Precariousness

Maybe Saturdays are becoming "extra plea for help" day.

Times are tight financially, I know.  I wish I had large amounts of money to give to every cause that grabs my heart.  A recent disaster in Japan and the Pacific is on the forefront of our minds and hearts.  When I received this e-mail this morning from Chris Alexander, who has posted here before, I just felt I should forward this on as this is one of our "Reaching Out a Hand" organizations. From Chris:

I only have an hour before I have to leave so I will type as much as I can of this story and hope that it is enough.

I have been on three trips to Battambang since coming to Cambodia 21 days ago.  On the first trip I had the opportunity to spend time with Lilian, the chef from the Conrad Hotel who was our first culinary trainer from the States, before she returned home.  She had been here for six weeks working with eight of our culinary students.  On my second trip I was only there for a few hours but all the girls were still there however on my third trip I discovered that two of the girls had left the program.  One left because someone was needed to care for an ailing grandmother and she was directed by her family to leave our program and move to the country.   Family ties are very strong in Cambodia and assuming that the story is true she really didn't have a choice.  The story with the second girl however was a little different.  In an IM message with Doug Harty I wrote the following ... "It's a complicated story and one that speaks to my lack of fully understanding how close to the edge all of our girls really are."  The truth is that even now all of the girls in our program are one crisis away from making a really bad decision or having a really bad decision made for them.

Here is what I know.  The culinary training program is a non-residential program.  Our students come from orphan homes in the Battambang area.  They are girls in their late teens or in some cases their early twenties who are either true orphans (usually by AIDS) or who have come from very difficult circumstances where being raised in an orphan care facility is the only way to protect them from being sold or abused.  The particular girl in this story comes from the latter.  She is one of the oldest girls in our program.  She was once married but is now divorced.  The divorce happened because of abuse.  She has a six year old son who is the result of her being repeatedly raped by her father-in-law.  She is not highly educated but is highly motivated and wants to do well in the program.

As I mentioned the culinary training program is a non-residential program.  Our assumption has been that housing and some food can be provided by the orphan homes that we work with and in most cases this is true.  Unfortunately what I did not realize was that she was no longer staying at the orphan home.  I don't know why it happened (perhaps it was her age or a space issue) or when it happened but apparently some time ago this student moved into the home of her older sister.  But other than providing a place to sleep her sister has not been kind to her and continually demanded money - money that she simply didn't have.  At some point an older - distant relative - became involved and took her to Phnom Penh where he was paid a commission ($150) for her to sign a contract that would take her to Malaysia where she would work as a domestic servant.  In many cases this is tantamount to slavery because all identity documents are kept by the employer.  It is not difficult to imagine that living in a foreign country without access to money or a passport can easily lead to a situation where abuse occurs. 

I didn't find out about any of this until a couple of days ago and so this morning - my last day in Phnom Penh - was spent in dealing with the rather unhappy owner of the company that held the contract on our student.  Basically this is how it all played out ...

Yesterday Kimlon - the Administrator of the Culinary Training Center - arrived by bus from Battambang.  She met me at the hotel this morning at 7:30 am.  By 8:00 we had found the office of the "Maid Service" company in a small and rather seedy part of town.  By 8:30 we had reconnected with our student.  It took about everything I had to keep it together because as soon as she saw me she ran over and hugged me and started crying.  Neither the hug nor the tears are very normal for here.  It was very obvious that she did not want to be in the position that she was in.  She did not want to go to Malaysia.  She did want to be in the program.  By 9:00 the manager of the company had arrived.  He was not very happy but I wasn't very happy either.  Kimlon spoke for a few minutes but I could see that she wasn't getting very far so I jumped in.  It took a while and don't have time to include all of the details but within a hour I paid the company $183.00 for some fees related to her medical exam and passport and then scooted out the door with our student!  Praise the Lord!

As I reflect on this event several things have become clear.  First - all of our students - are still living on the edge.  They are as I wrote earlier just one crisis away from either their own bad decision or a bad decision made by a relative.  Secondly, it has become clear that in order for CGI to truly care properly for the girls even in a non-residential program we have to build some financial margin.  We are spending far too much time trying to cut corners in order to save money that we are not providing the infrastructure that will allow us to monitor the bigger picture that includes their relationship to the orphan home where they stay or even the impact and influence of their extended families.  I don't want to lose any of these girls and I don't want them to find themselves in situation where we can't help but in order for that to happen we have to have sufficient funds to hire additional staff and provide a more comprehensive level of care.

We need our girls to have sponsors.
We need additional staff and even for our staff to have sponsors.
We need your help.

Doug said that he was going to get this out to his network.  I am also sending it out to the CGI e-newsletter list.  If you get this please consider giving financially to help CGI help these girls.  Then pass this email along to as many others as you can.  Put it on Facebook, forward it to your email lists, do whatever you can do to get the word out. 

Donations are tax-deductible as Center for Global Impact is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
Checks can be made out to CGI and sent to 7358 Kita Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46259
Online donations can be made at www.centerforglobalimpact.org - click on the DONATE NOW link.

Thanks for reading and if you can help thanks for that too.

Until ALL have heard,
Chris Alexander, President
Center for Global Impact