On, Maly, Loeung, Ath, Malim, Oeun - Vernon BC 2008

Refugees Loeung, Ath 1979

The Rice Box Asian Takeout in Vernon BC set its third Wok-a-thon for Sunday January 8 2102, 12 noon to 7 pm.  The owner On Ouch (Ooykh) will split all profits, as he did in past Wok-a-thons, between CSG and Vernon’s Jubilee Hospital Foundation.  Staff will be volunteering.  Love for both homeland and new country keep motivating the Ouch family to give back to Cambodia and Canada.Life for Cambodia’s poor is still a ceaseless struggle – and for Cambodians in Canada, memories of a brutal regime are painful even as they carve out successful lives here.

On’s father Ath Ouch is an energetic part of the Rice Box team, but behind his sunburst smile lie stories of hopelessness which Canadians brought at last to a joyful end.

Swept up in Cambodia’s murderous 1970s Khmer Rouge regime, Ath was driven into fields with millions of people for forced labour at gunpoint. “We work fourteen, fifteen hours a day,” he recalled. “We eat only two time a day,” a small cup of watery rice porridge each time.  Starvation was rampant, health care non-existent, friendship and emotion forbidden – and in vicious attacks on culture and education, even soft hands (not peasant-work rough) might be fatal.

As the regime collapsed in 1979, Ath escaped to Thailand with countless others.  He crept for three months, slowed by starvation and staying off cleared trails to avoid detection.  Many thousands died from hunger, illness – or landmines scattered like wind-blown seeds.

In Thailand, the chicken-coop refugee life brought new trouble.  Ath and his wife Loeung, married in late 1979, had four children over time and struggled to support them in spite of minimal food and water, constant war-zone dangers, and stern refugee-camp rules against personal initiative like selling to earn income.

Rules were broken out of desperate need.  On Ouch remembers selling goods at age five.  “We needed money for basics like food and medicine,” he says.  “Canadian kids have school and playtime, but my brother Oeun and I had to work long hours in the hot sun doing child labour just to survive.” Girls Maly and Malim were born later.  Ath and Loeung appealed with no luck to many countries.  After nine years they were recommended to Canada through U.N. channels, then by Canadian Immigration to CSG.  President Arne Sahlen, now living in Vernon, remembers: “We were told that Loeung and Ath were very hard-working, but needed a support system as opposed to more independent government sponsorship.  Within two weeks, we found an eager Vernon response and a group being set up at All Saints Anglican Church.” Outpourings of church and community kindness greeted the refugees – as in centres across Canada for Cambodians and others – giving priceless gifts of freedom and life choices.  After a few years renting, Ath and Loeung bought a fine house.  All four children succeeded in studies and work.  For Ath, eighteen years of sawmill jobs ended with recent economic woes.  Loeung has had regular restaurant work.

On Ouch is passionate about the Wok-a-thon charities.  “Health care was a desperate need during all our refugee years, so my family knows how it matters to a healthy society.  My sister Malim is now a nurse in Nova Scotia, and Wok-a-thons let us honour Canadian health systems by supporting the Vernon hospital.  And CSG still works to rebuild Cambodia’s healthy society.  We are glad to give back to the agency that brought my family to this great country.”  On invited Arne to play piano at the Rice Box during the Wok-a-thon; a CSG donation basket will be there, with tax receipts available.  Arne will give back also on CSG’s behalf by playing in Vernon hospitals and seniors’ homes.

More information: 250-540-4242 or www.thericebox.com

… with life at elemental levels.  We (Cambodia Support Group, volunteer Canadian agency) aid child-youth, music, women’s and disabled work, all through Cambodian partners.

20 years, 20 trips.  A time of swarming memories…

In Cambodia, December 16: Hello to you all. Yesterday had highs and lows – sometimes both at once.

High times come in KAVTV electric-electronic school for the disabled. I notice the students’ sometimes-shocking deformities — for about three seconds. Then the bursts of laughter, the whizz-clank of tools and crickle of soldering irons, and everywhere the famous Cambodian smile overwhelm the senses. This is a thumping good success story of lives transformed from hopeless with training and work provision that bring income, self-respect, and society status.

Upstairs in the office, Hem Phang (Pong), KAVTV creator and Executive Director, is ecstatic. Australia-New Zealand Bank (ANZ) granted US$8,000 and 16,000 over two years, but said two is the limit. Then TV Kampuchea and the Phnom Penh Post newspaper gave excellent feature stories about KAVTV. So impressed was ANZ that another $8,400 is offered, subject to matching funds being raised.

(check google search: Phnom Penh Post KAVTV – The disabled train for new life in society )

A muggy day. Phang, in shorts, removes his false leg. I’ve seen landmine-produced stumps for decades; his is nearly as high up as they go. I’ll spare you a description. It’s not something you get used to, but we can and should treat it as normal. After all, it can’t be changed. We chat about the strangeness that took off his leg but moved him to create this magnificent project that changes lives and brings so much joy. A dragged-out struggle it was, partly in lockstep with CSG as reviewed in our current newsletter (attached). At last, success is breeding success. Though the needs are still strong, a great ripple effect now spreads the good news far and wide to benefit not only KAVTV and its graduates but the disabled sector as a whole.

