I. Introduction:
As Cambodia is developing, apparent improvements have emerged in a remarkable way. Everywhere in Phnom Penh, as far as the eyes can see, bigger roads have been constructed; big luxurious cars are moving along the roads; beautiful buildings and houses start to rise; people travel around, some in their professional uniforms and some in clean fashionable, colorful clothes, looking handsome and beautiful. It seems that a whole new world has come and Cambodia is on its right way towards development. However, many of us fail to notice some of the most miserable sights this city has to offer.
At the southwest of Phnom Penh lies a huge ‘smoky’ mountain of waste, where refuse from almost every household in Phnom Penh is dumped; it is the Stung Meanchey dump site. More than being just a dump site, it is also the working place where several hundred Cambodians are dwelling on. Every day, people—some are children aged 7, 10, 13 and all ages in between (Barboza)—scavenge through piles of extremely foul and awfully stinky rubbish in search for pieces of material that can be sold for a few hundred riels—the amount which is little but crucial for survival of the scavengers and their families. The sight of the vulnerable scavengers and their situation are so unpleasant that, if compared to the razzmatazz of the city, it is a totally different world.
While there are hundreds, or even thousands, currently living in such a sad condition, having almost nothing to eat, many other Cambodians are taking everything around them for granted. For instance, habits of ordering too many courses of food for a meal to eat when going to restaurants and then leaving plenty unfinished and eventually thrown into rubbish bins are not rare at all among some rich people. Such wrong deeds should be changed, and that is why our group of the class, Personal Growth and Development, has come to a unanimous agreement and chosen the topic about scavengers at Stung Meanchey dump site as the second assignment to present to the whole class. This is a social issue that is definitely happening in our country, which should certainly be taken into our consideration. Our group’s effort to bring this issue onto the table will hopefully help open the eyes of other Cambodians to some of the facts that our group believes will be improved as long as the problem is deeply realized and understood.
Based on our discussion, fieldwork, research from the internet, and our communication with a few organizations whose missions are to help better lives of those pitiful scavengers, this paper will look at the findings about the scavengers and their lifestyle, some of the root causes as to why they resort to taking up this activity as a way of living, as well as some potential dangers to themselves and to the Cambodian society as a whole. Some viable solutions that the Cambodian government, non-governmental organizations, and individuals have done and can do to curb this massive problem will also be thrown into focus.
II. Facts and Statistics:
Located in the southwestern outskirts of Phnom Penh (Tale of Asia), in the same-name district, Stung Mean Chey, the Stung Mean Chey dump site exists as the biggest garbage dump in Cambodia, covering the area of 1000 acre (Dakowicz, 2005). Literally, Stung Mean Chey is where refuse and all the waste carried from almost every household in Phnom Penh are collected and dumped on a daily basis. Although supposedly regarded as waste and no longer wanted by many, those unwanted materials are deemed as life-savers by a group of people, known as scavengers. To them, seeing approaching trucks of waste about to be dumped is like anticipating valuable opportunities for their survivals.
Regardless of whether it is weekday, weekend, or holiday, according to an article written by Dakowicz (2005), an approximate number of 2000 people, about 600 of whom are children, live and work there, on the dump. Some have their ragged, makeshift shacks on the nearby land charged with little rent by the landowners; some even build their huts on the mountain of garbage. According to the same article, they are either people from Phnom Penh or those who came to Phnom Penh to seek for jobs but ended up in the slums. To support their living, from day to day, they go through particularly filthy piles of newly released dumps looking for plastic bags, tin cans and other recyclable materials (Barboza, 2003), which they can further sell for meager amount of money. As cited in Dakowics’ article (2005), based on the source from The Centre for Children’s Happiness (CCH), on average, adult rubbish pickers can earn around 4500 riels (1.12$) a day; on the other hand, children can earn about half that amount, which is roughly around 50 cents.
Although the money amounted each day from all members of the family picking through rubbish is more than it was in some of the scavengers’ rural village, from which they originated (CCH, as cited by Dakowics (2005)), they are actually suffering from all kinds of misery and are also prone to many potential dangers to their health and lives. For example, because of financial difficulties and demand of work force for survival of the family, many children in the slumps are deprived of going to school and of their rights for formal education—a fundamental aspect of lives as a child. They live in the extremely polluted environment, where diseases and other dangerous, toxic substances are highly exposed. (The causes and effects from living such lives will be discussed in details later in this paper.)
