"Together for Betterment of Street Children"
What does war leave for a country? Cambodia after engaging in about three decade war, it left her four things: (1) more than two million people died (including students, teachers, doctors, engineers, etc.), (2) all infrastructure ruined—houses, schools, hospitals, roads, and bridges gone, (3) hundred thousands of land mines planted on her land surface, and (4) millions of people with psycho suffered—terror and scene of violence. With these, Cambodia has been left behind as one of the world poorest countries. Though people of Cambodia have been working so hard to create the betterment of their life and their county; but the process is so slow. About 35 percent of her 13 million populations are staying under the national poverty line (ADB, 2004).
When one walks down the streets in Phnom Penh, capital city of Cambodia; one will see children of all ages living, begging and working on the streets. These street children as the definition agreed by UNICEF, government and local organizations are categorized into three groups: (1) street living children—children who have completely cut ties with their families or have no family and have mad streets their home; (2) street working children—children who spend all or most of their time working on the streets to provide an income for their families or for themselves, but return home regularly or irregularly; (3) children of street living family—children who live with their family on the street.
In Phnom Penh, there are about 1800 street living children, 10-20,000 street working children, and 500-20,000 street living children (National OVC Task Force, 2007, the number is various according to the season). Very often these street children are at high risk on the streets. They face sexual abuse, physical abuse, gang involvement, child labor, drug use, food shortage, and health problems and so on. Seriously they never have chance to meet their essential rights declares in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Recognizing this problem, therefore, Friends-International was established in 1994; and ran a project called “Mith Samlanh” (means “Friends” in Khmer). One of the mains activities of Mith Samlanh is to work with street children, their families and their communities to protect them from all form of risky and dangerous life on the streets.
Mith Samlanh strives to achieve an important objective that is to respond to the immediate needs of the children, in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC): (1) the right to life: providing nutritional meals, shelter, a safe environment and medical care; (2) the right to development: providing education and reintegrating them into public school and by developing their curiosity; (3) the right to protection: fighting all forms of abuse against children including physical, sexual, emotional abuse; and (4) the right to participation: making children aware of their responsibilities and promoting action within the center and in the community.
With this objective, we have various teams and subprojects working within two important work places, in-side-center and out-side-center. For instance, Medical outreach teams go on the streets in defined zone to help the street children or street families with medical needs. Life skill outreach teams go on the streets to educate street children and other target groups to educate them about HIV/AIDS, STD and so on. Drug outreach teams go on the streets to educate/help them prevent drug use. All these outreach teams encourage street children to join the in-side-center activities; they work very closely with placement teams to get children in to the center and assist them into the in-side-center activities to prepare them for their social and cultural integration. For in-side-center activities, we have non-formal education for young children—those who are young and want to pursue their education. This group will be reintegrated into public school after finishing the program at Mith Samlanh. For those who are too old and don’t want to go for education, they can go to vocational training skill such as mechanic, electronic, electrical, welding, sewing, cooking, beauty saloon, or laundry. During their study at the center, children of both groups have chance to go for art and cultural activities, secure shelter, nutritional food, and medical care.
With great advantages of Mith Samlanh holistic program, there are more and more street children joining the center to better their life. Realizing this great achievement in recent years and with the request of our donors, Friends-international have established new projects with similar characteristic to Mith Samlanh in Siem Ream, Cambodia; Bangkok, Thailand; Vientiane, Laos; and Banda Ache, Indonesia. We work with children of all ages, races, religions, and ethnics. We work to promote culture of peace and to live together with harmony.
Friends-International is now growing fast and needs a lot young people like me and many others to response to the challenges of both existing and prospective project. We need more input of knowledge. So topics like sustaining a culture of peace, education for conflict resolution, fundraising/civic engagement/organizing, health and Human Rights covered at International Leadership Furom will be a great inspiration for us to response to those challenges. Since I am in the Office of IT/Production working closely with other teams to develop and publish educational material (HIV/AIDS, Drug, and Rights of Children education), website, and fundraising material and so on. I will have great chance applying skills and knowledge learned from the forum to the need of Friends-International and we will continue working together for the betterment of children.
