As the new year begins, the team at AMS are getting out and into the field to visit some of our supported development projects throughout Asia and the Pacific.
The Pailin province is a small municipality in the West of Cambodia and is approximately a 10-minute drive to the border of Thailand. Entering the city, we are surrounded by picturesque mountainside that masks one of the country’s biggest atrocities. The provincial capital is called Pailin City and is known to much of the world as being the area where many of the Khmer Rouge leaders came from and retreated too after their fall. It is said that almost 70 percent of the area’s older men were fighters for the Khmer Rouge.
The Khmer Rouge rose to power after overthrowing the military dictatorship of the Khmer Republic and installing their own government Democratic Kampuchea in 1975. This was followed by the Cambodian genocide from 1975 until 1979, before they were driven out of power themselves. However, their military power remained, and a long era of guerrilla warfare in the Cambodian countryside (mainly Pailin) began. Many different military factions were involved in the guerrilla war era and it ended around 1994. The Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale University estimates the number of deaths at approximately 1.7 million (21% of the population of the country). A UN investigation reported 2–3 million dead, while UNICEF estimates that 3 million had been killed.
Pressing on from La Valla School we made the 9-hour journey by bus, tuktuk and taxi to arrive at the Marist Brothers Pailin centre just in time to see 200 students come and go from their afterschool educational programs. Being greeted by Brother Francis, Brother George and Brother Gilbert, Ashley and myself were immediately able to get a sense of the after school programs that the Brothers offered. These included a mixture of I.T training, basic English and basic Thai languages courses. There is also a preschool program available for the province.
The next day we had the opportunity to visit the site of a new Marist Brothers Hostel (for which AMS is in partnership with) for children and youth from rural communities. Visiting the site it is immediately evident that the Hostel is situated next to the only secondary school in Pailin and with the Brothers house complete, we were able to get a clear picture of the residential accommodation to come. The hostel will cater for up to 100 students from poor, rural families who are presently deprived of a secondary education because of the remoteness of their villages. These children typically come from subsistence farming families and cannot afford the necessary transport expenses for their children to travel the long distances to school. Thus, a large percentage of students do not attend secondary school.
The hostel will alleviate the financial burden placed on families and allow these children to complete their full education. 50 girls and 50 boys will be accommodated in the complex as well as two units on the ground floor that will be specifically designed to cater for the unique needs of 10 male and 10 female physically handicapped youth. As a result of receiving a secondary education, these students will gain the necessary skills to break out of the cycle of poverty that they were born into.
Later that evening we had the chance to have dinner with the Marist Brothers and outreach doctors who delivered the Pailin Rural Health Outreach program in partnership with the Brothers and AMS. This program saw 1,800 patents and 5,000 consultations in approximately 2 years. It involved rural visits 3 days a week as well as a city outreach 1 day a week by local doctors who treated common illnesses as well as more complex cases such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes amongst others.
The following morning, we were afforded the opportunity to visit some of the rural communities that the Rural Health Outreach program delivered its services before venturing up into the hills of Pailin to see first-hand the remains of the guerrilla war, as the region continues to be de-mined. This is the legacy of three decades of war which has taken a severe toll on the Cambodians; it has some 40,000 amputees, which is one of the highest rates in the world with two of the victims attending La Valla School; one is a student and another is a teacher.
The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) estimates that there may be as many as four to six million mines and other pieces of unexploded ordnance in Cambodia. In fact, we arrived to learn that just last week a farmer was killed after stepping on a previously undetected land mind in the province. In a region still coming to terms with is chequered past, the Pailin Hostel can clearly help shape a brighter future for these poor, underprivileged youth on the margins of society.
Written by: Tony Skinner, AMS Communications Coordinator
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