Dublin Peoplehttp://www.dublinpeople.com/
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Through the auspices of Plan Ireland I sponsor a child in Burkina Faso. Four years ago a friend and I were travelling in West Africa.
When we were in that region I took the opportunity to visit the child and the community I sponsor there.
In January this year I was in Cambodia. While checking into a hotel in Siem Reap, on my way to Angkor Wat, I saw a notice in the lobby about a Plan International meeting being held in the hotel. This seemed such a coincidence that I decided to investigate.
The result was that I was invited to visit the local Plan office where, two days later, I met the unit manager, Pich Sophary, who gave me an overview of Plan’s work in the country.
One of their most important programmes in Cambodia at the moment is a Civil Registration Campaign to enable citizens to register with the authorities. As a result of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s - when it is estimated that over two million people, roughly a third of the population, lost their lives - very few births were registered. Now, thanks to the Plan campaign, 92 per cent of the population is registered.
Other work carried out by Plan in Cambodia includes the provision of basic education, child health, and water and sanitation projects.
Subsistence
Child trafficking is a big problem. Poverty and the rapid development of the tourist industry are the main causes. Children are trafficked for sex exploitation and for forced labour. There is also the problem that some parents see little value in education. They feel that no matter how well educated their children are they will still end up as subsistence rice farmers. Older children are needed to look after younger siblings and farm animals. Girls are often raped while minding animals in the forest.
I visited a Plan-funded school some 20 kilometres from Siem Reap. Here was a much happier picture. Over 1,000 children from surrounding villages attend this school, in two daily sessions.
They are delighted with their new computer room which was paid for by Plan. At the moment they have only four computers, so there is fierce competition, as can be imagined, to get on these. Plan also sponsors three English and one computer teacher in the school.
I spoke with students in a senior class. The memory will stay with me of how these teenage boys and girls valued the opportunity to get an education, how earnest they were and how they struggled to express themselves in English.
Cleaning
Most of them were the children of rice farmers who owned two or three acres of paddy fields. One boy from a family of seven children wanted to be a tourist guide, which seemed to be an ambition shared by quite a few. He was the only member of his family lucky enough to get an education. His 19-year-old sister, herself a mother of two, worked cleaning streets to finance his education.
On our way back to Siem Riep we visited a village where Plan has installed a borehole to supply clean water. We were surrounded by a crowd of children and adults, all welcoming and happy to demonstrate their new water supply which was making such a difference to the lives of the women, especially, and to the health of the community. One child in particular, a girl of about ten, very bright and bubbly, seemed to take a leader’s role in caring for the younger children and in chatting to visitors. I learned later that she was a child sponsored through Plan.
So, a serendipitous meeting in a hotel in Siem Reap led to a memorable day and one that brought home to me in a very concrete and personal way the value of the work that Plan is doing.
To find out more about Plan and its work in 49 countries in the developing world, or to sponsor a child, log on to www.plan.ie or phone 1800829829.
Through the auspices of Plan Ireland I sponsor a child in Burkina Faso. Four years ago a friend and I were travelling in West Africa.
When we were in that region I took the opportunity to visit the child and the community I sponsor there.
In January this year I was in Cambodia. While checking into a hotel in Siem Reap, on my way to Angkor Wat, I saw a notice in the lobby about a Plan International meeting being held in the hotel. This seemed such a coincidence that I decided to investigate.
The result was that I was invited to visit the local Plan office where, two days later, I met the unit manager, Pich Sophary, who gave me an overview of Plan’s work in the country.
One of their most important programmes in Cambodia at the moment is a Civil Registration Campaign to enable citizens to register with the authorities. As a result of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s - when it is estimated that over two million people, roughly a third of the population, lost their lives - very few births were registered. Now, thanks to the Plan campaign, 92 per cent of the population is registered.
Other work carried out by Plan in Cambodia includes the provision of basic education, child health, and water and sanitation projects.
Subsistence
Child trafficking is a big problem. Poverty and the rapid development of the tourist industry are the main causes. Children are trafficked for sex exploitation and for forced labour. There is also the problem that some parents see little value in education. They feel that no matter how well educated their children are they will still end up as subsistence rice farmers. Older children are needed to look after younger siblings and farm animals. Girls are often raped while minding animals in the forest.
I visited a Plan-funded school some 20 kilometres from Siem Reap. Here was a much happier picture. Over 1,000 children from surrounding villages attend this school, in two daily sessions.
They are delighted with their new computer room which was paid for by Plan. At the moment they have only four computers, so there is fierce competition, as can be imagined, to get on these. Plan also sponsors three English and one computer teacher in the school.
I spoke with students in a senior class. The memory will stay with me of how these teenage boys and girls valued the opportunity to get an education, how earnest they were and how they struggled to express themselves in English.
Cleaning
Most of them were the children of rice farmers who owned two or three acres of paddy fields. One boy from a family of seven children wanted to be a tourist guide, which seemed to be an ambition shared by quite a few. He was the only member of his family lucky enough to get an education. His 19-year-old sister, herself a mother of two, worked cleaning streets to finance his education.
On our way back to Siem Riep we visited a village where Plan has installed a borehole to supply clean water. We were surrounded by a crowd of children and adults, all welcoming and happy to demonstrate their new water supply which was making such a difference to the lives of the women, especially, and to the health of the community. One child in particular, a girl of about ten, very bright and bubbly, seemed to take a leader’s role in caring for the younger children and in chatting to visitors. I learned later that she was a child sponsored through Plan.
So, a serendipitous meeting in a hotel in Siem Reap led to a memorable day and one that brought home to me in a very concrete and personal way the value of the work that Plan is doing.
To find out more about Plan and its work in 49 countries in the developing world, or to sponsor a child, log on to www.plan.ie or phone 1800829829.
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