from bottles and cans to cardboard -- has seen a sharp rise in the number of child scavengers trawling through the capital's waste heaps, many of them press-ganged into what advocates say is one of the world's most hazardous forms of labour. (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)
A child scavenger carries a bag at a rubbish dump in Phnom Penh. Cambodia's growing demand for recyclables -- from bottles and cans to cardboard -- has seen a sharp rise in the number of child scavengers trawling through the capital's waste heaps, many of them press-ganged into what advocates say is one of the world's most hazardous forms of labour. (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)
A Cambodian scarvenger sit at a rubbish damp in Phnom Penh. Cambodia's growing demand for recyclables -- from bottles and cans to cardboard -- has seen a sharp rise in the number of child scavengers trawling through the capital's waste heaps, many of them press-ganged into what advocates say is one of the world's most hazardous forms of labour. (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)
A Cambodian scavenger rides on the back on a rubbish truck at a landfill in Phnom Penh. Cambodia's growing demand for recyclables -- from bottles and cans to cardboard -- has seen a sharp rise in the number of child scavengers trawling through the capital's waste heaps, many of them press-ganged into what advocates say is one of the world's most hazardous forms of labour (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Recycling boom adds to hazardous life of Cambodian children

Thursday • June 5, 2008
AFP

Doctor Tuy Puthea was finishing his rounds one day in late March, inspecting a wound on the neck of a young boy, one of a dozen children loitering in an alley behind Phnom Penh's Olympic Stadium.

His 10-year-old patient, wearing only ragged shorts and a t-shirt, was just one among thousands of youngsters scraping out an existence scavenging waste on the streets of the Cambodian capital.

Cambodia's growing demand for recyclables -- from bottles and cans to cardboard -- has seen a sharp rise in the number of child scavengers trawling through the capital's waste heaps, many of them press-ganged into what advocates say is one of the world's most hazardous forms of labour.

In 2006, around 4,000 children were working on Phnom Penh's streets, according to Chan Haranvadey, an official with the Social Affairs Ministry.

That number is estimated to have spiraled to between 10,000 and 20,000, though the number dips during the planting season in May and June, when many children return to family farms, non-governmental organisations say.

"These child scavengers are the most vulnerable," said Tuy Puthea, who works with the NGO Mith Samlanh, which helps homeless children.

"They use neither gloves nor shoes, they inhale toxic fumes, eat out of garbage bins," he said, listing ailments he sees every day, from headaches and infected wounds to diarrhoea and hacking coughs.

Across Cambodia an estimated 1.5 million children under 14 are forced to work, child advocacy groups say. They says that while most labour on family farms, up to 250,000 work in hazardous conditions at such pursuits as begging, waste scavenging, factory work or mining.

In Phnom Penh, where an economic boom has also fueled the trash trade, some 70 percent of scavengers are children, according to Mith Samlanh and another child advocacy group, For the Smile of a Child (PSE).

They can be seen day and night, sometimes alone or with their families, picking through piles of trash or begging for bottles and cans from customers at streetside restaurants.

-- Scavengers' lives defined by violence, degradation --

By foraging for plastic, glass, metal or cardboard, a child can make a dollar or two a day -- no small sum in a country where 35 percent of the population is mired in poverty.

But scavenging also places them in a rigid system of patronage, extortion and intimidation at the hands of local thugs acting as middlemen for large recycling outfits operating in Thailand or Vietnam.

These handlers, sometimes children only a few years older than the scavengers themselves, often pay lower than market value in exchange for protection or small tips.

It's a necessary arrangement in a world defined by violence and degradation.

"They are exposed to others problems -- violence, drug use, sexual harassment or trafficking," says Tuy Puthea, whose clinic treats about 30 children a day.

That number could drastically increase as plans to close Cambodia's largest dump get underway. Phnom Penh needs to find somewhere else for its garbage because the current dump is almost full, say city officials.

Only a few short kilometres (miles) from Phnom Penh's burgeoning downtown, at the end of a dirt lane crowded with garbage trucks, is the Stung Meanchey tip, a vast horizon of trash.

