I’m now living in Poipet, near the offices of Cambodia Hope Organization. This past week I have met the group at Safe Haven that we will be working with – they are a shy but sweet group of 14 to 17 year olds. They are excited about learning a new skill in their free time after class.

I’m working closely with CHO staff member Sok Leng to determine the right product for both Freedom Stones and CHO. A couple of factors affect our potential conclusions. First, we want the skill taught to be a sustainable one that the artisans can use for income generation after they leave Safe Haven and return to their villages. Second, we need the product to be able to sell overseas in order to fund this project and pay the artisans their wages. In other words, we need to determine what product would be best for Freedom Stones and CHO to invest in, because the item will need to have an export market.

We are currently looking into two types of products in particular: coconut shell jewelry and silk products (scarves, wallets, bags). Please see below images for some sample ideas.

Coconut necklace 1

Coconut necklace 2

Silk scarf 1

Silk scarf 2

Silk Bag 1 (Red)

Silk Bag 2 (Blue)

We would very much appreciate your help in determining what type of product to focus on. Please complete a short, 10-question market survey on these images.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/59B972J

Your input would be greatly appreciated, and will bring new insights to this research.

If you would like to donate directly to help start up this project please click here and donate to Cambodian Hope Organisation- Local Handicraft Projects

Thank you!

Blog from Allison, our new intern, on her visit to Camboida

Posted January 04, 2011

Poipet is a dusty Khmer town on the Cambodia-Thailand border, spliced by a long, main road with honking cars and mopeds speeding by. Earlier this month I travelled to Poipet with Lucy Watkins, the Southeast Asia Regional Director of Freedom Stones, and Sara Wilson, an anti-trafficking colleague providing creative advice. Since my arrival to Thailand in late November, Lucy and her husband James have kindly put me up in their home as I learn first-hand from Lucy about the project Freedom Stones is managing in Pattaya along with Pattaya Slums Ministries. As there is a possibility of Freedom Stones partnering with Cambodia Hope Organization (CHO), Lucy and I and have since travelled to Poipet to meet with Director Chomno and his CHO staff.

My first impression of Poipet was its nature as a go-through town as opposed to a go-to town. Poipet may see many tourists as they exit the Thai border, but only as they quickly board buses to frequent more popular locations such as Siem Reap (home of Angkor Wat) and Phnom Penh. What may be considered the main attraction for foreigners (including Thais) in Poipet is the group of large casinos edging the border: gambling is illegal in Thailand, so this location serves as a convenient and nearby solution. These casinos often employ bar girls as prostitutes.

Poipet is a porous border crossing, and as such is unfortunately a hub for illegal activities such as human trafficking. Cambodia Hope Organization operates in this community as a grassroots response to at-risk as well as formerly trafficked individuals.

The children at CHO’s safehouse smiled shyly at us and conversed in whispered giggles when we popped our heads into their classrooms during school. At first glance, one would not know that the lives of these children have been touched with tragedy. And yet, the stories that they have walked already in their young lives seemed beyond human resilience. Some of the children were as young as 3, and had been trafficked into street gangs to beg for money in Thailand. Others had been injected with diseases, which had physically and mentally disabled them. This was done to enable their employers to make more money from begging. Putting it into perspective: someone along the trafficking line had sacrificed a child’s limb capacity for a few more dollars.

And yet still the children smile, and they’re full of life and amazing in their own way. It gave me hope and a stronger conviction that these children are to be valued, cherished, protected and empowered.

CHO also runs a community foster care program, and is currently constructing a home for women exiting the sex industry. Additionally, it administers a variety of projects such as “School on a Mat”, vocational skills training (wood-work, metal-work, and motorcycle repair), sewing, micro-enterprise, agriculture and animal husbandry, and community trafficking awareness presentations. After consulting with CHO on their needs and the ways in which Freedom Stones could fill in the gaps, development manager Rothana took us around to visit CHO’s different project sites.

One of the concerns that CHO expressed to us was the lack of jobs in the community and thus the financial insecurity that individuals face each day. Poverty puts people at great risk of being trafficked. Traffickers posing as prospective employers may offer work in Thailand when none can be found in economically stagnant towns such as Poipet. Once in a foreign land and cut off from family and friends, these individuals may be put into forced labour, shuffled into the sex industry, or physically incapacitated and made to beg on the streets for street gangs. If Thai authorities find trafficked Cambodian nationals, they may send them back to Cambodia to be repatriated; however, the process can be lengthy and the exploited individual may very well spend time in a Thai jail before coming full circle back to Cambodia. Even upon return, the individual will still face the same poverty-affected community with little economic opportunity and is again vulnerable to being exploited. Human trafficking does not operate under age constraints; on the contrary, children are often targeted because of the ease with which they can be manipulated and moved. By providing jobs with CHO, Freedom Stones would be contributing to both the prevention of human trafficking and the sustainable reintegration of those formerly trafficked.

Lucy and I conducted local consultations (in addition to our meetings with CHO) as part of our research into finding out what an appropriate product to make would be, not only in terms of making a marketable product overseas but also making a product that would give individuals useful, transferrable skills to use in the future.

To get a larger picture of the anti-trafficking work in Cambodia and the current gaps in terms of services along the at-risk, in-crisis, in-care, and reintegration progression, we also visited and consulted with various NGOs in Phnom Penh. Chab Dai is one such organization based in Phnom Penh. It is a network of over fifty Christian organizations engaged in anti-trafficking work in Cambodia and particularly involves itself in the awareness of what services are being provided by different organizations. The take-home message: a viable economic alternative is crucial to preventing and combating human trafficking.

My journey continues as I will be returning to Poipet in the New Year and living there until November to help set up the new project with CHO. Watch this space!