A Dearth of Education for Cambodian Children

For nearly three years, one Malaysian artist  has attempted to raise funds to support children in education, in Siem reap, Cambodia. To date she has arranged sponsorship for fifty children to be able to attend the Thai Zo school. It is an impressive feat. However, when the children reach an age where they are strong enough to work, their families withdraw them from school.

It is a sad fact that many impoverished Cambodian families need the assistance of their children. Without this help the families slip even more in poverty. Many children attend school at the age of nine, and leave to help their families at the age of fourteen. They do not return to education.

Many charities now exist, in Cambodia, to aid street children and children who have been orphaned. There is little help, however, for the families who are just managing. It is the children of these families who have to sacrifice their futures through renouncing their right to education. A way must be found to support either the poorer families or to be able to support the children in school for longer.

Children leaving school so early not only denies them a proper education, but it holds Cambodian society back. Cambodia needs all the educated people it can get to help build a future which is not reliant on outside NGO support.

This artist does what she can. It is little enough, though she has raised the number of sponsored children from thirty-nine to fifty over the last year, it is still a very small drop in a very large ocean. This project needs all the support it can get - money and volunteers able to devote their time and energies to help build a better future for Cambodia’s needy children.

China Man No, Chinese Yes

Toro China Man

Buddha Garden

Rest in Buddha garden
Drink deep of scents
Watch children play

red balloons
Statues smile
Trees listen

five pm
Temple bells ring
balloon bursts


guy in a white crimson t-shirt
Passes
It's Siem Reap

I sit peacefully.

dusun 13

GE13 UPDATE

In some bizarre respect the recent Malaysian election – GE13 (because Malaysia likes acronyms) was a scrap between Mr Bean and Mike Tyson. It was a bare-knuckle fight with one protagonist having a boxing glove and one hand tied behind his back. It was a bloody affair which has left the Malaysian middle classes reeling, not just from the dirty punches, but from the Bangladeshi knee to the groin. Winded, counted out but not knocked out, the Malaysia opposition lives to lick its various wounds and fight another day. The battle was lost but the fight remains. The heroes of the day begin training for the ultimate winning battle in five years time.

It was with some slim hope that I logged back into the internet this morning. I hoped that my misgivings and trepidations of yesterday had been wrong, and that right would prevail over might in Malaysia. I was wrong. The Dirty Tricks Brigade had worked their wonders and denied Malaysia of any semblance of democracy. It was Nixon before Watergate and Pol Pot at his bloodiest. It was election carnage with yellow boxes stuffed with votes miraculously appearing from out of an electricity blackout, it was foreign workers purposely shipped in to wrestle the vote from authentic Malaysian voters and it was a black-eye for all who believed that it was going to be any other way.

Malaysian democracy has been severely maimed. Yet its heart beats on. Democracy still lives in the souls and minds of people who wish to change Malaysia away from corruption and nepotism. It is said that from out of defeat comes victory, and to quote the American President Barack Obama “The best is yet to come”, and come it will in the next election, of that I am certain. Now is the time to train. To learn. Now is the period in which Mr Bean can study how to defeat Tyson and avoid ears being bitten, ala Evander Holyfield.

GE13 - Perhaps the Dirtiest Election in History

It’s an exciting bewilderment to be in Malaysia right now. Today is the thirteenth election since independence with banners and bunting along streets, dangerously masking the corners of roads, flapping and flying in hot breezes amidst all the hot air from all the contesting major parties.

For some time now, rumours have abounded of ghost voters from Burma voting today. There is gossip concerning the long since deceased voting, people of one hundred years plus voting, children of four years old also voting, while armies of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are brought in especially to vote, and given permanent Identity cards (IC) allowing them to stay in Malaysia, where others have lived for twenty plus years and are still unable to gain permanent residency. The anecdotes seem to indicate that some would do anything to out vote the opposition collective, at this hotly contested election.

On the ebullient, yet quite inconsequential, Facebook people wag their indelibly blue-stained fingers as an indication of their loyalty, perhaps with a sense of job well done and here’s hoping for their future. Videos trashing the national front party, and videos praising them appear on YouTube, twits Twitter like mad and all expecting their voice to be The Voice to persuade others that their thinking is the right thinking in this very religious country. Social Media, digital enhancing and all the tricks of Photoshop and various video editors have been brought to bear from all sides of the Malaysian political spectrum to dissuade and to persuade.

There is no doubt that a lot of hokum, balderdash and a huge bullock cart full of bull’s dung has been spread over the lead up to these elections and, perhaps, it is not surprising considering the trouncing the stalwart government party received during the last election. It has been called the dirtiest election ever, well certainly in the fifty-six years since Malaysia has been holding elections. Past PMs have been rumoured to be pulling strings, while their one time deputy opposes and makes promises that remain un-kept since the last election.

Bags of rice, fistfuls of cash and free flights have all been rumoured to have been offered, and accepted, in lieu of favourable votes. Today’s reality is queuing, hours of queuing, diversions, incorrect information, spurious forms, unknowledgeable officials and indelible ink which washes off. The result remains to be seen, and whether Malaysia is the better for what transpires today.

Is Malaysia the new Burma, and heading for a masked dictatorship? Are we seeing the death throes of any form of democracy in Malaysia? It has been revealed that truck loads of foreign IC holders have indeed been escorted to polling stations around the country by Malaysian police officers, hoping to ensure a win (by sheer numbers) by Malaysia's rulers - the Barisan National/UMNO (United Malays National Organisation).

At the polling station we visited, in Puchong Intan (diamond), the official police were being, of course, officious as we waited in the hot sun in an orderly chaos. There was a purposeful bewilderment to the queuing with umbrellas of all descriptions shielding their holders from the midday sun. The queue edged forward 20 people at a time in a surprisingly sedate manner. There was a lot riding on the placing of votes, which no doubt subdued the voting mood.

While many pondered the result of them giving up their Sunday morning in the belief that they might change their homeland forever, there were still youths on pathetically small ‘C.C’ motorcycles who brazenly flew large flags belonging to the nationalist party behind them, as they weaved precariously down the road past the polling station. At the polling station we visited, there appeared to be no spurious Bangladeshi voters evident, despite recent fears. They turned up later, just as they did across this once free nation.