Here hundreds of scavengers, many of them children, wander through the smoldering squalor, their clothing stiff with grime and faces tightly wrapped with scarves against the stinging, ever-present smoke.

But without the dump, they will be forced into the streets, swelling the ranks of those already prowling Phnom Penh's litter piles but also taking them further from the reach of the groups most actively trying to help them.

"Closing the dump is a good thing -- this should not be so close to the city," said Pin Sarapitch, director of the programmes at PSE, which for 12 years has operated on the fringes of Stung Meanchey, providing education or vocational training for more than 5,000 children.

"The closure should be followed by more social intervention from the state. The government cannot close the dump and leave these families without a place to live or work," Pin Sarapitch said.

"Where will they go, and how will we be able to our work with them if they cannot be found," he added.

Saving children from Cambodia's trash heap

Phymean Noun is helping give Cambodian children a chance at a better life.
Children are a large source of labor at Phnom Penh's largest municipal trash dump

Story Highlights

• Children are large source of labor at Cambodian capital's largest trash dump
• Phymean Noun quit her job to give them an education -- and a way out
• Noun spent $30,000 of her own money to get her first school off the ground
• Today she provides 240 children a free education, food and health services

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (CNN) -- Walking down a street in Cambodia's capital city, Phymean Noun finished her lunch and tossed her chicken bones into the trash. Seconds later, she watched in horror as several children fought to reclaim her discarded food.

Noun stopped to talk with them. After hearing their stories of hardship, she knew she couldn't ignore their plight.

"I must do something to help these children get an education," she said she told herself. "Even though they don't have money and live on the sidewalk, they deserve to go to school."

Six years after that incident, Noun is helping many of Phnom Penh's poorest children do just that.

Within weeks, she quit her job and started an organization to give underprivileged children an education. Noun spent $30,000 of her own money to get her first school off the ground.

In 2004, her organization -- the People Improvement Organization (PIO) -- opened a school at Phnom Penh's largest municipal trash dump, where children are a large source of labor.

Today, Noun provides 240 kids from the trash dump a free education, food, health services and an opportunity to be a child in a safe environment. Video Watch Noun and some of the children who attend her school »

It is no easy task. Hundreds of them risk their lives every day working to support themselves and their families.

"I have seen a lot of kids killed by the garbage trucks," she recalls. Children as young as 7 scavenge hours at a time for recyclable materials. They make cents a day selling cans, metals and plastic bags.

Noun recruits the children at the dump to attend her organization because, she says, "I don't want them to continue picking trash and living in the dump. I want them to have an opportunity to learn."

Growing up during the Pol Pot regime, Noun faced unimaginable challenges.

"There were no schools during Pol Pot's regime," she recalls. "Everyone had to work in the fields. My mother was very smart. She told them that she didn't have an education. That was how she survived. If they knew she was educated, they would have killed her."

Noun's mother died of cancer when Phymean was 15. Phymean's aunt fled to a refugee camp, leaving her young daughter in Phymean's care.

"When my mom passed away, my life was horrible, " says Noun. "It was very sad because there was only my niece who was 3 years old at that time." Yet Noun was determined to finish high school. Video Watch Noun decscibe the hardships of life during the Pol Pot regime »

That dedication paid off, and after graduating she spent the next decade working with various aid organizations.

"I tell the children my story and about the importance of education," she said. "I'm their role model."

Some of the children who attend her school continue to work in the dump to support themselves and their families. Without an education, she said, these children would be vulnerable to traffickers or continue to be caught in the cycle of poverty.
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"We are trying to provide them skills that they can use in the future," Noun said. "Even though we are poor and struggling and don't have money, we can go to school. I tell them not to give up hope."

Noun has even bigger plans for them. "These children are our next generation and our country depends on them. They are our future leaders."

2007 Winning photo of the Social Environment Category

'Foraging' by Stuart Meikle
Social Environment Category Winner

Click here to view other winning photos

The Social Environment winner was British photographer Stuart Meikle. He captioned the picture Foraging.