Seeing such appalling conditions of the scavengers, there have been a number of measures and actions taken by the government, NGOs, and even individual Cambodians. One of the NGOs, which have been working for the welfare of the poor in the slump since 1995 and which has brought tremendous change to many lives, is a French organization named Pour un Sourire d'Enfant (PSE) (For Children’s Smiling, in English). Born from pure feeling of sympathy and willingness to help of a French woman, the organization mainly aims, as its name suggests, to bring out the hearted smiles from vulnerable children and, as yet, has helped over 6000 people, according to an employee working full-time at PSE (personal communication, January 23, 2009).
III. Causes
There are many factors behind the fact that there exist many people picking up rubbish for a living at Stung Meanchey, and the paper will look at 4 main root causes.
a. Poverty and Ignorance:
It is certain that people do not resort to living in such a bad-conditioned life because they want to and, of course, rich people with a lot of money will never get close to even thinking about picking through unhealthy and disgusting rubbish; only the very poor do. That is, one of the primary causes is poverty. Indeed, many families in Cambodia are living under poverty line, and some are so destitute that, to them, either they live with whatever this mountain of refuse has to offer or lives would not even go on for themselves, for their relatives and/or for their children.
Adding to them being financially very poor, it is believed that it is their ignorance and the fact that very few of them get some kind of good education that keep them grounded in this poverty with no easy ways of getting out. First, because the parents leading the family are not educated at all or have very low education, it is extremely hard for them to find jobs with decent pay. One of the common jobs among such uneducated people is, for example, hauling 50-kilogram bags of cements, and the wage received from this kind of work, although the tasks are very tiring, is usually very skimpy—so skimpy that these wages alone will not be able to cover the costs for all the family’s basic needs, such as shelter and food. This leads that the children of the family have to go out to the dump and pick through rubbish for some income. Secondly, when the parents are uneducated, their ignorance is likely to prevent them from seeing any benefits in education at all; that is why some do not even bother to seek for ways to send their children to school rather than to send them to work in the garbage dump. They have no plans, they have no ambition, they succumb to their destiny, they do not feel the need to fight hard for change and difference for their lives and for the lives of their children, they take no initiatives to improve themselves, and they are stuck in this garbage. Ignorance blocks it all.
b. Domestic Issues:
The fact of alcoholism, domestic violence and other domestic issues also play a part in forcing many people into being rubbish pickers. In some families, because, for example, the father is useless, is not earning any money at all, and is always drinking and staying high, and at the same time, the mother is sick and/or disabled to work long hours to earn, which can result from the drunken husband’s use of violence towards her, for sons and/or daughters, who are still young and incapable of finding any other jobs, going around the dump site adjacent to their houses and looking for recyclable and sellable goods may be the only choice they have. In this situation, if the children do not help and take some kinds of responsibilities, the whole family may be starved to death.
c. Impoverishment by Wars and Diseased Parents/Guardians
Well-known for its many years of civil wars and most recently, the most notorious and inhuman era of Pol Pot Regime, Cambodia has been left with many types of tragedy, some of which is still alive as yet. After wars—the factor, according to our group’s personal interview with a full-time employee at Pour un Sourire d'Enfant (PSE) (personal communication, January 23, 2009), deemed as one of the key reasons behind being scavengers at Stung Meanchey, there left many soldiers who became jobless and some were disabled and handicapped. Literally, those soldiers, because of being disabled and unable to get hired for an occupation and/or because of having no other skills or professions other than how to fight in a battlefield, became very impoverished. As seen sometimes along the streets or at some public places, some people in their military uniform are begging for money.
In some other families, since one or both parents are no longer living, the children become worse in poverty and destitution. Because they are still young and unable to do what most adults can, they have no choice but to adopt scavenging as a mean for their survival. In this regard, according to the website of Tale of Asia, Phoeun’s life is a very good example. Phoeun’s family used to include a father and two other sisters, but they all have passed away, leaving her, her older sister, and a younger brother living with only a mother, who had unfortunately became incapacitated due to an accident during her work. Therefore, Phoeun—who had been one of the scavengers since she was nine years old—and her older sister had to work to provide money. Phoeun then chose to scavenge Stung Meanchey rubbish every day, often earning only about a thousand riels per day. It was that Phoeun had to do this, or her family would not have enough to eat.
d. Less Advanced Technology and Poor Waste Management
Actually, when talking about what has causes scavenging to happen, it is also relevant to look at what make it possible. Of course, if there is no rubbish, there is no rubbish scavenging, and, likewise, if the rubbish is properly controlled and set out of access of anyone attempting to scavenge, scavenging activities will not be possible either. And this is the problem, as unlike highly-developed or industrialized countries such as the US, Japan, and other European countries, Cambodia is still unable to afford needed technology for waste disposal management and waste and refuse are usually dumped inappropriately with no rules or punishment having been effectively applied yet. In the case of Stung Meanchey, tons and tons of waste are dumped in the open air with no modern types of recycling at all. This is what makes and even encourage the very poor living around to get on and comb through mounds of rubbish in hope of finding something valuable to their lives.
