Asociacion Educativa Oscar Wilde: septiembre 2010

Many years ago, in 1992 while working in Cambodia, Christian des Pallières was curious to know more about the young child who begged for scraps in the street. Some time later a child showed him where he lived with his family. He was led to the city dump outside Phnom Penh. There he was shocked to see so many families living on the dump in huts in terrible conditions with their children scavenging in the waste.

By talking to the children he learnt that what they really needed... what they really wanted was one meal a day. He started there by bringing cooked food to the dump.
Another dream was to rest, as the children were sent to work all day and all night in the dump to eke out a living for their families. Another wish was to learn to read and write.

Over time these dreams and wishes have come true for many children of Cambodia. The schools he has built are testimony to how we can make a difference.

The work of des Pallières is a real story of perseverence.

Firsthand experience
I have spent 5 weeks in Cambodia, helping run the summer camp of the schools created by the NGO For the Smile of a Child (PSE). This summer camp is just a small part of the work that is done during the school year.

It was such an amazing experience! There are several schools of PSE around the country of Cambodia, next to the dumpsites usually, to facilitate the access of the children working there. I was helping out in the school of Phnom Penh, but during the weekends visited other schools.

We went to see the old dumpsite in Phnom Penh, there is no rubbish brought into it anymore, there is a new dump site that has been fenced to avoid “voyeurs”. The people that live next to the old dumpsite now have to spend part of their meager salary to travel to the new dump.

We also visited the dumpsite in Sieam Rep, the smell was unbearable, yet the people have built their houses on the rubbish itself!
The worst part is not the housing setting; the worst part is that many kids are forced to work day and night in terrible conditions, under the 40 degree sun, with hardly anything to take to their mouths, to earn 20 cents to bring back home.

During the week we would stay in the Phnom Penh school, teachers are on holiday in August, so volunteers are requested to help out in running a summer camp, preparing lessons, games and activities for those same kids (music, baseball, journal, water games...)
1300 children per day! We were not expecting so many! But managed to send them all to shower, give them breakfast, make them laugh, learn and enjoy the activities, give them lunch (and a snack between the classes) and send them to siesta.

Of course we had the help of Khmer instructors that were translating and running the activities with us. These instructors, my age, had also been kids of the dumpsite, now they are studying bachelor degrees; gardening, secretarial school, mechanics, and even medicine or law, and have a summer job as instructors.

Every day we were getting better and better in our classes, but the heat, the food, the fatigue and the mosquitoes were making us tired at the same time. However the smiles of those kids made worth the effort. Waking up at 6 in the morning was hard, but when you see the smiles in the kids face when they arrive to school you find energy again.

Some children that have had a specially troubled life (mistreated, abused by their parents) are taken intern in the school, they live there. We would have dinner with them and keep them company in the evening and during their prayer. The prayer was the most relaxing part of the day. Buddhist and Christian children requested to be able to pray together, their thoughts were, "if we live together, study together, why do we have to pray separately? We are a family". So now you can sit and listen to Buddhist songs and Christian prayers in the same ceremony. Dosen’t that teach the world something?

There is a relatively new class adapted for handicapped children in the school, if conditions are harsh for children you can imagine how it is for handicapped kids, with parents with little resources.

When we walk around the city the children wave their hands at us and ask us in a very lyrical English “Hello, what is your name?” “Hello, what is your name?” everyday we hear it hurndreds of times. People smile very easily. They don´t have much but they enjoy what they have.
They love when we speak our broken Khmer when we walk through the market. And many say "Spain, world champions", and are curious to know more about our lives in Europe.
It has been amazing to be able to be close to those people, the Kmher instructors specially as they were our door to communication and the example for their parents and younger brothers, they managed to catch up in school thanks to the teaching methods of the NGO where they have the possibility to do 2 grades per year. Some of the instructors were telling us how they didn´t know how to write or read 6 years ago, and now they not only write and read Kmher but English or French too.

Some days in class I would act mute, I would use only gestures to communicate, it made the classes very peaceful and the kids very interested. Other times I would sing and shout then they would laugh and play with a lot of energy. You discover therefore other ways of communication. One of the things I learned is to listen, even when you don´t understand, because eventually, one way or another you will :)

I would like to thank PSE for welcoming us and looking after us, and thank them for the impressive work they are doing.

I´d like to thank all of you that helped me bring my bag full of toys and medicines to Cambodia (Esther Muñoz, Janice Richardson, Paul Gerhard, Alexa Joyce, Maria & Leticia Pérez, Teresa Bertamino, Marie Le Boniec, Stephane Chaudrone and many more)

And thank Biddy for this space and for her positive energy.

Lastly I encourage everyone to take a look at the website of the organisation, because I can guarantee that not a penny is misused. It´s all used for the smile of a child :)