It was taken at the Stung Meanchey garbage dump in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia where the poorest of the poor are forced to scavenge the stinking rubbish for recyclable materials which they can sell.

Workers include young children, where typical daily income is around 50p and who risk contracting deadly diseases from the rubbish.

Text by: The Telegraph (UK)

Yoga workshop inspires woman to help Cambodian kids

A kid picking trash in Stung Meanchey

Annapolis Cove's Suzanne Cary sits on her yoga mat, surrounded by letters and contributions she has received for her project to help Cambodian children. (Photo: Diane M. Rey - For The Capital)

March 21, 2008
By DIANE M. REY Hometown Annapolis

Suzanne Cary values her yoga practice for the calmness it brings to her mind.

But lately, all she can think about are images of Cambodian children dressed in rags, picking through mountains of garbage for bits of metal that bring in a few cents a day, maybe enough for a bowl of rice.

Those mental images have propelled the stay-at-home mother of three into action.

The family's large, comfortable home in Annapolis Cove seems worlds away from the squalor and desperation faced every day by the children she's trying to help.

According to the Cambodian Children's Fund Web site, www.cambodianchildrensfund.org, Cambodian children are among the most deprived and abused in the world. There, child prostitution and domestic violence are commonplace.

Education is not a reality for many, and the country's high poverty level has forced many children into labor at a tender age.

"The more you read about it, you can't believe that it's actually happening," Suzanne said.

Suzanne first learned about the plight of impoverished Cambodian children in January at a yoga workshop in Pennsylvania run by Seane Corn, a nationally known yoga teacher and activist who started an organization called "Off the Mat, Into the World." It's part of the Engage Network, a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization that focuses on social change in the areas of the environment, education, health and children's issues.

Seane discussed an initiative called "Journey to Cambodia, A Seva Challenge," affiliated with the Cambodian Children's Fund, where volunteers will spend two weeks in Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh next February, working with five local orphanages to rescue as many children as possible and building a well to bring in clean water.

"I know that one person can make a difference in the lives of others,"

Suzanne said. "Something about this story touched me and I know I have to go."

First, however, she has to raise $20,000 by the end of the year to make it happen.

Although Suzanne says she has no fundraising experience, "It's taking me completely outside my box." She's determined to stay upbeat and work steadily toward her goal.

The journey so far has been harder than she thought. A Long Island native and former asset manager with Freddie Mac in McLean, Va., Suzanne, 40, said she first approached large corporations to jump-start her fundraising efforts. But those she approached were reluctant to donate for causes outside the United States.

"I had to regroup," she said.

Since then, she has relied on her own network and word-of-mouth to spread the news. So far, she has been able to raise about $2,500 from individuals and businesses, with contributions ranging from $20 to $500.

Her children's dentist, Dr. Nilda Collins, contributed a check as well as 100 toothbrushes for Suzanne to distribute at the orphanages. She also has received support from Annapolis Painting Services and Bayside Pediatrics. Recently, Lynn Mosby, who received her flier through Heritage Learning Center, where Suzanne's youngest child, Patrick, 3, attends, connected her with the South Arundel Junior Women's Club, which gave a donation.

She figures she needs to raise an average of $500 per week to meet her year-end goal.

"It's a big task," Suzanne said. Unlike higher-profile causes, like cancer research or Special Olympics, the plight of children in Cambodia "might not be on the radar screen" for many people, Suzanne said. "But children are children ... and they truly have nothing."

She plans to pay her own travel expenses, with help from a matching fund program at Bank of America, where her husband, Miles, works, so that 90 percent of the donations she receives will go directly to support the housing, feeding, health care and education of as many needy children as possible.

Fortunately, she said, in Cambodia, a little can go a long way: It takes only $30 to feed one child for one month; $75 covers monthly education costs; $250 buys shoes for 50 children; $500 gives 90 children dental care for one month; and $1,200 covers one child's general expenses at the Cambodian Children's Fund facilities for one year.

Suzanne plans to use the remaining 10 percent of donations to start a scholarship fund to teach yoga to women in low-income areas in Annapolis. Details for that effort still are being worked out, she said.