IV. Effects:
There are loads of miseries around the globe because of unbalanced distribution of resources. While the riches are wasting resources, the poor are suffering through starvation and shortage. For this reason, it is impossible to live in an ideal world because the poor could bring many unpleasant and immoral problems to the society, and a good example of that group of people is scavengers. Thus, what are the effects that the scavengers could bring to themselves, their families, and their society?
a. To the scavengers themselves:
Individually, scavengers could face many challenges in nearly all aspects of their living. Firstly, they are the most vulnerable citizens to respiratory diseases since working in the dumping sites, they daily inhale highly toxic chemicals into their bodies. A Japanese study has found that there is a high level of dioxin in the smoke, which comes from burning chemicals in the waste; dioxin is a highly toxic chemical that can cause cancer if inhaled over a certain period of time. As a result, bad coughs, frequent headaches, and dizziness are common among the scavengers (Dakowicz, 2005).
Moreover, according to The New York Times by Barboza published on August 25, 2003, most of the children who scavenge are barefooted and shirtless while they are searching for recyclable products such as bottles, milk cartons, detergent and condoms. Thus, it is very unsafe for them since the waste is sometimes soggy or even flooded during rainy season. According to the same source, it illustrates that once those children showed up at the local clinics, they are often found with rashes, infections, cuts, and bruises on their skin.
Additionally, the scavengers’ lifestyle often lacks of hygiene because of poor water supply. For example, a young scavenger may rush home and have their lunch without having a bath or even cleaning their hands.
A 53-year-old commune chief at Stung Meanchey said: “I am worried about the health of the kids and accidents can happen any time when they are picking up trash. Trucks have run over some children and bulldozers have buried some kids under the trash.” Many scavengers also face sleeping deprivation since they have to overwork in order for enough money to support their livings. According to Barboza (2003), many children at Stung Meanchey begin at around 3 a.m., when some of the first garbage trucks arrive, and they leave after 7 p.m. For this reason, they do not get enough sleep; thus, it weakens their immune system.
Besides health problem, some children cannot get adequate or proper education because they have to earn money to feed their family’s stomachs. Even though some children get the opportunity to study at school, they cannot perform it so well since they are somehow concerned about their family’s financial situation and they do not have time to revise their lessons or do their homework. For instance, a 13-year-old Sear Kim, who was interviewed by Mr. Nay Camnap, World Vision Cambodia Communication Officer, has had to scavenge since the age of nine because her mother has a heart disease, so she just stays at home and looks after her younger siblings (Nay, March 2008). Anyway, when deprived of being educated, children themselves are probable to be affected by many other indirect results, which vary from having very limited, narrow knowledge about the world and developing no ideas of which paths to walk so that they can get out of this situation of poverty to having no needful qualifications to find other jobs.
b. To Their Family:
Since the income of the scavengers is very low, the families have to live in a down-and-out situation—living in a ragged shack, having little to eat and sometimes not having sufficient food to fill their hungry stomachs, wearing dirty, smelly clothes, etc. Besides, the family of scavengers is often fragile and is vulnerable as the life of each member usually hangs in the balance. This is true due to the fact that the environment where they work and live is very dangerous. In the article about Stung Meanchey in the Tale of Asia website, it was written that “many families [at the dumpsite] are no longer intact, death being the most frequent cause.” They are prone to many kinds of diseases and injuries, and when they fall ill to any of the diseases or injuries, if not treated properly, the worst case, death, can occur. Death of members can destroy the entire family; not only can it bring emotional breakdown, but if the dead are the parents, who are the main breadwinners of the family, the family will also lose the backbone. Then, the destiny of the rest of this family will hang by a thread.
c. To The Society:
Families and individuals are founding cells of the society. If one or more cells are damaged or dead, it somehow has the impact on the whole society. One of the impacts is that when a group of people are uneducated and they are working in such an impoverished condition as scavengers, they are not doing anything that can potentially contribute to the development in the country. For example, if they are not earning a lot, they therefore cannot be spending a lot also, which means they are not contributing anything, or almost anything, to the flow of the economy of Cambodia, accordingly. Further, scavengers’ being humans and being Cambodian citizens are not put into full use. Let us imagine if those scavengers were not what they are now, there would chance that they can study and work as some of the human resources to improve Cambodia, to some extent.
