I spent a fascintating day today with 'Davy', a middle aged Cambodian woman who lived through the Pol Pot era losing her father, uncle and other relatives in the process. She grew up in Phnom Penh in a reasonable house on some land, the equivalent of a middle class family. She went to a local school and was doing well. When the Khmer Regime swept through the city her family left everything and disappeared into the countryside as most of the city's educated people did to escape certain death. Pol Pot was obsessed with getting rid of educated people, among others. The family hid in the country for a couple of years and then when they were able to come back to the city they found that someone had taken over their old house and land and they were left with nothing. Her family that remained, grandmother, mother, herself and her brother had to start again living in squalor. Davy was one of the lucky ones and was able to continue finishing her schooling and went on to receive a scholarship to travel to Russia and study electrical engineering, which she did.
She came back to Cambodia and worked in the government in their infrastructure and international aid departments, working with NGO's like Unicef, Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity etc. She got to travel to Malaysia and other countries, including Europe, representing the Cambodian government. The problem was that she saw how corrupt the government was, they would tell the NGO's that the cost of the new road would be a certain amount, then once they received the money they would tell all the land owners either side of the road that they had to contribute a certain figure towards the road. This amount would pretty much cover the cost of the road and the government would keep the NGO money. There were lots of other things she saw that she got more and more angry about, the red tape and slow progress, the fact that the NGO's were throwing money at building something and then just walking away, with no proper follow up, no training of the local people etc. She felt that she had to get out and do something herself, independent of outside funding and without government intervention.
So she did, about 7 years ago. She had become aware during her time working in government, of a group of people, a community of around 100 families, that had been removed by the government from the more rundown parts of the city and put out onto land outside the city boundaries, behind a big, dusty industrial area out near the airport with large trucks rumbing along creating a massive dust hazard all day. These people had nothing and were given nothing, apart from land. They had no job, there was certainly no jobs out in this deserted part of the outer city boundaries and they found it difficult, time consuming and expensive to get back into the city to work. They were not provided with housing, no power, no running water and the land flooded regularly. Atrocious thing for the government to do. So Davy wanted to help in some way. She remembered a westerner telling her that people want to buy things at local markets that are specifically Cambodian, not imported things from Vietnam, Thailand and China. So she set about thinking up something that local women could cheaply and easily make to sell at the markets and came up with the idea of artifical flowers made from corn husks. She spent months perfecting the process and since then has gone on to teach around 20 different women. They all purchase the corn husks in bulk, (sometimes she has to loan them the money up front to buy them), they then dry and flatten them, dye them bright colours, (she tells them where to buy the dye and what type and what colours), and then they fold the pieces of corn husk to make flowers which they then bring to Davy who then sells them on behalf of the women. It takes the women about 1.5 hours to make each flower. They get sold at the market for 50c each. She gives them 100% of the money, takes nothing for herself, even though she spends hours a week assisting the women and then setting up and running the night market stall from 4pm to 10pm, 3 nights per week! She is amazing. She took me to visit 2 of the familys and they love her so much, she has transformed their lives. They have gone from absolute poverty to very low income. This means that they are now able to buy enough food to feed their families and send their children to the local schools. They still live in terrible conditions, bare, concrete floor, bare, unpainted rendered concrete walls. One room, no furniture, i mean none! rolled up grass mats in a corner that the whole family of 6 sleep on, a semi attached 1m wide room at the back that has some basic cooking implements. Oh they did have a tv, although the reception was terrible. There was no ceiling, just corrogated iron and i reckon it was 35 degrees inside that house, i was standing there for half an hour watching her show me how she makes the flowers and i was sweating like crazy. It was hideous. They spend most of their day outside the house sitting on a makeshift bamboo table type structure. It was pretty shocking to see and realise that this is how so many people in the world live. Thats more normal than how i live based on percentage of the worlds population.
Back to Davy and the things she has been doing for these families. She also agitated and hassled the local government until they put power on to these run down houses and put forward the case for a water supply. So although she is only working directly with about 10 families in this particular community, she has helped a 100 families get some kind of electricity supply and basic water supply. She told the local community leader, (equivalent of a mayor i guess), that if he didn't talk to government and organise to get power out to this community she would tell them all not to vote for him next time. It worked! He got it happening and specially asked her to tell the community that he made it happen so they should vote for him! And for the water supply she told the community to get 20 people together and go enmasse into the city to the government offices and demand that they get water supplied to this marginal community. They were scared to do it because they felt they had no power, but she told them to go as a big group to put pressure on the local government. It worked.
She is one tough cookie. She has also semi adopted two young girls, (they were around 10 when they came to live with her due to abuse at their homes). She provides for them, sent them to school and pays for it all herself. She pretty much gives all her money away constantly helping others around her. It was a great day and i learnt so much from her, she talked the whole time about her life, her history, the history of the country, the politics, the current situation with aid assistance (from her point of view). It was fascinating. What a way to end my short visit to Phnom Penh.
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