To reach her goal, Suzanne has planned several fundraising events, starting next month.

She's holding a fundraising breakfast April 10 at her home for parents of kindergarten children at St. Mary's Elementary School, where her children, Austin, 9, and Shannon, 6, attend.

At 9 a.m. April 12, the Lotus Center is holding a special yoga class to benefit Suzanne's project. The center is at 820 Ritchie Highway, Suite 280, in Severna Park. To register, call 410-858-7925.

Suzanne also plans to sell lottery tickets for a $200 grocery gift card outside the Safeway in Edgewater from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 19 and May 4.

As soon as they arrive, the Evolve Yoga studio at Evolutions Body Clinic, 1834 George Ave., Annapolis, will sell tote bags made by Cambodian children out of recycled rice bags. The studio is where Suzanne studies vinyasa flow yoga with Tina Lanzoni. Proceeds from the sales also will help Suzanne close her fundraising gap.

Currently, Suzanne stays busy planning additional fundraising events to take place this summer, including a wine auction and more yoga benefit classes.

She's also looking for a business or restaurant to step forward as a sponsor. All the while, she's keeping the faith that things will come together to enable her to achieve her mission.

"Seane Corn has a quote I like: 'If not me, then who?'" she said. "I have the power to help create a legacy in Cambodia. Why wouldn't I take this challenge? I am so excited about this opportunity," Suzanne said in an e-mail.

For more information about the project, or to donate online, visit Suzanne's Web site at www.offthematintocambodia.org.

You also can send a check payable to the Exchange Network, with Suzanne Cary in the memo line, to 3204 Britania Court, Annapolis, MD, 21403. All donations are tax deductible.

Her name was Grace, and she brought the grace of classical ballet to generations of students in a 42-year teaching career, breaking down racial and cultural barriers along the way.

'Annapolis Anthologies' ballet

Annapolis dance legend Grace Clark retired in 1991 at the age of 79 and passed away in 1997, but her legacy lives on in the students she influenced.

Now, the Ballet Theatre of Maryland is trying to locate those students and incorporate their stories and experiences into an original ballet to be held in conjunction with the Annapolis Alive! program that celebrates the 300th anniversary of the city's charter.

"Annapolis Anthologies" will be performed at 7 p.m. April 19 and at 2 p.m. April 20 at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, 801 Chase St., Annapolis.

Dianna Cuatto, BTM artistic director, described Grace as "a courageous Annapolitan woman who gave women, African Americans and students from all cultural backgrounds the power of dance to break down the barriers to freedom."

Grace's daughter, Victoria Waidner, remembered the many locations throughout the city where her mother taught, beginning in 1949: the Stanton Community Center on West Washington Street; Parole Elementary School during the days of segregation; the old Keeney and Sons music store on West Street; the Annapolis YWCA, as well as in her home on Franklin Street.

Grace was the founder of the Annapolis Civic Ballet Company. She even taught ballet to football players at the Naval Academy to help them with their coordination, Victoria recalled.

"She did so much for the community of Annapolis ... She danced to the very end," said Victoria, a former principal who's now retired after 44 years in local public schools.

To contribute input to the project, call the Ballet Theatre of Maryland at 410-263-8289 or 410-224-5644.

To order tickets for the performances, call the Maryland Hall box office at 410-280-5640 or visit their Web site at www.marylandhall.org.

Cambodian Photos Shed Light on Poverty

This photo, part of an exhibit by Trevor Wright, shows a young child chewing on a stalk of sugar cane. Wright's photo exhibit "Life at the Cambodian Garbage Dump," is located on the 4th floor of the HFAC.

28 Jan 2008
By Jenica Stimpson
BYU NewsNet (Bringham Young University, Utah, USA)

Trevor Wright, a BYU student and media arts major, served his mission in Cambodia and was intrigued with its people. He decided to go back last summer with the Cambodian Children's Fund (CCF) to serve the people he had grown to love. For three months he taught English to impoverished children and helped make their lives a little easier through the aid that the Children's Fund provides.

