by Pennie Sempell
This past month I took a trip to Cambodia and had the treasured opportunity to present at children’s centers. Cambodia is on very few “must see” travel lists. An almost forgotten country to the east of Thailand, and west of Vietnam, Cambodia is famous for one of the 8 wonders of the world, the vast religious temples of Angkor Wat.
A peculiar combination of circumstances motivated my trip. Through a humanitarian friend, who has worked with foundations to set up clinics, schools and orphanages in Cambodia, there was the opportunity to share my health literacy programs directly with children there. A friend of mine from graduate school days had relocated to Cambodia and was teaching law and business at an English speaking university. One of my daughters had been studying (and freezing) in Berlin for four months and longed to meet me someplace “hot” for her Spring break. We chose Cambodia.
When I arrived in the capital city, Phnom Pehn, the taxi pressed through the onslaught of tuk-tuks and motorcycles driving on all sides of the road, with a striking absence of street lights or stop signs. It felt every bit a free-for-all on the roads of this busy, congested city with some mysterious internal order that prevented accidents at every turn. A tuk-tuk is a motorcycle that pulls a small open carriage seating up to 4 people. A third world stage coach, one might say, and a big step forward (for the driver) from the bicycle drawn carriages that I saw in India years ago. Despite feeling that my life was in the driver’s hands, from that taxi ride on, we took tuk-tuks wherever we needed to go in the City, for the simple reason that they were everywhere, and taxis were sparse.
Cambodia has had a painful recent history and a turbulent past. The infamous Killing Fields of the brutal political period under Pol Pot resulted in the forced evacuation of Phnom Pehn, mass migration to the countryside, disease, famine and genocide. The regime and civil war ended in the 1990’s. Cambodians have long been without adequate medical care and educational opportunities. As recently as 1940, after 60 years of French colonial rule, there was only one hospital and only one high school in all of Cambodia! Reaching back further into the past, Kymer (as it is also known) had an advanced civilization for its time in the magnificent Angkor Wat city of a million people at a time when London had 35,000 residents. Engineered hydraulic systems brought ample water to fields and the walled and moated city. Gold and copper covered the extraordinary religious buildings of Angkor Wat, under the rule of a series of kings who were believed to be gods. Repeated attacks from Siam (now Thailand) and Vietnam, together with civil wars, overtook the Kymer dynasty, and continued to keep this country in an unstable condition for centuries.
As of 2010, the average Cambodian earns $1.50 per day. Public school costs $15.00 per month, a substantial percentage of average earnings. As a result, it is common, I was informed by reliable sources, for parents to require one or more children to be required to work (tragically, sometimes in the sex trade) so that siblings can go to school. In other cases, parents are so poor that they send their children out on the streets or relinquish them to an orphanage. In Phnom Pehn alone, the non-profit organization Friends International provides services to 8,000 street children a day! And those are the children who are able to get to the center.
The first program I gave was at an orphanage run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Batambang, about 6 hours north of Phnom Pehn. In contrast to the ever present rubble and jumble of open stalls in the town, this serene residence and school was radiant with cascading bouganvillia, tidy buildings, vegetable gardens and the beaming, angelic faces of about 70 children. A big screen was setup outside, the children (ages 5-18) brought out grass mats, and my “MM&M Show” began. Using music, movement and meditation with audio/visual images, I taught children basic concepts about whole person health in this participatory program. The children could not have participated more enthusiastically. Sothorn, who accompanied me on the trip and himself heads up a NGO for disabled people, did the translating into Kymer. Following my hour-long program, the children surprised me with their performances of traditional dances and music.
A few days later, Sothorn and I headed over to another vibrant residential center in Phnom Penh for blind, deaf and disabled children, where all of the children attend school. Perhaps because of their “different abilities” (not “disabilities”) these children participated as enthusiastically in every way as the children at the orphanage. Both centers are nonprofit* havens for a child’s healthy education and caring nurturance. These are some of the luckiest children in Cambodia. Watch for a video clip on our new website (in construction) at HealthierHappierLife.com.
* Those readers wishing to directly support the good work at these centers and others like it may do so through Children’s Medi-Fund, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization. Contact me for details. They do not have a website presently.
Working with physicians and psychologists at a major medical center, former teacher and mediator, Pennie Sempell, JD, ACMT specializes in integrative healing arts and mind-body therapies. She has written, performed and produced award-winning programs for children with a focus on health literacy. www.HealthierHappierLife.com.
