With so many people a rice bag away from starvation, Cambodian villages have few resources to care for individuals with special needs.
Those whose circumstances have left them unable to support themselves and their families often end up as outcasts due to prejudice, misconceptions or simply their community’s inability to help.
Two NGOs, the Cambodian War Amputees Rehabilitation Society and Nyemo, have developed formulas to help the disadvantaged regain their confidence and support themselves.
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Shop owners often find excuses not to hire qualified amputees, says Sam Oeurn Pok, program director for the Cambodian War Amputees Rehabilitation Society.
They don’t believe that amputees can work with missing limbs even if they wear prostheses. “That’s why we don’t train people to find jobs. We train them to open and run their own shops,” said Sam Oeurn Pok.
Land mines have swelled the number of amputees in the country. Nearly one-third of land mine victims lose limbs, said Ray Worner, project advisor for the mine victim information system at Handicap International. Based on that ratio, of the 45,600 mine victims since 1979, about 13,900 would have become amputees, he said. Records from 1979 through 1996 are incomplete, he added, “so there is a very good chance that we didn’t catch them all.”
When amputees arrive at the CWARS training schools in Kompong Thom and Pursat provinces, they are usually destitute, said Executive Director David Aston. Unable to keep their old jobs after their accidents, they find themselves with no trade and no one willing to hire them. With options reduced to depending on relatives or begging to survive, the amputees often became demoralized at best and alcoholic in some cases, Aston said.
CWARS’ programs are designed to rebuild their health and self-esteem as well as give them a trade they can use in their villages. Students live at the school during their training, which lasts from three to six months. They are in class nearly 7 1/2 hours a day, five days per week.
“Some of the students can’t read or write,” said Ouch Chom, administrator of the Kompong Thom school. “We have set up literacy classes that they can attend at night.”
Courses are selected based on students’ requests and on the needs of surrounding villages, said Aston. In Pursat, the school set up training in radio and television repair, while in Kompong Thom, bicycle repair and hairdressing were among the first courses offered.
Students at the Kompong Thom school are now receiving training in motorcycle repair, small engine repair, and sewing and tailoring. Thanks to a combined grant of $1.3 million from the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation in Hong Kong and a corporation based in the US state of California which wishes to remain anonymous, CWARS was able to accept 194 students in Kompong Thom this session.
CWARS, which Aston started on a shoestring with small donations from Canadian individuals in the mid-1990s, still grows its own vegetables and keeps farm animals to feed students.
Men sleep in large dormitory rooms while women are housed in smaller rooms, each bed equipped with a mosquito net. They eat in a common dining hall but have separate toilet and washing facilities.
On a Wednesday afternoon in late March, students were mostly silent as they followed their teachers’ directions, intent on their tasks. “They are trying very hard to learn. They want that knowledge,” said Mao Sarama, a sewing teacher. But some of them carry deep psychological scars and have a hard time remembering instructions, she said.
Lo Chang, a graduate from the Kompong Thom school, says it took her three months to believe that she would make it. “When I lost my leg, I didn’t want to live anymore,” said the 23-year-old woman. Barely able to read or write, it took her hours every night to review the day’s instructions and get ready for the next class.
After graduating, Lo Chang opened a sewing and tailoring shop along the main road of Chounlous commune in Kompong Thom. On a Thursday morning in late March, there were about 10 skirts and blouses hanging in her shop waiting to be picked up by clients. Lo Chang was finishing a skirt using fabric with a traditional Cambodian pattern. “Clients like this type of fabric for Khmer New Year clothes,” she explained. She earns about 5,000 riel ($1.25) per day.
On that same morning, Loy Ye’s shop in Resey commune, Kompong Thom, was filled with clients waiting for him to repair their bicycles. After more than a year in business, Loy Ye makes 5,000 to 10,000 riel (about $1.25 to $2.50) daily.
In the same commune, Oun Mao earns 2,000 to 3,000 riel (about $0.50 to $0.75) per day. He is a recent graduate and opened his bicycle repair shop less than two months ago. With six children to feed, Oun Mao says he hopes to earn as much as much as Loy Ye.
For most students, this training is their only chance to learn a trade that allows them to function as an equal with other workers—a chance they are seizing with all their might, according to Aston. “We are always amazed at the level of ability of these people who have been marginalized,” he said.
The school gives students the tools of their trade and ongoing support once they have opened their shops. Two hairdressers in Pursat province now earn between $250 and $400 per month, and two motorcycle repairmen who run a shop together make $300 to $350 per month, according to Aston. He said students on average earn $50 to $200 per month.
About 80 percent to 85 percent succeed in making a good living for themselves and their families, said Aston. As for the others, he said some come to the schools more for food and shelter than to learn, others fall back into alcoholism, and a few simply can’t cope with their situation.
Each student costs CWARS $500 to $600—which includes housing, food, teacher salaries and tools—for six months of training, said Aston. The NGO occasionally accepts polio victims in addition to amputees.
During the life of its five-year grant in Kompong Thom, CWARS intends to train more than 2,000 amputees, said Sam Oeurn Pok. The Pursat school has trained 1,393 of the approximately 1,500 amputees in that province, he said. Now a new group of amputees, mostly demobilized soldiers, have recently moved to Pursat, and CWARS is trying to raise funds to train them.
CWARS has also run short-term courses on agricultural methods for amputees and their families in Chong Kal district, Oddar Meancheay province. A similar course was organized for families in Viel Veng district, Pursat province.
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Whatever the real cause, women are usually blamed for a shattered marriage. “There is a social stigma against women who leave their husbands,” said Mu Sochua, Minister of Women’s and Veterans’ Affairs.
Even if a woman was beaten or abandoned at some point, both her husband’s and her own family will try to send her back to her husband if he wants her. It takes a great deal of courage for women to walk away, Mu Sochua said.
According to the government’s Cambodia 2000 Demographic and Health Survey, two out of five women have no one to turn to for financial help. Even though 77 percent live near relatives, less than one woman out of five can rely on them for shelter, said the report.
Since 25 percent of households in Cambodia are headed by women, this means that a quarter of the families in the country have no safety net in times of crisis.
Left to fend for themselves, women need more than training to survive. “They have to regain their dignity, be aware of their rights as human beings, and feel supported,” Mu Sochua said.
One Nyemo project helps women set up a household where they live with their children and work at a trade such as weaving or sewing. The women may be widows, divorced, abandoned, or forced into prostitution to survive. Some have AIDS, others don’t, and it is understood that children of the sick women will be cared for by the others when they pass away, said Simone Herault, Nyemo’s coordinator.
An Panha, now 19, has been an orphan since she was seven years old in Siem Reap province, living wherever she could. “One time, I nearly got sold and taken to Thailand,” she said. Rescued by the NGO Krousar Thmey , she was referred to Nyemo nine months ago.
Ly Sihuoen is a 26-year old widow with two children from Kompong Cham province. Assisted by Nyemo, she and An Panha selected a ground-floor apartment near Phsar Tuol Tumpong in Phnom Penh.
The front room has a large window opening on the sidewalk. The two women put up a sign and set up their sewing machines. On one recent afternoon, they were hard at work, side by side, finishing a pair of pants and matching blouse for a client.
It hasn’t always been easy. “We’ve had arguments,” An Panha said. At first, they barely made 2,000 riel ($0.50) per day, Ly Sihuoen said. “We were not known in the neighborhood,” Ly Sihuoen said. Now they make $2 to $5 per day. “In the future, I want to open a bigger shop, but I’m not sure we’ll have enough capital to do it,” Ly Sihuoen said.
The women have earned enough to pay back nearly half of the $180 loan they obtained
