unfazed?
Hardly. I have been staying here in Phnom Penh for five weeks now and everyday I am learning and discovering something new.
The past week I have been volunteering to document EW (Entertainment Workers) and MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) at the drop in center and at the health clinic for FHI, an international NGO that works with marginalized community members such as people and children living with HIV/AIDS, sex workers, also known as entertainment workers and homosexuals.
a monk from SCC blessing PLHA's with holy water at IDA's PLHA's monthly meetingI have been attending Indra Devy Association’s PLHA’s (People Living with HIV/AIDS) meeting with two separate teams the past week too. Team six as we call one of them, had a monk from SCC (Salvation Cambodia Center) attending the meeting. Many monks are reaching out to people affected by AIDS to give them moral support as well as religious counseling. Because monks hold such a prestigious status among many Cambodians, their presence alone decreases discrimination against many AIDS sufferers.
It was interesting to see some of my students’ parents attending the meeting. I have never seen 
Children Living with HIV/AIDS meeting with a youth leader (young lady in white on the left side) that IDA have been training them outside their slums or their homes and to see them out in the open make them seem less vulnerable. Even though they have been living with the virus for years, with the exception of one, they all look just as normal as everyone I have seen.
I have also been a witness to a meeting for CLHA (Children Living with HIV/AIDS) with team four. It was nice to see the children openly talking about AIDS amongst each other and their peer facilitator. All of them said their friends at school did not know that their parents are positive. A couple of the children within the group are actually positive themselves and again none of their friends from school knew about that part of their lives.
The world that I have been visiting the past five weeks is so different from my world in America. Just like in Nicaragua, I am out of my comfort zone experiencing things that I never thought I would live to see. I am learning and growing as always…
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4 Comments
Reader Comments (4)
It is nice to read that so many different approaches (monks, organizations, individuals as you) are all fighting for Peace and for dignity there. By reading your words, it really gives the impression that there are quite a lot of efforts going on there!
I like as well how you end, ... sometimes we are so used to our own habits, that the best way of learning is experiencing big differences. Not only this, also, I am sure that you will see your own world habits with different eyes as soon as you get home.
Nice to read what you are doing!
Victor, thankyou for your support as always...I apologize for reading this blog so late...but as you can tell from my "other" flickr account, I've been pretty occupied:)
Cambodia is such a wonderful place to be in and yes it's wonderful to see so many organizations and others working together to build this country...but at times I do get worried that they are relying too much on others to build them up instead of being more self-sufficient. Through conversations I've had with other foreigners here, they say that this country is very, "patron/client-like" and it's disturbing really when I see from my own experience how the local NGO's who have been established for quite sometime are dependent on foreign donors for so many basic things.
I have seen the suffering from Aids in Cambodia first hand just recently. It seems that at least in Phnom Penh there is some sort of integrated care, albeit that the organizations are depenent on foreign support, but in the country side there is almost nothing. You get Aids/HIV and then you die, often shunned. Chances are your children, when they become orphans are shunned too. Very hard to watch and realise there is so little I could do about it.
I admire what you do
Ed, thank you. You know there are alot of non for profit organizations out there that are targeting rural areas. Let me know in which area you were at and I'll see if I know of any NGO's that can perhaps expand that way.