While serving in Cambodia he took documentary-like pictures of children at the dump. Families are driven to the dump in poverty and struggle through life as garbage pickers who find and sell whatever they can in hopes of earning enough money to survive. Children must help support their families by rummaging through the garbage each day.

"Through my photos, I like to capture the moments, situations and feelings of the individuals so that we can develop a greater understanding of human beings," Wright said. "Because of this experience in Cambodia, I have decided to minor in international development."

Wright's photos are currently displayed in the 4th floor west hall of the Harris Fine Arts Center.

Wright first became interested in photography while in high school and was influenced by his dad. As he grew older he became especially interested in documentary-type photos. He is planning on making a documentary film on the founder of CCF, Scott Neeson, in the near future.

Hollywood film executive Scott Neeson founded the CCF when he traveled to Cambodia in 2003 and witnessed the desperate needs of young children. After working in the film business for 26 years, he now resides in Phnom Penh, Cambodia year-round.

According to the CCF Web site, the organization has three separate facilities where 300 children receive nutrition and housing, medical treatment, dental services and vaccinations. The children are also involved in an educational program that includes local language reading and writing, classes in English, social sciences and math. They also attend evening classes where they learn traditional Khmer music, dance and drama.

"Through these photos I hope that other people will fall in love with Cambodia like I have," Wright said. "I hope that these photos will give an insight that these people are individuals just like you and me."

Hell on Earth: Life in a Cambodian dump

A young girl cries out in pain after receiving a minor injury to her right hand at The Stung Meanchey Landfill in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Over 700 tons of garbage is sifted through by roughly 2000 workers, including 600 children, who work there each day.
(Photo: John Brown at http://www.lightstalkers.org/john_brown)

Dec. 10, 2007
Sherrie Buzby
The Arizona Republic (USA)

CAMBODIA STILL LIVES in the shadow of the 1970s genocide, where up to 2 million people were brutally murdered by the Khmer Rouge and their leader, Pol Pot.

For a month last summer, more than 800 volunteers - including six Arizona members on the medical teams - partnered with 15 churches and ministries from around the world to bring hope to a country still struggling to recover. I participated in a project called Hope Cambodia through Hand of Hope, the World Missions division of Joyce Meyer Ministries, based in St. Louis, Mo.

Fifteen Hope Centers, nine of which also house orphanages, were built to offer feeding programs and educational opportunities for hundreds of needy children. Medical and dental clinics treated more than 9,000 patients.

My responsibility was to photograph some of these events and capture the local culture.

As someone who had been looking at photos of poverty and sickness for more than 20 years as a news photographer, I thought that nothing could really shake me.

But then we arrived at the Stung Meanchey municipal waste dump in Phnom Penh.

As the smoke from trash fires rose in the air, I felt like I was in a scene from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. The smell at the dump was unbearable. It resembled a combination of vomit, feces and smoke. One of the veteran videographers told me to put lip balm under my nose to help with the odor.

When we saw the first child in the dump, I expected to be excited to get the shot, working the right angle and looking for a good composition. As the reality of what was right in front of me set in, however, my eyes welled with tears. I had to put the camera down.

How in the year 2007 could any human being have to live like this? And not only one human being; the entire dump was covered with people of all ages, picking through the most unimaginable slime to find anything of the slightest value.

I put the camera back up to my eyes, shielded once again from the reality of children as young as 5 picking through maggots and fresh loads of garbage dropped by huge trucks.

This garbage is their home. Roughly 2,000 people, about 600 of whom are children, live and work at the 100-acre landfill. The shelters where they live are made from any scrap material they can bind together for cover: old burlap bags, torn then sewn together to make a wall, and tin siding held together by twine.

I saw entire families sifting through the trash they lived in. Dogs limped through the trash as a goat walked by.

The people sifted through the trash to find anything for resale: plastic bags, plastic bottles, glass or cans. The children (orphans or those sent to help their families) work for as little as 50 cents per day. A van looked like it had an entire family living in it.

Our interpreter, a young man named Sim Samnang, told us that the scavengers also look for anything edible and sometimes eat partly rotten food. Samnang said they cannot wash their clothes because there is no clean water. Mosquitoes swarm them as they sleep at night.

