New Hope Community Center

I've spent four days at the New Hope Community Center. This NGO operates within a very poor community living on the doorstep of Angkor Wat. Its HQ is a former "karaoke" bar (brothel) now a community center. Three rooms are dedicated to teaching Khmer and English. There is one computer room (they have Internet on Fridays), a kitchen and a beauty room to teach practical skills the students can use to find jobs. A free clinic on campus provides basic health care and medicines. One of the most important roles New Hope plays in this community is organizing sponsors, via their webpage, to help families in critical condition receive 15 kg of rice a month.

For two days I worked as an English teacher. The lessons I taught were very similar to those I taught in Korea but the experience at the school has been extremely different. Many of the kids get to school by peddling a grownup bicycle, about 5 times too big for them, with one kid on the back, one kid on the front, and one barely touching the pedals with their feet. Few of them are wearing shoes. But they are a smiling bunch of kids extremely motivated to learn.

More volunteers arrived on Tuesday and I gave up my class to do some admin work. The last two days I have dedicated to writing profiles of families in need from the community. These profiles will be posted to their webpage and hopefully somebody will sign up to be their sponsor. Today I'll be going with a Khmer New Hope volunteer into the village to collect more stories.

On Monday, we all got a stark reminder of how close these kids are living to starvation. Over the weekend a little boy in the kindergarten class (the class we made balloon animals with on Friday) ate poisonous toad eggs and died. Of the four kids who ate the eggs one died, one is still in hospital and two have returned to their families. There was an emergency assembly at school to tell all the little kids never ever to eat eggs they find and if they are hungry to come to the school and they will be given food.

On Tuesday, a woman showed up at the school sobbing uncontrollably. Her neck bore red marks from her husband's hands where he had tried to strangle her. She had obviously been beaten and was clearly in a lot of pain. As far as I understand the situation, they are getting a divorce but the man showed up demanding she give him 2000 riel (equivalent to 50 cents US). We called the police but they were busy. They told us, as an NGO, we could take a statement from the woman. Finally a policeman showed up but it appears all he accomplished was to force the man to "take care"of his wife. It seemed like an extremely dodgy resolution to force a batterer to be in close contact with his victim.

Teaching feels like a side note to the drama that passes through New Hope on a daily basis. Though I definitely recognize its importance. It's been an eye-opening experience here at New Hope and I will endeavor to continue my support of this organization after I leave Cambodia.