My new Cambodian friend, Keo, mentioned that she helped poor kids who lived in the slums of Stung Meanchey. I’d been there before – a couple months earlier I’d enlisted a motorcycle taxi to take me out the community built on the garbage dumps on Phnom Penh. I’d read about them online, that thousands of families and children survived just by picking through the trash from the city – either to find scraps of metal and plastic they could sell, or to scavenge for food. In 2009, the dump was moved to a new site, but most of the people who had set up shanties to live in Stung Meanchey stayed. When you’re already at the bottom, there’s nowhere else to go.
What I saw astounded me – people literally living in garbage. Little children ran around barefoot in between bags of garbage, broken bottles, shards of metal roofs, tattered scraps of plastic, burnt truck tires, and the rats and snakes that competed for the treasures. They didn’t go to school and didn’t have any access to medical care. Most of them had never even left the garbage dump slums even to go to the capitol city only 10km away. But despite the hell-on-earth conditions and misery, I found everyone to be friendly, accommodating, and bursting with life. No one asked me for a dollar. Everyone welcomed me in to what homes they had and smiled. I’d never felt more at home in such a terrible place. (Check out my last blog and video about it.)
What I saw astounded me – people literally living in garbage. Little children ran around barefoot in between bags of garbage, broken bottles, shards of metal roofs, tattered scraps of plastic, burnt truck tires, and the rats and snakes that competed for the treasures. They didn’t go to school and didn’t have any access to medical care. Most of them had never even left the garbage dump slums even to go to the capitol city only 10km away. But despite the hell-on-earth conditions and misery, I found everyone to be friendly, accommodating, and bursting with life. No one asked me for a dollar. Everyone welcomed me in to what homes they had and smiled. I’d never felt more at home in such a terrible place. (Check out my last blog and video about it.)
So when Keo asked if I’d like to go along with her, I agreed. She told me how she used to run a community center there but it had been shut down due to lack of funding. There were about 20 children she was trying to help that day. Her first goal was to try and get them into school again, but that required money. Unlike in the U.S. and the developing world where education is free, it costs in Cambodia. Teachers make a ridiculously low sum – like $50 a month (that’s not a typo) – so they’re forced to subsidize their efforts by collecting about 10 cents from each student who comes to school. The kids also need to pay for books and wear school uniforms, and find transportation to and from school. This adds up to almost unspeakable sums for families in desperate poverty, but to add to the equation is the opportunity cost of having children attend school, at all.
Children need to work in most of Cambodia so the family can have enough money to eat. It’s just the way it is. They’re out on the streets selling bracelets or begging from the tourists, collecting bottles and cans, or, in this case, picking through the trash. In the provinces, they work the rice fields or pick mangos. So with one less pair of hands from the family labor force, everyone might go hungry or they might not be able to keep shelter. Even with both parents working day and night, there might only be $25 a month to live on. That’s not a typo, either.
Children need to work in most of Cambodia so the family can have enough money to eat. It’s just the way it is. They’re out on the streets selling bracelets or begging from the tourists, collecting bottles and cans, or, in this case, picking through the trash. In the provinces, they work the rice fields or pick mangos. So with one less pair of hands from the family labor force, everyone might go hungry or they might not be able to keep shelter. Even with both parents working day and night, there might only be $25 a month to live on. That’s not a typo, either.
That’s also why my friend’s community center in the slums was invaluable. Not only did they take in the kids part of the day when parents were at work, but they gave them a meal (sometimes the only real meal they’d get all day,) help them with their homework, teach them life skills, and be their educational and medical advocates.
It wasn’t fancy, believe me, but these kids weren’t even used to being indoors. At first, they were wild children, going to the bathroom all over the place and making a big mess. But they were taught hygiene, proper bathroom etiquette, and not to fight with each other or be disrespectful. It was hard to earn their trust but over time the changes were evident and the children blossomed.
There only other alternative was to stay outside in the dangerous garbage dump, where the kids basically raised themselves as the parents worked night and day. A common sight in this part of the world is a 4-year old girl taking care of her 1-year old baby brother or sister, all day out on the streets. So if nothing else, it was a positive, safe place for the kids to spend time with adult care.
We took the tuk tuk out to the trash town (say that ten times fast!) and were greeted by a handful of mothers and scores from children, who ran from every nook and cranny of the dump when we pulled up. As the ladies talked, the children eyed me shyly, except for a brave few who ran up and bear hugged my legs right away. I started a round of high-fives and goofy antics and pretty soon the kids were all won over.
After half an hour in the blazing sun, the second tuk tuk showed up and we all got aboard. In all we had 18 children and 3 adults to squeeze into two little tuk tuks! But somehow we managed, though I was afraid children would go flying out if we took a sharp turn along the way.