This past month I took a trip to Cambodia and had the treasured opportunity to present at children’s centers. Cambodia is on very few “must see” travel lists. An almost forgotten country to the east of Thailand, and west of Vietnam, Cambodia is famous for one of the 8 wonders of the world, the vast religious temples of Angkor Wat.
A peculiar combination of circumstances motivated my trip. Through a humanitarian friend, who has worked with foundations to set up clinics, schools and orphanages in Cambodia, there was the opportunity to share my health literacy programs directly with children there. A friend of mine from graduate school days had relocated to Cambodia and was teaching law and business at an English speaking university. One of my daughters had been studying (and freezing) in Berlin for four months and longed to meet me someplace “hot” for her Spring break. We chose Cambodia.
When I arrived in the capital city, Phnom Pehn, the taxi pressed through the onslaught of tuk-tuks and motorcycles driving on all sides of the road, with a striking absence of street lights or stop signs. It felt every bit a free-for-all on the roads of this busy, congested city with some mysterious internal order that prevented accidents at every turn. A tuk-tuk is a motorcycle that pulls a small open carriage seating up to 4 people. A third world stage coach, one might say, and a big step forward (for the driver) from the bicycle drawn carriages that I saw in India years ago. Despite feeling that my life was in the driver’s hands, from that taxi ride on, we took tuk-tuks wherever we needed to go in the City, for the simple reason that they were everywhere, and taxis were sparse.
Cambodia has had a painful recent history and a turbulent past. The infamous Killing Fields of the brutal political period under Pol Pot resulted in the forced evacuation of Phnom Pehn, mass migration to the countryside, disease, famine and genocide. The regime and civil war ended in the 1990’s. Cambodians have long been without adequate medical care and educational opportunities. As recently as 1940, after 60 years of French colonial rule, there was only one hospital and only one high school in all of Cambodia! Reaching back further into the past, Kymer (as it is also known) had an advanced civilization for its time in the magnificent Angkor Wat city of a million people at a time when London had 35,000 residents. Engineered hydraulic systems brought ample water to fields and the walled and moated city. Gold and copper covered the extraordinary religious buildings of Angkor Wat, under the rule of a series of kings who were believed to be gods. Repeated attacks from Siam (now Thailand) and Vietnam, together with civil wars, overtook the Kymer dynasty, and continued to keep this country in an unstable condition for centuries.
As of 2010, the average Cambodian earns $1.50 per day. Public school costs $15.00 per month, a substantial percentage of average earnings. As a result, it is common, I was informed by reliable sources, for parents to require one or more children to be required to work (tragically, sometimes in the sex trade) so that siblings can go to school. In other cases, parents are so poor that they send their children out on the streets or relinquish them to an orphanage. In Phnom Pehn alone, the non-profit organization Friends International provides services to 8,000 street children a day! And those are the children who are able to get to the center.
The first program I gave was at an orphanage run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Batambang, about 6 hours north of Phnom Pehn. In contrast to the ever present rubble and jumble of open stalls in the town, this serene residence and school was radiant with cascading bouganvillia, tidy buildings, vegetable gardens and the beaming, angelic faces of about 70 children. A big screen was setup outside, the children (ages 5-18) brought out grass mats, and my “MM&M Show” began. Using music, movement and meditation with audio/visual images, I taught children basic concepts about whole person health in this participatory program. The children could not have participated more enthusiastically. Sothorn, who accompanied me on the trip and himself heads up a NGO for disabled people, did the translating into Kymer. Following my hour-long program, the children surprised me with their performances of traditional dances and music.
A few days later, Sothorn and I headed over to another vibrant residential center in Phnom Penh for blind, deaf and disabled children, where all of the children attend school. Perhaps because of their “different abilities” (not “disabilities”) these children participated as enthusiastically in every way as the children at the orphanage. Both centers are nonprofit* havens for a child’s healthy education and caring nurturance. These are some of the luckiest children in Cambodia. Watch for a video clip on our new website (in construction) at HealthierHappierLife.com.
* Those readers wishing to directly support the good work at these centers and others like it may do so through Children’s Medi-Fund, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization. Contact me for details. They do not have a website presently.
Working with physicians and psychologists at a major medical center, former teacher and mediator, Pennie Sempell, JD, ACMT specializes in integrative healing arts and mind-body therapies. She has written, performed and produced award-winning programs for children with a focus on health literacy. www.HealthierHappierLife.com.
