Holiday turned into a mission

via Khmer NZ

A three-week visit to Cambodia was an eye-opener for Shaun

"The children survive on so little and live in such harsh conditions"

Shaun Prest

Published Date: 30 August 2010

IT was meant to be a relaxing holiday, visiting a friend in Cambodia. But it was three weeks that changed the life of Brighouse electrician Shaun Prest.

Shaun is now planning to give up his job and his home and spend six months in Cambodia helping to build an orphanage for the beach children of Sihanoukville.

Since his first, eye-opening visit to the country in 2006, Shaun has returned several times to distribute colouring books and pens to children in rural villages but now he wants to do more to help the youngsters who have been forced from their homes and onto the streets to beg. With the help of a friend from London he wants to raise £10,000 to open an orphanage to provide a safe refuge for some of the youngsters at risk.

To put it bluntly, Shaun says it was the sight of babies and young children dying on the streets that opened his eyes and changed his life. "The people of Cambodia are the friendliest, warmest people you could hope to meet but they live in a country where there is so much corruption and the authorities do so little to help. The children survive on so little and live in such harsh conditions.

"One little girl in particular caught my eye on my first visit. She earned a living acting as a pair of eyes for her blind uncle who in turn scratched a living singing for tourists and begging on the street. I gave away as much money as I could on that first visit and came back to the UK determined to try and help in a more practical way."

Shaun, aged 39, went to Carr Green Infants and Junior School and the former Reins Wood School, now Rastrick High. He is the son of Graham and Pamela Prest of Rastrick and grandson of Herbert Prest, former Mayor of Brighouse. Having a child of his own - nine-year-old Abigail - has, he says, made him acutely aware of the plight of the beach children of Cambodia.

Last year he raised funds with a sponsored motorcycle ride across Cambodia. With the backing of £250 from bakers Hovis, where he was working at the time, and using his own savings, he bought 300 colouring books and felt tip pens and gave them to children he met on his journey round the country from Phnom Penh to the beaches of Ocheateal.

"I just wanted to bring a smile to the children's faces, " he said.

In April he was back with more colouring books for the orphanges of Sihanoukville but the visit made him realise that more needed to be done on a practical level to make a difference to people's lives.

"It is incredible that 30 years after the Khmer Rouge was ousted, the effects of that regime are still being felt. People are being forcibly removed from their homes and land to make way for developers.

"One family I have been visiting every year was first evicted in 2006, resulting in two family members dying and several children being taken into rehabilitation - which in reality is prison. I spent a lot of time helping the family in May and June. They now live in tents and survive by sending the children out to collect empty cans which they return in exchange for rice to eat.

"Since I got back to the UK, I have heard that they have been forced out again and now live on the side of the road. My colouring books don't seem to be enough now so I am aiming higher and hope to get an orphanage built. I just want to do more to help. I didn't know how to go about it alone but I have now met a woman, Clare Shave from London, who has the same interest in helping the beach children of Otres so together I feel we can make a difference."

Shaun will travel to Cambodia in January and has been taking a first aid course so that he can help the children when he gets there. "The nearest hospital can involve a journey of one to two hours and often they won't treat people unless they can pay."

Shaun is now trying to raise as much money as possible towards the orphanage appeal.

"That first visit to Cambodia changed my life. It made me realise what's life all about. I really want to make a difference if I can."

Anyone who can help Shaun can do so through http://tinyurl.com/orphanage-appeal or by contacting him on 07983 076740.