A young man came up to meet us, his feet and calves caked with the gross, murky, muddy water. Still, he was smiling and friendly. Dragonflies, a symbol of prosperity to Asian people, floated in irony all around us.

Samnang said many younger kids are killed by the trash trucks, which run day and night. The children fall beneath the wheels as they try to jump onto the lumbering trucks.

I spotted a young girl about 12. Samnang said such girls are the most exploitable for the sex trade.

We walked by a recycling-center building where young children were moving incredibly large bales of cardboard. A skinny chicken walked by, most of its feathers torn off. Samnang spoke with one boy who told us he was 15. He lived and worked at this shop, making $30 per month, sleeping on top of the cardboard bales. He quit school in the fifth grade so he could work.

At the back entrance, we found two girls working in the dump. One was 14, the other 10. They had worked there for six years. Their parents lived in another province, instructing them to send home money. A little boy picked grass from a green clump that was growing in the rubbish. I saw something that resembled a cucumber vine blooming among the garbage. A woman in her late 60s or early 70s walked out into the smelly, fetid water that surrounded the trash. She pushed a basket down into the water and pulled out gross plastic bags she had just collected from the dump. She was washing them. She put them into the basket and walked on them like you would stomp grapes.

Nearby, two young girls hovered over a 3-inch strand of a broken necklace they had found, thrilled with their prize. A woman walked up to us carrying her daughter. The girl couldn't walk because her feet were oozing with sores and disease.

That night, as I snuggled into my comfortable bed with clean white sheets, my mind was haunted by the images of the day. I mulled over all the "whys" in my mind. Why was there suffering like this? Why them and not me?

I had only a brief time at the dump, so my photos barely scratched the surface of their existence. I wondered what it was like for them at night, pillaging fresh trash piles, wearing headlights to spot any scrap to sell or eat. I tried to imagine how they felt in the darkness with the rain falling and rats running under their feet.

I flashed back to an image of a scavenger cleaning his hands with ground coconut because there was no fresh water anywhere in sight. I wondered when the men came like vultures, hunting for children to steal for the sex trade. I lay there silently, trying to let the sights, sounds, smells and emotion soak deeply into my spirit so I wouldn't forget. The seemingly important pending issues of my life suddenly seemed foolish. I didn't sleep well.

Months have now passed since photographing Hope Cambodia. As much as I've tried to keep those memories fresh, "normal" life has crept in again. I worry about reseeding the winter grass and where I can find the best roast for a holiday dinner.

Then a few days ago, I had to retrieve an old receipt from the trash for a return. I was totally repulsed by the idea, even though I knew the worst thing I would encounter would be spoiled lettuce and broken eggshells.

Suddenly, I found myself back at that dump, trying to understand how it would feel to have no other option than to rummage through garbage 10 hours a day for survival.

I was embarrassed.

It made me want to do something to make a difference like I saw others making in the Hope Cambodia project.

The enormous amount of need in the world can feel overwhelming, but I've seen how just a few volunteers can bring hope to a people who had given up on anything more than mere survival. There is comfort in what one can do.

Sherrie Buzby has been a photographer with The Arizona Republic since 1998.

Hope for Cambodian Children [in Stung Meanchey]

ABC News (USA)

It is hot and humid and the stench of the Steung Meanchey garbage dump in Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh is unbearable and inescapable. It is hard to believe people live there. However, many children have no choice but to forage through the waste for recyclables that earn them 25 to 75 cents a day for a bowl of rice. (Margaret Conley/ ABC News)

Neeson first discovered the Steung Meanchey garbage dump during a "first class backpacking trip," while staying at Phnom Penh's luxe Raffles Hotel. Neeson was in between jobs -- president of 20th Century Fox International and head of Sony Pictures' international marketing. However, the site had a lasting impression on the Hollywood executive and he packed his bags and left Tinseltown in 2003 to make a difference. (Margaret Conley/ ABC News)