It wasn’t fancy, believe me, but these kids weren’t even used to being indoors. At first, they were wild children, going to the bathroom all over the place and making a big mess. But they were taught hygiene, proper bathroom etiquette, and not to fight with each other or be disrespectful. It was hard to earn their trust but over time the changes were evident and the children blossomed.
There only other alternative was to stay outside in the dangerous garbage dump, where the kids basically raised themselves as the parents worked night and day. A common sight in this part of the world is a 4-year old girl taking care of her 1-year old baby brother or sister, all day out on the streets. So if nothing else, it was a positive, safe place for the kids to spend time with adult care.
We took the tuk tuk out to the trash town (say that ten times fast!) and were greeted by a handful of mothers and scores from children, who ran from every nook and cranny of the dump when we pulled up. As the ladies talked, the children eyed me shyly, except for a brave few who ran up and bear hugged my legs right away. I started a round of high-fives and goofy antics and pretty soon the kids were all won over.
After half an hour in the blazing sun, the second tuk tuk showed up and we all got aboard. In all we had 18 children and 3 adults to squeeze into two little tuk tuks! But somehow we managed, though I was afraid children would go flying out if we took a sharp turn along the way.
We rolled across a highway bridge, and all of a sudden we were in the big city of Phnom Penh, not Stung Meanchey any more. The garbage dump community was conjoined to the city but it may have been a million miles away, because for a lot of these kids they’d only get to leave a few times in their lives. For some of the kids, it was their first time ever outside of their slum, and they eyed the busy traffic and tall buildings with wonder.
One little dude in my tuk tuk was super serious, though not unhappy, but sitting with his shirt tucked in and a look of reserved judgment on his 5-year old face like he was a bank manager and I was pitching him on a million dollar startup investment. Keo explained that he was called The Security Guard, the most shy of all her children. When he first came to her center years ago, he was so homesick that he stood by the door and cried all day for his momma! For days he stood so close to the exit that it looked like he was guarding that front door, so they nicknamed him the “Security Guard!” hahahaha I love it.
One little dude in my tuk tuk was super serious, though not unhappy, but sitting with his shirt tucked in and a look of reserved judgment on his 5-year old face like he was a bank manager and I was pitching him on a million dollar startup investment. Keo explained that he was called The Security Guard, the most shy of all her children. When he first came to her center years ago, he was so homesick that he stood by the door and cried all day for his momma! For days he stood so close to the exit that it looked like he was guarding that front door, so they nicknamed him the “Security Guard!” hahahaha I love it.
Another little girl was smiling but obviously a step slow. Keo explained that many of these kids had serious problems – malnutrition, developmental disorders, medical problems like dengue fever, malaria, and worms, and suffered from abuse. For the people living in the garbage dump slums, there was virtually no chance of their lives getting better, or of their children escaping the same fate. But prior to 2009, when they stopped dumping garbage at Stung Meanchey, things were a little better, though that’s hard to believe. At least the parents could work the garbage dumps and live right there, as well. Now, the city dumped all the trash at a new site far away. But it was still the only way for them to survive so they had to get transportation to the new site every day and also bribe the guards to let them in, and they couldn’t come back home or check on their children at all. So these kids were basically raised in an intellectual and social vacuum, with trash their only consistent companion. The community center was the only bright light in their dark world.
So when the teachers there asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, they all answered, “teachers.” Why? That was the one and only occupation they’d ever been exposed to in their lives other than people who worked the trash. Except one boy, who said he wanted to be an attorney. That shocked the teachers because it was such an ambitious profession that required higher education. But before they could commend him for dreaming impossibly big, he explained that he only knew about attorneys because his father was in prison.
So when the teachers there asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, they all answered, “teachers.” Why? That was the one and only occupation they’d ever been exposed to in their lives other than people who worked the trash. Except one boy, who said he wanted to be an attorney. That shocked the teachers because it was such an ambitious profession that required higher education. But before they could commend him for dreaming impossibly big, he explained that he only knew about attorneys because his father was in prison.
We were heading to the city’s central market but it was almost midday, so I suggested we stop to take the kids out for lunch. We found a humble open-air restaurant and paraded in. The waiters scrambled to put tables together for us. They asked me what I wanted to eat and I went with simple fried rice and a can of Coke, but they brought that out for all 21 of us, which I hadn’t expected!
The children ate happily but I was shocked to see that most of them couldn’t even finish 1/3 of their small plates of just rice. Their stomachs were so small from eating tiny scraps, never full meals and rarely meat or protein sources, that even a handful of rice filled them up. But they did love watching the Cartoon Channel on the restaurant’s television, staring transfixed just like any child in America!