Nouv Vuthim (Voo-TEEM) joins us for lunch. He was the motorbike taxi driver that fate ‘told’ me we must help after about six minutes knowing him (see Destiny’s Child attached). Now he teaches Grade 6 while working on his Master’s Degree in English. Vuthim has just been recommended to move up the scale of teacher status and standing, since his work is so very good.

We all go to a favourite streetside café. I’ve been away for more than two years, so it’s enormous fun to reconnect with and joke with the staff (What, no crocodile meat? How about gecko?)

I spent a first night at the home of Khmer (Cambodian) tenor Hy Chanthavouth’s house. His adorable family met me at the airport; he is in Year Five of CSG sponsorship, studying voice in Canada. His widowed mother Kimhuon, one of my heroes, struggled through thick, thin and worse to make a good life for her six children. Chanthavouth’s success in Canada brings her great joy, much as she and the whole extended family (about fourteen people) miss him.

Now I am staying with Soun Piseth (Pee-SETT) whom we sponsored in 1997-98 to study piano and composing in Canada. After some ups and downs, Piseth feels he has found his way with big-picture awareness that he first glimpsed during his year and a half in Canada. Now 31, with wife Anna and two adorable young children, Piseth is deeply philosophical about life. As a composer, keyboard man, studio technician and actor, he is finally reaching levels of success and recognition that can fuel his desires to help others.

Driving to his home at around 8:30 pm, we happen by a garment factory at shift-change time. You see such buildings a lot here. They are very long, with barely any openings. Perhaps eight hundred people swarm by us. As with Canada’s coal miners a century ago, they might never see the sun since they work twelve to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week for $60 to $100 per month – all so our clothes can be cheaper in developed countries. Any of those people might be like Vuthim, if they only had the chance, or at least in fulfilling jobs that allowed some family time. For about five minutes we are trapped in this dispersing sea of enslaved humanity – definitely a ‘low’ for us both.

Home we arrive at last. Piseth’s boy Peterson, now 3, greets us with dimpled smile, piercing black eyes and whirlwind activity. Piseth’s unbelievably beautiful wife Anna has great Khmer food ready, and we share family-time delights around the table. The day ends on a definite high.

Greetings.  This site will grow over time, partly from Cambodia itself (see post below).  For now, please read the newsletter above.  (Your ZOOM feature under View will make for easier reading) It tells of CSG motives and methods respecting the culture, initiative, ability and honour of Cambodian partners. 

CSG serves as a bridge between the people’s wishes and success – or in fact, more like a paved road surface easing their quest.  The main ‘bridge supports’ are initiative, ability … of Khmer (Cambodian) people. 

The all-volunteer CSG, Canada-based, spends zero dollars on high salaries or ‘perks’, office rental or equipment, and so on.  CSG members work using their own home-office equipment; when in Cambodia they use portable computers, internet shops and the like.   Newsletter page 2 (lower left) tells more. 

Some such costs do come from CSG funds - given to aid Khmer agencies and their work. They pay Cambodians working for people and country (at low to moderate, local-standard salaries); they also buy, or are given, equipment needed for their splendid projects.  No foreigners work for our partners.  All their CSG visitors are volunteers.

CSG is in Year 28 of not having a plan! Seeing what Khmer people want to do and assisting their efforts led us into a broad ‘portfolio’ with overall quality-of-life impact:
– KAVTV: electric-electronic training and jobs for disabled people (85% success!)
– KWVC: women’s security, opportunity, family harmony
– SHS: aid to destitute and disabled chldren and their families
– SIL: advanced education for eager but needy teens and young adults
– RUFA: traditional-music sponsorship (100 instruments), to rebuild the great culture
– HY C: western-music support (because Cambodia also wants to belong also in inter-
national music):superb tenor-humanitarian, Hy Chanthavouth, studying in Canada.

The newsletter gives much more detail. We believe that CSG is worth supporting, and we welcome your comments. We hope you will donate to the project you choose, or state ‘Use as needed.’ Your wishes will be honoured and respected as we support heroic survivors, rising from brutality and hopelessness to face a strong future. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Arne Sahlen, CSG President and Country Director

Hello all.   It will be a powerful time of memories – some inspiring, some crushing, and all in between.  My first experience there showed people beaten back and down into barely-human existence, so despite the many problems that still exist I see magnitudes of improvement in many ways.

I am a member of Canada’s all-volunteer Cambodia Support Group, which resettled 204 Cambodians to our country in the 1980s, then turned to supporting in-country development once the 1991 Peace Accord was signed.  We keep our focus on supporting the people in their own decision-making and project development.  Some splendid partnerships have grown up over time.   

I thought I loaded two pictures – can’t see them.  Perhaps you can.  They show disabled people learning electrical wiring at the marvellous KAVTV electric-electronic school, and graduate Pauv at his repair shop.   This is a truly GREAT project that gives hope, skill, society status, and self-esteem to hundreds who once knew mainly dependence and hopelessness.

If anyone is travelling in Cambodia between December 13 and 28, I would be thrilled to show you some wonderful work being done for women, children-youth and fine arts as well as the disabled.  We have a huge network of trusted friends – more like adopted family – and are honoured indeed to work with and support them.

Contact us at cambodiacsg@live.com

Arne Sahlen