The Volunteer Development Children's Association

         I have been having an amazing time traveling through SE Asia. The region is beautiful and historic. The people are kind and humble. Poverty is everywhere here. You can't avoid it but no where have I seen anything so heart wrenching as the Siem Reap dump.                                                                                                                                                         I met Togh Main while staying for a few days in Siem Reap, home to Angkor Wat. He ran an English school and I wanted to make myself feel good by going to teach an English class. As it turns out he and his NGO, Volunteer Development Children's Association(VDCA) do so much more then teaching a few kids English.                                                                                                                Togh was a Buddhist monk for 11 years. During that time he started an after school program for local children to learn English. He wanted to not only give them the opportunity to learn but to keep them off the streets. Cambodia can be a very harsh place for children. Child sex trafficking is rampant here as is drug abuse. HIV/AIDS is the highest in SE Asia.                                                                                                                                                Eventually the little school expanded from the monastery to proper class rooms nearby. Between 430 and 730 every school night hundreds of children come to learn English and play in a safe environment.                                                                                                                                       After Togh successfully got this school going he decided to go back to his home village and start a school there as well. But this village, on the outskirts of Siem Reap wasn't just any village but was the sight of the local dump. It was soon obvious to him that just a school would not be enough. He had to get the children out of the dump. The after school English lessons grew into kind of a pre-K school for the smaller children that were yet to be in public school full time. Then came the nursery for the babies. That wasn't enough either. He wanted to give these people the skills better their lives, so he started a fish farm and is getting into raising ducks and chickens to teach the others in this village these skills so they can start their own businesses. Realizing that some of the families in the dump literally had no homes he decided to build them homes on the grounds of the nursery. This is still not enough for Togh. He has plans to expand the fish farm and would like to start some kind of manufacturing operation for the people to be able to earn a living away from the dump. His dream is to go to the dump someday and see no one there...                                                                                   Having traveled all over the world, I am usually pretty leery of NGOs. I have seen them do more damage then good. Over educated, white guys in Land Rovers trying to impose western ideology on the natives. This is not the case with VDCA. It was started by a local man, a monk at the time, who wanted to improve the lives of the children around him. It is still run by him, employees local people and doing it an away that is in tune with the local customs and culture.                                                                                                                                                      I have looked closely at this operation. He is not paying himself and his staff huge salaries. His whole operation runs for under $15,000 a year. He doesn't drive a fancy car. I drove the 20km to the rural village on the back of his motor scooter. If my photos have moved you and if you would like to see your money have a huge impact on people that truly deserve it then I would strongly encourage you to donate to VDCA. No amount is too small. One dollar buys a pair of shoes for a child. Fifty dollars pays for the school electricity for a month. Three thousand dollars builds a house for a family sleeping under a tarp in the dump. Here is VDCA's website http://vdca-cambodia.org/   Check them out. If you would like to help just click the donate button. It's connected to PayPal. Feel free to ask Togh any questions you may have. Here's his Facebook page. I found him very forthcoming and he loves to share his vision. Thanks for reading all of this and if you decide to donate, thank you from the bottom of my heart....

Can you imagine being born at a dump?

You don't see those kind of smiles at the dump.

Beautiful happy children at the VDCA school.

The VDCA nursery. In the background are a few of the houses that VDCA has built for homeless families.

VDCA director Togh Main visits with one of the families living at the dump site.

The dump workers dig through the trash to collect food scraps thrown out by the tourist hotels. They sell this scraps as pig slop but young unattended children have been known to eat from these piles.

This is his playground....

Adults and children work at the dump site.

Eating lunch while surrounded by trash.

Although this family has chosen to keep their children with them while working at the dump, thanks to VDCA, they don't have to.

VDCA project manager, Vuthy, talking to a family that lives at the dump site.

Several hundred people live and work in the Siem Reap dump.

Is this his future?

Togh and the VDCA project manager looking at future plans for the fish farm.

Togh explaining his vision for the fish farm.

Life in a Bamboo Village

I met Kima hanging out in front of the Strand Hotel. She first offered to sell me postcards and then offered to take me across the river to the bamboo village where she lived. Well that piqued my interest. So after a few more questions I decided, why not!!  After a 15 minute ferry ride across the Ayeyarwady River we negotiated a trishaw(bicycle taxi) ride and away we went. The village was amazing. It is basically built in a swamp  with all the houses made of bamboo and on stilts. Each house has a precarious bamboo walkway connecting the tiny houses to the road. Everywhere were children running around , women washing clothes, men cutting bamboo and teenagers playing soccer.

Kima took me all around the village, introducing me to her friends and giving me a brief history of the area. The entire village was wiped out by Cyclone Nargis in 2008, one of the worst cyclones to ever hit Myanmar.  Over 77,000 people were killed, 56,000 people went missing, and over 2.5 million people were left homeless.  Kima’s father was killed along with many other people in the village. She is now the sole support for her family, taking care of her younger sister and brother as well as her mother. She is 17.

After a walk through the village we wound up at Kima’s house where I was invited in for some rice and fish. We had to cross a 12 inch wide bamboo foot bridge from the road to her doorway, taking off our shoes before we entered the tiny two room house. The entire house is made from bamboo lashed together  and is surprisingly quite sturdy.  Her family’s entire possessions consisted of a few pots and pans, about 7 or 8 pieces of clothing and a few chickens that they were very proud of. It certainly gives you pause and makes you think about the things we take for granted, like phones,TVs and even electricity….

Thanaka, a 2000 year old sunscreen

The first thing you will notice when you arrive in Myanmar is most of the women and a few men have their faces painted with a yellow paste. This traditional makeup is Thanaka, a cosmetic made by grinding small logs of the Thanaka tree against a wet stone. The paste is then applied to the face and arms in either a decorative pattern or just slathered on. The tannic acid in the Thanaka bark has skin tightening affects and is said to be the secret to how young and beautiful the Burmese women look. I was seriously amazed at how young these women look. Several times a lady I thought to be in her teens turned out to be in her late twenties or thirties. It's not only used as a beauty aid but as a sunscreen as well and it's use dates back over 2000 years.