What's more, Stung Meanchey dumpsite is also a breeding ground for some criminal acts and various illegal behaviours, which can definitely affect the stability and well-being of the society. Indeed, one of the root causes that lead people to resort to theft, robbery, drug abuse etc. is poverty, and all of the people picking Stung Meanchey rubbish for a living are, without a shadow of doubt, living in poverty. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that they can be forced to cause insecurity to Cambodia. For example, some can fall into drugs and glue-sniffing and then get so intoxicated that they dare to do anything, let alone fighting each other, stealing others’ properties, and robbing, just to name a few possibilities.
Besides, it is definitely a bag image scavenging in Stung Meanchey has made to our city and to our Cambodian society. Of course, it does not look good at all when there are people walking down the streets wearing filthy clothes, carrying a bag of rubbish, and from head to toes, looking physically wracked. Also, the minute that the scene of people in such a hellish condition like one of the scavengers reaches the eyes of the foreigners, they are likely to feel moved and kind of disturbed, which may give Cambodia the reputation of poverty, poor social welfare, bad governance, unreliable social accountability, and all the negativity, which are the kinds of reputation or image our society or our country do not in the slightest want to be thrust upon.
V. Reflection
As mentioned above, vulnerable scavengers who are living far away from the modern world of the city, but how are they different from us in term of the way of thinking—how do they reflect upon their lives and what do they see their lives to be into the future? With this question in mind, after we had worked through contents, our team decided to add this point, reflection, as one of the assignment’s major sections. In this section, we will examine two things, one of which is the vision of scavengers themselves and another is our vision concerning this major social issue.
a. Vision of the Scavengers
Sleeping with all tiredness late at night and waking up early in the morning is normally the habit of scavengers. To them, living this way seems like satisfying life-condition as long as they have enough to fill their stomach. They would agree to spend what is left of their lives every day at the dump-site with little or no complaint. We may find it uncivilized and unreasonably unambitious, but to them, the dump site is like a private company offering an acceptable pay that they can happily accept.
As already described, many scavengers, especially children, were born and ascribed with work in the dump site. Some were not provided choices from birth chiefly because they were born in a very poor family having no better work options than garbage pickers. Since their birth they have been trapped in the world of scavengers, giving no ideas as how to get out of this life. It is also possible that to them, the way they are living is not misery at all; it may be just a normal life, as they have very little knowledge about the world outside. For this group of scavenging children, it is likely that they do not even know about education—one of the ways by which they move on to a better life. As what is written in the article about Stung Meanchey in Tale of Asia website, “Ambition is non-existent. Though many teenagers express an interest to go to school, none has offered any ideas as to what they would study or what they would do with an education.” Some other children working there may have heard about education and other things other than their scavenging aspects of life and have the wish to get formal education, but apparently the problem is they do not know how.
Parents of some scavenging families do not seem to be happy and willing to participate in activities of NGOs to help educate their children. With a 15 minutes interview with the project manager of Promoting Access to Primary Education (a scenario to VCAO-Vulnerable Children Assistance Organization) on January 23, 2009, we have learnt that the children themselves can be very difficult to be convinced to join the organization’s project concerning informal education or vocational training. This is because the family of the target group is deeply in poverty. They would rather spend their valuable time to earn money than to study. They think it’s a big loss for sending one member of the family out of the participation in their job. It seems that they need a fair share from each family member to keep their whole family stable.
b. Our Vision
Although sharing the same planet and the same country with those pitiful scavengers, we are a group of people who live and are provided with much better opportunities. It is obvious, we have our own house, we have expensive clothes to wear, we have good schools to attend, we have knowledge and qualifications to work and earn money, and some even own cars, but they do not at all. Scavengers do not have ability to make choices as we do. They do not have any will and ambition to make things better for their daily lives that can be comparable to ours. Though they do, there might be little or no possibility for those wills and ambitions to be realized anyway.
On the other hand, we do have all these opportunities and choices. We are much luckier that those scavengers, so it is only fair that we give this fortunate life full appreciation. We have to bear with ourselves the attitude of not taking anything that we are given and have for granted so that we can fully capitalize on everything we have and live optimistically. We must be the master of ourselves, be confident and be productive.