I paid for lunch, mercifully only $49, and we headed out to walk the rest of the way to the market.
The children ate happily but I was shocked to see that most of them couldn’t even finish 1/3 of their small plates of just rice. Their stomachs were so small from eating tiny scraps, never full meals and rarely meat or protein sources, that even a handful of rice filled them up. But they did love watching the Cartoon Channel on the restaurant’s television, staring transfixed just like any child in America!
I paid for lunch, mercifully only $49, and we headed out to walk the rest of the way to the market.
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The children walked hand in hand in a snaking line, like they’d been taught, and I followed nervously, making sure the reckless cars, motos, and tuk tuks didn’t get too close. One of the little girls took my hand and wouldn’t let go the whole way down to the market, and then as we walked inside.
We were quite an odd site – 18 little kids from the trash dumps, filthy, faces covered with rashes and grime, tattered clothes and some of them with no shoes, walking barefoot on the hot city streets, but all beaming ear to ear with smiles. And then one big, sweating farang (foreigner) following up the line. The Cambodian mothers we passed smiled and patted me on the back and the tuk tuk drivers laughed and called me Papa and said I must be strong for having 18 children.
We were quite an odd site – 18 little kids from the trash dumps, filthy, faces covered with rashes and grime, tattered clothes and some of them with no shoes, walking barefoot on the hot city streets, but all beaming ear to ear with smiles. And then one big, sweating farang (foreigner) following up the line. The Cambodian mothers we passed smiled and patted me on the back and the tuk tuk drivers laughed and called me Papa and said I must be strong for having 18 children.
We navigated the insanely cramped, bustling and chaotic market and found the 2nd-floor stall where we were getting a good deal on school uniforms. One by one, Keo sized up the kids and had them try on their new uniform over their clothes, with the shop owner climbing over a mountain of clothes to pick out the right ones. The kids tried their best to stay in que and be on their best behavior, but their excitement got the best of them as they yelped with glee and jumped up and down at the prospect of being next in line to get the only new set of clothes they’d worn in years.
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After the exhausting process of getting 18 kids with jumping bean energy fitted for clothes was over, we jammed into the tuk tuks and headed back to Stung Meanchey. Immediately upon returning, they kids scattered to show their friends and mothers their new clothes. But we called them back to the tuk tuk for one more treat – each kid got a school pouch with new notebooks, pencils, and crayons.
Before they ran off again we corralled them long enough to take a few photos. They said goodbye and hugged me and asked when I’d be back. I thought I even saw the Security Guard smile! I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the uniforms was just a start but we still didn’t have enough funds to pay for their schooling, and were far away from being able to open the community center again. And there were scores of other little kids who didn’t get uniforms or crayons and wouldn’t ever get to go to school, unless someone helps.
-Norm :-)
Before they ran off again we corralled them long enough to take a few photos. They said goodbye and hugged me and asked when I’d be back. I thought I even saw the Security Guard smile! I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the uniforms was just a start but we still didn’t have enough funds to pay for their schooling, and were far away from being able to open the community center again. And there were scores of other little kids who didn’t get uniforms or crayons and wouldn’t ever get to go to school, unless someone helps.
-Norm :-)
Update:
You guys ARE helping! Just by posting the photos of the kids from Stung Meanchey on Facebook, I’ve had a bunch of you send in donations and offer your support. We’re getting close to being able to ensure that at least these 18 kids will be able to go to school, at least for this year. But we’d love to reopen the community center for them and do something bigger. I’ve even been in touch with a representative from Coca Cola who’s considering a donation because they saw the photos.
I hate always asking people for money and I know times are tough all around. But even skipping your Starbucks today and donating the money, instead can mean one of these kids gets to go to school for a month. So hit me up if you want to get involved. If not, that's ok, too. But even better, you can help by helping sharing the story of these amazing kids.
So, from the children of Stung Meanchey, THANK YOU for caring!
You guys ARE helping! Just by posting the photos of the kids from Stung Meanchey on Facebook, I’ve had a bunch of you send in donations and offer your support. We’re getting close to being able to ensure that at least these 18 kids will be able to go to school, at least for this year. But we’d love to reopen the community center for them and do something bigger. I’ve even been in touch with a representative from Coca Cola who’s considering a donation because they saw the photos.
I hate always asking people for money and I know times are tough all around. But even skipping your Starbucks today and donating the money, instead can mean one of these kids gets to go to school for a month. So hit me up if you want to get involved. If not, that's ok, too. But even better, you can help by helping sharing the story of these amazing kids.
So, from the children of Stung Meanchey, THANK YOU for caring!
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