Hope in the Village

I couldn’t help but smile as we turned off the paved road and headed out towards the village.  Most cities are interchangeable; it’s the rural areas that color in a culture.  The road wound through vibrant green foliage, flickering past rice fields and small trading centers.  Square houses stood high on stilts.  The space beneath the house doubled as a shaded bonus room for storage, animals, or family gatherings.  Cows meandered by and the chickens looked like they had someplace important to be.

Cambodia is still an agricultural economy, with 85% of the population living in rural areas and close to 50% engaged in farming.  When the Khmer Rouge overran the country in 1975, Pol Pot had a idealized vision of an agrarian, communist society functioning in harmonious simplicity.  He decreed it “Year Zero,” as though history would start over.  The history Pol Pot inflicted resulted in 2 million dead in just under 4 years. Civil institutions were decimated, with leadership quickly exterminated, followed by anyone who had an education, or even wore glasses.  The loss of human potential, economic growth, cultural heritage, and environmental protection was astronomical.  The civil war that followed for another 13 years resulted in some of the worst landmine casualty rates in the world, even years after the war ended.  The slaughter and devastation set Cambodia reeling for decades.

After the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1991, the country slowly began to rebuild.  Today, the economy is growing quickly and household incomes are rising.  Cambodia has come a long way, but still has a long way to go.

In the rural villages, things look very much like they always have.  Traditional houses, traditional food, traditional family and cultural practices.  But things are changing, even there.  It’s not consumption driven changes that are the usual measures of development.  It’s quieter than that, but more powerful.  Their thinking is changing, about what they can do, about what is possible.  The change is hope.

The car parked and we stepped into the hot sun, near a grove of banana and palm trees.  I smiled at a group of women gathered to one side, chatting while their toddlers, conveniently with no diapers or pants, ran after the chickens and played on the stairs up to the house.  We walked a few houses over where there was a group of about 50 kids ages 5-12 sitting on a tarp, shoes kicked off and laying on the dirt beside them.  They were still in their school uniforms, white shirts and black pants, and sat with rapt attention as though there might be a test.  But they weren’t being quizzed on arithmetic or Khmer grammar.  They were learning about loving their neighbor through a puppet show.  The electric engagement broke with laughter as the script engaged in the oversized antics that kids find hilarious.  When I was growing up, there was always that one kid, usually named Billy, who had to know what was behind the puppet screen.  I laughed when I saw the Cambodian equivalent kid, about 8 years old, determined and curious until a staff member gently escorted him back to the tarp.

The program continued with a skit about bullying, and then a staff member talks about how kids can recognize areas with landmines and what to do if they see one.  The kids eagerly raise their hands with answers to show that they remember what they’ve just been taught.  As I watched the staff members engage with the kids, I could see their joy.  They dressed up in wigs and handlebar mustaches for the skit, sang songs with wild hand motions, and convey the lessons with heartfelt authenticity.  They truly believe in what they’re doing.

After the program finishes, the older kids race to another area where some teens are waiting.  They buddy up and a staff member gives them the topic for their mentorship discussion of the day.  The teens have been partnered with younger kids who are at a higher risk of behavior problems, with the expectation that the mentoring relationship can help strengthen community bonds and keep kids healthy and in school.  Staff members help the teens develop leadership through the mentorship program and the lessons are reinforced as the teens try to help the younger kids understand the importance of the topics.

The program is called Joy of Our Children and it’s organized biweekly by Fountain of Hope.  The topics cover things like health and hygiene, safety and family.  Older kids talk about HIV prevention, caring and support for those affected by the disease, awareness on sex trafficking, drugs, and violence prevention.  The kids are able to ask questions and have the support of their friends and peers as they learn about healthy and purposeful living. The training builds confidence in the community, as the kids feel ready to tackle the challenges they’ll face as they grow up.

These solutions aren’t offered in isolation.  We leave the kids and head through the village to another area, 10 minutes down the road.  As we approach, there’s a circle of chairs in the space beneath a house, half filled, with more walking our way.  These are the community leaders, who gather with Fountain of Hope staff regularly to discuss their issues and challenges, and work together towards solutions.  Trafficking, drug abuse, domestic violence, and diseases like HIV/AIDS are always top on the list.  Illegal migration to Thailand has become another big issue, driven by the need for work or to escape from loan paybacks, an unfortunate consequence of the explosion of microfinance money given out with inadequate training.

Fountain of Hope will listen to what the community leaders decided and request, and bring back training and education, and help implement solutions.  It’s a deep collaboration that has proven to be effective in providing the tools needed to strengthen the village and provide hope to what seemed like intractable problems.  The program is called Life with Value, and the community members are embracing that message for everyone.  They’ve seen the difference in people’s lives.  One of the community leaders in the group used to be an alcoholic known for abusing his wife.  Through the relationship and support offered through Fountain of Hope’s staff and programs, his life changed completely.  He’s sober, safe, and radiates joy.  Potential.  Hope.

We drive to another village and walk up to a house where I can see a group of women sitting in a circle on the floor.  They have work books open, but are listening intently.  They repeat what they hear from the CD, as their fingers find the sentence in the book and they trace the words they are speaking.  The women range in age from 25 to 60.  They are learning to read.  The instructor pauses the CD so the women can take turns reading out loud.  Some stumble a bit, others catch the rhythm in a smooth delivery.  All of them are investing in themselves to be better mothers, community members, and business women.  Fountain of Hope provides the curriculum.  The women provide the dedication.  They can’t help but smile as they read, laughing when they successfully finish a sentence.  They never thought they could do it, but they can.  They are readers.

We visit another meeting of people and families with HIV/AIDS.  The staff instructor is providing training critical to keeping this group as healthy as possible, while providing compassionate support to erase the stigma many still face.  There’s a young woman in the group, probably about 25.   She’s there with her mother and daughter.  The little girl is about three years old, with light skin and curly hair.  I wondered where her father was from.  She had plenty of energy, scooting off her mom’s lap and finding some other children to play with off to the side.

Many of the problems in the community are driven by poverty.  Drugs, migration, prostitution, and all the ramifications they cause.  Businesses that increase income and provide jobs are the best long-term solution to keeping communities thriving.  Our Strong Village is a program that provides training on savings groups that become a small community banking system; on farming technics to increase nutrition and yield; and on skills that will produce marketable products without leaving the village.   One woman was able to borrow the money she needed to hire harvesters for her rice field.  She paid back the loan with 2% interest, and had enough capital to replant her field and profit to live on until the next harvest.  The loan system is simple.  Each person contributes monthly shares and verifies with a thumbprint.  Loans are on a 90-day basis.  Extraordinary circumstances can be discussed with the saving group.  The bank is a metal box with three locks, the keys held by non-related group members.  The treasurer was quite proud to show me his fastidious methods of tracking of contributions and loans.  He smiled as he pointed to his daughter’s tailoring business in a nearby shed, and told me of business expansion plans.

Hope is a powerful thing.  It keeps people going through hardship and loss, knowing that there’s another side.  Hope comes in different ways.  In these villages, it arrived through a team of people willing to walk alongside, support, encourage, train, and help their communities thrive.  In each group we visited, I saw hope, the possibility that the future might be better than the past.  And that made me smile.

To support the work of Fountain of Hope in Cambodia, click here:  https://www.fohcambodia.org/donate