VI. Solutions
Such social issue, although seeming to affect only that vulnerable group of people, can actually have implication on the whole image of the Cambodian society as a whole. Hence, it is necessary that everybody take part in eliminating or at least curbing this problem, in order that we can have a better Phnom Penh and a better Cambodia. It is not just those in authority, not just non-governmental organizations, and not just any individuals either. Solutions can be carried out by individuals, NGOs, and the government.
a. Individuals:
Many of those scavengers are just small children, but they have to earn money to support their families in such a dirty, hazardous environment. Though we are just students, we individuals can help them as well by just giving a little or some of our own time and our energy. We can spend some time and energy and/or a small amount of money to, for example:
- go directly to local NGOs that work with Stung Meanchey children and volunteer to teach them general knowledge such as one about health protection, no matter if it is done part-time, full time, or just once in a while;
- form a group and together initiate a project in favor of the people in Stung Meanchey garbage dump, which can be cooperated with local NGOs or financially supported and sponsored by donors and philanthropists interested in the project;
- go and meet with the children and motivate them, as well as—if possible—their parents, to realize the value of education and going to school;
- donate money to various causes that aims to earn for the benefits of those scavengers;
- make the suffering of scavengers known to other people, to seek for their contribution, support, and their understanding rather than their discrimination;
- participate in charitable events organized by NGOs or any group to help those scavengers and so on.
All the point raised above can be better clarified and explained in two of the activities having already done by some individuals or groups of individuals in Cambodia:
A group of student visiting children at Stung Meanchey waste dump:
According to Miss Sroeng Dany and Mr. Sum Sovan Panha—two of the participating students, a few months ago, a group of students from Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia and from the Royal University of Phnom Penh took initiatives, planned their own charitable event, and went directly to an organization located right next to the Stung Meanchey dump site to give children a decent lunch, some studying materials, and a friendly and educational visit (personal communication, January 23, 2009).
With some contributions from each student, the event was a success. The students were warmly welcomed by the organization, as well as by the children. They also got chance to have fun with those children and at the same time, to teach them some general knowledge concerning hygiene lifestyle, in particular. Even though it was just a three or four hour event, the visit was described as very rewarding; it gave the students the feeling of joy and satisfaction from having done something for others and for their society.
Food Program by Initiatives of Changes Association (ICA)
ICA is a non-governmental association located in Battambong and Phnom Penh, and one of the program of ICA in Phnom Penh being conducted monthly is Food Program. This program is usually done at the weekend at the end of each month, and the program is about volunteers from various places, not necessarily people working or volunteering at ICA, gathering together and cooking food for the poor. Volunteers in this program are not required to contribute any money to buying food at all; budgets behind the program are from anyone willing and volunteering to donate. Usually, what each participant of the program does is to cook and pack the food into boxes so that it can be distributed as a meal to those in need, those who are poor, which also include some scavengers.
Although apparently, such acts would not make any big changes or differences to our society, at least, it presents to other Cambodian some good deeds of love and sharing among people in the same society. Also, their small acts of charity also give those who get the food some kinds of a sense of love, care, and inspiration to live on; it can be a form of emotional support for them.
b. Non-governmental organizations
Cambodia is somewhat still a poor country that needs donation and assistance from the outside world; therefore, NGOs—especially ones financially supported by overseas philanthropic donors—play crucial roles in improving the condition of people scavenging at Stung Meanchey. There are many NGOs in Cambodia that work in connection with the Stung Meanchey Municipal Waste Dump, but we would like to simply take one particular NGO, which our group have visited and studied about, into discussion—the one which has been working outstandingly hard and well in helping the children in Stung Meanchey. It is Pour un Sourire d'Enfant (PSE).
Pour un Sourire d’Enfant (PSE) (For Children’s Smiling, in English):
PSE is a French non-profit organization, which since its establishment in 1995 has working very closely with and for the disadvantaged, destitute, and uneducated people who scavenge at the dump site of Stung Meanchey to survive.
Based on an interview conducted by our group with an employee at PSE, who asked not to be named, we have collected certain information concerning some work of this French organization. The information we received was as follow:
1. Education:
One primary aspect of work of PSE is to provide education for those unfortunate people. It has established schools, in which education is offered in two main ways. First, education provision is done in the form of general education, in which classes range from kindergarten to grade 12, of which standards are comparable and accepted by the Ministry of Education. This means that those in grade twelve in PSE are eligible to take part in the national high school examinations. Further, a few students who are outstanding are able to go for their higher education in local universities in Cambodia. The second main way to educate those vulnerable people is through special training programs (which is for people who are 19 or older). There are classes of cookery, bakery, secretary, gardening etc.
