Slums are a dangerous place for kids. They live there because of desperate poverty. Desperate poverty makes people do desperate things. Most kids work begging or collecting trash instead of going to school. There are no rules, everyone is just trying to survive. Those who do survive still have very little. With no education and few marketable skills, they will stay in the slums and the cycle starts for the next generation.
Some parents will sell their kids to traffickers. Sometimes the unsupervised kids are kidnapped. Sometimes they are lured with lies and false promises. After that, they are sold again and again and again. Some of the lucky kids are rescued from traffickers, but will live with the deep pain and trauma of their experience for life.
Trafficking in Cambodia exploded in the 1990s, during the chaos after the Khmer Rouge guerrillas entered peace talks and the UN Transitional Authority was brought in to help support Cambodian self-rule. The Khmer Rouge genocide killed 20-30% of the population during their brief rule from 1975-1979 and created a vacuum of all social structures, religious traditions, cultural norms, and economic opportunity. It’s estimated that 35% of Cambodia’s prostitutes are children under the age of 16 and most of these children are victimized by age 8. Often, children are sold by their parents or relatives to pay a debt or earn income. Traffickers exploit children for both sex and labor. Elderly and handicapped people are organized by cartels to beg in Thailand. Domestic service and construction workers are often slaves. Brothels light up the streets at night as karaoke bars. Corrupt law enforcement is often complicit, if not directly supportive of these nominally illegal activities. The suffering is pervasive.
Sue Hanna worked for an NGO that helped rehabilitate kids rescued from trafficking. She realized that while that work was vital, it was too late. The scars were there. You can’t unlive the worst parts of your life. She wanted to set up guardrails, not work the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
In response, she started Flame, an organization dedicated to helping kids and families thrive in life so they never have to experience the horrors of trafficking, the despair of grinding poverty, or the limitations of life without options. She knew if she could get them in school and provide the family the support they needed to keep them there, the chances that the kids would be sold drops dramatically.
Flame goes into the slums to identify kids who need help, grow with them in education, life skills, training, and leadership, and then launch them into life where they can reinvest in the next generation. The organization is committed to do whatever it takes to help these kids succeed. They pay parents the equivalent of a child’s work contribution so the kids are free to go to school. They provide tutoring and support at their activity center, giving kids an educational boost to keep them in school and the supervision many of them still need at a young age. Sports teams keep the older kids engaged and builds positive relationships allowing mentorship and guidance.
Those activities got the kids out of the slum areas, but Flame wanted to do more. There were more kids, more that needed to be done. They started a book tuk-tuk, a mobile library on a three-wheeled trike that could bring the great, big imaginative world into the shanties and shacks. They help the families with business ideas and capital to bring more stability to their fragile income stream. Rithy is a young doctor who spends his days providing healthcare to those who could never otherwise afford it. He is passionate about his work and it’s life-giving for him, as well as those whom he treats.
Flame support over 1,000 kids through these activities. They have a lean staff who are committed to seeing lives changed and the cycle broken. For most of these kids, a few years of school would be a dream come true. Graduating high school would open up their world, putting those dreams in reach. Flame makes sure they have every opportunity possible to do that.
The work isn’t easy. People are complicated and it’s easy to get discouraged, but Flame won’t quit. They are dedicated to walking with their slum-living neighbors and doing whatever it takes until they see transformation in their lives. It can take a long time. There are often set-backs, discouragement, frustration. But they keep going, because it matters.
A university education is unthinkable for most of these kids who grew up in slum areas, but would be the final break in a vicious cycle of poverty and lack. Flame identifies students who are dedicated to their education and have the potential to succeed, and provides a scholarship to study, a hostel to live in, and a support network to help them succeed.
The Leadership Academy is a unique program for their university students that builds skills needed to reinvest in communities. Students go through a mentorship program, with weekly classes and a capstone project requirement that allows them to put their leadership skills into practice.
I was invited to speak to the students during my stay. Sue opened the evening talking about the different spheres of society: family, education, business, technology, arts, and faith. She asked me to talk about government. Many governments in the region are distant from the people. They are arbitrary, unjust, elite, and eternal. Power is paramount, and anything can be done for a price. Government can be different, though. It should be just and impartial. It should serve and support. It should fulfill its mandate without bribery or favoritism. I talked about my experience as a federal employee for 16 years. They were shocked that U.S. federal employees delight in saving the tax-payer money. That we have no sway in getting family or friends jobs. That I had no inside track for green cards or permits. No government is perfect and there are plenty of examples of American federal employees who don’t live up to the ideal, but my former colleagues truly thought of themselves as public servants. It was an eye-opening discussion for the students.
One young woman came up to me afterwards. “I’ve never met anyone like you before. I’m interested in international diplomacy and economics. Can we meet for coffee?” I happily agreed and we got together a few days later.
After ordering our drinks, she started to tell me more about her life. She has several siblings, but is the only one going to school. Her mother sells food at the market and makes barely enough to survive. Her younger brother is a hemophiliac. Every time he has to go to the hospital, they have to pay before he can receive treatment, even in emergencies. If you can’t pay, you don’t get treated. If you die, well, you should have had the money.
There’s no safety net. Life is still cheap. Friends and neighbors may help if they can, but everyone needs help, you’re never the only one. One person with a good job is the safety net for the entire family, although her mother has just recently come around to the idea that education can be a way to financial security, rather than a waste of good working years.
The Leadership Academy program has given her confidence and poise. She asks good questions. I think she will be a great diplomat someday.
She offers me a ride home on her motorbike. They are ubiquitous in Phnom Penh, sometimes with 4-5 people all squeezed on one bike. I’m wearing a skirt and she doesn’t have an extra helmet, but we shrug and I hop on side-saddle, as do many of the women here. Safe? Probably not. Fun? Absolutely. This has proven a persistent theme in my travels.
Flame is dedicated to doing whatever it takes to help people like my young friend succeed, and doing it with excellence. The investment in education, in mentorship, in faith, in friendship, and in confidence is impacting a generation, ready to help Cambodia move forward. There are still many gaps in society. The entire country has PTSD from the war-ravaged years. But there is great hope and energy and excitement about what’s possible, because someone believed that kids from the slums could be something more.
To support Flame’s work in the slums of Cambodia, click here: https://www.flamecambodia.org/donate