Visitation

Today I went on an NGO visitation with my friend and colleague, Sheila, and these two - Helen and Aurora. Helen's from Middlesborough, north of England and Aurora's from Pau, south of France. And they're here in Cambodia on a 6 month placement with World Horizons.

So far they've been teaching English and French to a group of young people, originally from the provinces but here in Phnom Penh studying or training and living as part of the Beracah community set up by WH friends. And they've been helping at a children's arts/music/computers/drop-in place called Morning Star set up by another WH friend. And they've been learning language. And living with a household of Beracah girls. And negociating Phnom Penh roads on bikes and in tuks tuks. And eating weird and wonderful things. And generally bringing a lot of spark and enthusiasm to proceedings. So it's good to have them around.

Anyway, this morning we all went to visit the production centre of Daughters - an NGO which does amazing things:

Daughters of Cambodia...reaches out to victims of sex-trafficking and sex-exploitation in Cambodia....working to eradicate enslavement in the sex industry by offering them opportunities to walk free and start a new life. Daughters’ operates a center in the heart of an area of Phnom Penh brothels, where young women or young men wishing to leave sex work are offered employment in our seven small fair-trade businesses and a range of social and psychological services.

Daughters has developed a unique model in Cambodia, one in which sex workers come direct to the organization from the brothels by their own free choice. They come because they are already motivated to change their lives, and our programs empower them to set themselves free and teach them how to sustain their new lives for the long term.

Our goal is to empower young women whilst avoiding the NGO and aid-dependent approaches prevalent in this part of the world. We do not run a shelter, we are an employer. We place great priority on our fair-trade workplace, providing good working conditions, higher salaries than average, training, daycare, medical treatment and other free supplementary services.

(http://daughtersofcambodia.org/)

So yeah, I think we all came away inspired, moved and challenged. Impossible not too really. I didn't take any photos because of the sensitive nature of their work. So to get more of an idea of what they're doing, visit the website where you can see the beautiful things they're making and read some beautiful stories of lives being transformed.