Besides these two main ways, PSE also has programs of financially supporting underprivileged children to go to public schools; 52 public schools are currently working with PSE on this program. In such programs, the children do not have to come to classes at PSE; they only need to go to their own respective school and study.
2. Food and accommodation:
An approximate number of 80 female children, whose conditions in their families are comparatively worse than others in a way that there are, for instance, severe cases of domestic violence etc, are provided with a place to reside in, food to eat, and all other necessities to live. In this regard, those girls usually stay in the organization and do not live in their house with their families at all; the organization is literally their house.
For other categories of people helped by the organization, on the other hand, they are only given a place to study, some to eat, and sometimes some financial support, and they still have to live by themselves with their families.
All in all, Pour un Sourire d’Enfant aims to give breed happiness in the living of those scavengers, to get them out of the living hell, and most importantly, to bring out the hearted smiles on the faces of those vulnerable people—children in particular.
c. Government and those in authority
If people and NGOs alone work but the government do not cooperate or work alongside, the efforts are not likely go smoothly. Therefore, the government also is an important part to solve this problem and help those poor children and others involved.
First, the corporation of the government with NGOs is very necessary in a way that, for example, the government can provide the land for NGOs to build schools and/or centers for educating those children and for accommodating homeless children as well. In this respect, the helpful and cooperative government is a factor to encourage people living overseas or international organizations to give out and use their funds and budgets to establish various non-profit NGOs and work towards the welfare of people like those scavengers at Stung Meanchey. Moreover, the government can, too, support them by providing them with some money that can be used to assist their living.
In addition, the government should find and implement a variety of measures to create more jobs available for the poor so that parents of those scavenging families can earn money to feed the families without the demand of their children having to work. To achieve this, matters such as foreign direct investment should be among some of top priorities to achieve in the government’s agenda. For example, policies should be made less bureaucratic and the system less corrupt so that foreign investors are more willing to come to Cambodia and use their money to establish businesses, which will, in turn, provides thousands of jobs for Cambodian people.
VII. Recommendation
In fact, the most important message we are trying to convey in writing this paper is to make known to everybody in the class the truth about lives full of hardship, misery and emptiness of some of the Cambodians, who day after day live on what considered by most as useless and rubbishy. It is also to wake us all up to the fact that life is precious, and because we are not living like those in the garbage dump, it is even a thousand times more justifiable for us to value what our lives have to offer and to never take anything around us for granted. It is good to realize and remember that the bowl of rice that we can easily pour into the rubbish bin can actually save a life that is living in starvation.
We also hope our presentation, to an extent, inspires other students to get more involved in volunteer work, in which some kind of help is given to the poor. As clearly indicated earlier in this writing about what individuals can do to help better the lives of those rubbish pickers, we hope to witness inspired actions carried out in some ways by other Cambodians, especially those who have not known about, cared to do, and done anything of this volunteer type before. We believe that it is worthwhile to realize our power in making a difference. Without each and every of us, who have been referred to as individuals, both the governments and other NGOs cannot advance. We are the fundamental particles of the NGOs, of the government, of our community, and of our entire country. According to this reason, we believe that we, individuals, possess in our small hands the power to make big change and big difference, if “we are the change that we want to see”.
References
Barboza, D. (2003, August 25). Phnom Penh Journal; Children scavenge a life, of sorts, in the garbage. The New York Times. Retrieved January 1, 2009, from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html
Dakowicz, M. (2005). The garbage dump in Phnom Penh. Retrieved January 24, 2009, from http://www.pbase.com/maciekda/stungmeanchey2005
Hazardous and harmful child labour (2002.) Retrieved January 24, 2009, from Global Fund for Children website: http://www.globalfundforchildren.org/pdfs/gfc_harmful_labor.pdf
Nay, C. (2008, March). The happiest moment for a scrap collection girl. Retrieved January 2, 2009, from http://worldvisioncambodia.org/featuredet.aspx?id=100
Tales of Asia (Last updated on January 2002). Stung Mean Chey. Retrieved January 24, 2009, from http://www.talesofasia.com/25cambodia-stungmeanchey.htm
Written and prepared by:
YI Longdy
KAING Muyleang
KONG Samphy
PHANG Sokpove
UCH Kong Leakhena
YI Solida
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