Above mention are some parts of my knowledge about my beloved country—a country with her rich culture and history, a country which is down and strives to survive after war; and my experience and knowledge about street children (their needs and their rights) Friends-International working with. And I hope that this can be a good chance to share with friends around the world.
When one walks down the streets in Phnom Penh, capital city of Cambodia; one will see children of all ages living, begging and working on the streets. These street children as the definition agreed by UNICEF, government and local organizations are categorized into three groups: (1) street living children—children who have completely cut ties with their families or have no family and have mad streets their home; (2) street working children—children who spend all or most of their time working on the streets to provide an income for their families or for themselves, but return home regularly or irregularly; (3) children of street living family—children who live with their family on the street.
In Phnom Penh, there are about 1800 street living children, 10-20,000 street working children, and 500-20,000 street living children (National OVC Task Force, 2007, the number is various according to the season). Very often these street children are at high risk on the streets. They face sexual abuse, physical abuse, gang involvement, child labor, drug use, food shortage, and health problems and so on. Seriously they never have chance to meet their essential rights declares in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Recognizing this problem, therefore, Friends-International was established in 1994; and ran a project called “Mith Samlanh” (means “Friends” in Khmer). One of the mains activities of Mith Samlanh is to work with street children, their families and their communities to protect them from all form of risky and dangerous life on the streets.
Mith Samlanh strives to achieve an important objective that is to respond to the immediate needs of the children, in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC): (1) the right to life: providing nutritional meals, shelter, a safe environment and medical care; (2) the right to development: providing education and reintegrating them into public school and by developing their curiosity; (3) the right to protection: fighting all forms of abuse against children including physical, sexual, emotional abuse; and (4) the right to participation: making children aware of their responsibilities and promoting action within the center and in the community.
With this objective, we have various teams and subprojects working within two important work places, in-side-center and out-side-center. For instance, Medical outreach teams go on the streets in defined zone to help the street children or street families with medical needs. Life skill outreach teams go on the streets to educate street children and other target groups to educate them about HIV/AIDS, STD and so on. Drug outreach teams go on the streets to educate/help them prevent drug use. All these outreach teams encourage street children to join the in-side-center activities; they work very closely with placement teams to get children in to the center and assist them into the in-side-center activities to prepare them for their social and cultural integration. For in-side-center activities, we have non-formal education for young children—those who are young and want to pursue their education. This group will be reintegrated into public school after finishing the program at Mith Samlanh. For those who are too old and don’t want to go for education, they can go to vocational training skill such as mechanic, electronic, electrical, welding, sewing, cooking, beauty saloon, or laundry. During their study at the center, children of both groups have chance to go for art and cultural activities, secure shelter, nutritional food, and medical care.
With great advantages of Mith Samlanh holistic program, there are more and more street children joining the center to better their life. Realizing this great achievement in recent years and with the request of our donors, Friends-international have established new projects with similar characteristic to Mith Samlanh in Siem Ream, Cambodia; Bangkok, Thailand; Vientiane, Laos; and Banda Ache, Indonesia. We work with children of all ages, races, religions, and ethnics. We work to promote culture of peace and to live together with harmony.
Friends-International is now growing fast and needs a lot young people like me and many others to response to the challenges of both existing and prospective project. We need more input of knowledge. So topics like sustaining a culture of peace, education for conflict resolution, fundraising/civic engagement/organizing, health and Human Rights covered at International Leadership Furom will be a great inspiration for us to response to those challenges. Since I am in the Office of IT/Production working closely with other teams to develop and publish educational material (HIV/AIDS, Drug, and Rights of Children education), website, and fundraising material and so on. I will have great chance applying skills and knowledge learned from the forum to the need of Friends-International and we will continue working together for the betterment of children.
Above mention are some parts of my knowledge about my beloved country—a country with her rich culture and history, a country which is down and strives to survive after war; and my experience and knowledge about street children (their needs and their rights) Friends-International working with. And I hope that this can be a good chance to share with friends around the world.
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