The second Cambodia Children's Fund facility, CCF2, offers a safe environment exclusively for girls, many of whom have been subjected to domestic and sexual abuse. Neeson calls the facility his "pride and joy." (Margaret Conley/ ABC News)

"The problem is, how do you say no?" Neeson asked rhetorically. He said that when he visits the site children follow him around saying, "Please take me to school." (Margaret Conley/ ABC News)

Over the last four years, Neeson, shown at left, and his team have opened three facilities -- CCF, CCF2 and CCF3 -- that aid impoverished children by providing comprehensive educational programs, vocational training and health care. The majority of the kids live in-house, learning computer skills, English and local Khmer songs and dance. (Margaret Conley/ ABC News)

CCF also teaches vocational skills including food hygiene and production at Star Bakery, where nutrient-enhanced breads and pastries are made to improve nutrition in local communities. Children also learn how to make trendy-looking, yet practical bags made out of recycled flour and sugar sacks. The bags have been well received in the United States, with all proceeds going to CCF. (Margaret Conley/ ABC News)

Miracle Surgery Mends Cambodian Orphan

Plucked From Garbage Dump, Little Lyda Gets Cutting-Edge Care In L.A.

Los Angeles, June 13, 2007
CBS (USA)

When Scott Neeson first laid eyes on Lyda, the 13-year-old orphan was clambering over a mountain of garbage in a Phnom Penh, Cambodia slum. She was moving slowly and painfully because of a spinal deformity that left her with a severe hunchback. Still, she persevered.

Neeson and Lyda were truly from opposite ends of the world: He was a former film executive nicknamed "Mr. Hollywood" who gave up his home and Porche in exchange for a life in Phnom Penh and occasional head lice. "I've gone from Hollywood to the garbage dump, and I'm so much happier today," he explained.

Lyda "is such a loving girl," he told Early Show correspondent Hattie Kauffman. "She was living in the garbage dump. She was left there by her parents when she was five. She was fending for herself, basically."

Neeson resolved to get Lyda the medical help she needed through the charity he founded to fund three orphanages he's opened in Cambodia. But the surgery that could give her a pain-free and mobile life would cost dearly, and needed to be performed in an American hospital. Lyda needed an angel in her corner.

Enter Sumner Redstone, the chairman of Viacom and CBS Corporation, and a major philanthropist. "I had no idea how the children live in Cambodia. I mean, little girls being put out for prostitution, children living in dumps, scrounging for something to eat. The story really got to me," he told Kauffman.

"No one else would do the operation, it's such an intricate operation," Neeson said in explaining how Lyda ended up at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in his old hometown, Los Angeles. "It was just too complex, and Sumner was like, 'Ha! Not too complex,' the whole curmudgeon thing, and starts barking in these orders and, the next thing you know, Lyda is getting the best medical treatment in the whole world." The surgery cost upwards of $250,000.

Her surgeon, Dr. Robert Bernstein, feels that, without the surgery, Lyda would eventually have been paralyzed, because her bones were pressing against her spinal cord.

Since her arrival, Redstone has visited with Lyda and wants to continue helping Cambodian orphans. "All of these children need a lot of help," he said.

For more information about the Cambodian Children's Fund, click here.

Explosion at Stung Meanchey garbage dump

26 March 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

A grenade exploded on top of the garbage dump in Stung Meanchey on Saturday, causing four injuries. Touch Naruth, the Phnom Penh police chief, said on Sunday that the explosion occurred at 9:30 PM at the [Stung Meanchey] garbage dump. The incident took place when four men were burning garbage to chase away the mosquitoes, the men unknowingly caused the explosion of a launch grenade used in an M-79 grenade launcher. Touch Naruth denies that this explosion is linked to any political issue because according to an interview with the victims, they said that they were burning trash to chase away the mosquitoes. Chan Sovet, the director of the investigation department of the Adhoc human rights group, indicated that it is not yet possible to deny that there no political link [to the explosion]. Chan Sovet told the Cambodia Daily that he visited the area on Monday to investigate the explosion which [coincidentally] occurred during the campaign for the commune election. He said that such explosion could be politically motivated to it could be due to disputes during the election campaign.