Beggar

Walking along the street in the city, I have seen some of the beggars asking for money from people who travelling pass them, especially at the traffic stop. Some beggars even sleep at the edge of the road at night time, and they have no place to go! Yeah it is possibly no place. I wonder why there are so many beggars in Cambodia, it is just my observation. Actually, I myself have never given money to them while they asking for money from me and other people. It does not mean I am so selfish, but I just wonder what if I give money to them and what will they take that money use for? However, I used to give small money to some beggars either, if I feel that people would use that money in a right way.  Yet I still do not know whether they use it in a right way or not. Do you think there are many things that beggars can do instead of asking for money on the road?

Picture by Phnom Penh Post

Have they ever thought to be a dish cleaner at some restaurants in some places instead of begging? I do not know their mind. Have they thought they can to be a dish cleaner or other work is hard for them to do? I question myself what if I were them, or I have no chance to do other things besides begging? what if they are disabled people? what can they do ? I think it would be come from the mindset that people just want to do thing which is easy to do, not to try hard and then get it very easy just like begging. Is begging easy to do? Yes, no? I thought it is never easy to be a beggar. Yet, beggars might think it is easy to be beggar. That’s why they do it. Or No, it is because of the poverty make them to be beggars. Poverty is the main root which causes poor people to do that. Is it really because of poverty? It might be come from homeless that’s why they beg. Homeless, how can they survive! And why they are homeless? Because of education, maybe.  Why education? People can access to education also because of poverty. So how can we help homeless people to have shelter? Ask the government to help?  Ask the foreign investment to build home for them and give them opportunity to access schooling? So where is the money to get invest? Government gives land concession to investors? It would be have a proper solution to solve this problem out so what is your idea to solve this issue? 

Word Of the Day

Cambodian Traffic Polices’ life

What do you think about Cambodian traffic polices’ life? Or would they happy to do this work?

Alright, if you are Cambodian people you may know more than foreigners or foreigners may know more than you, sometimes-- Moreover, traffic in Cambodia is very noisy, especially in Phnom Penh city or target tourism provinces.  Being a passenger passing on some roads traffic lights, some roads do not have traffic lights, you may see some polices are doing their hard job.

When pass the traffic light or somewhere else, have you ever noticed what are they doing? Or have you imagined the traffic polices'life look like? However, would they be valued, respected or satisfied by their citizens or passengers who are driving? I am not going to answer all these questions. If you see this article I want you express your point of view even you are Cambodian or not.     

When people drive to somewhere even their workplaces, schools, or wherever, I believe they see polices are working hard to avoid traffic jam (mostly during the national festivals/holidays in the morning, around 7:00am to 8:00am and evening at 5:00pm to 9:00 pm). You will hear the whistle from the middle of the road, they seem like pedestrians-this is what polices are doing, it is risky yet they have to do it. They, polices, try to manage the traffic to avoid any bad traffic jam and to help it citizens to travel safety. But the thing is even they are trying to so, some passengers do not respect them, people try to go beyond without listening to polices.

Even some people do not respect them, yet they (polices) still keep doing their work while sweat is coming out and risky work.  You know why most of polices in Cambodia are doing this while other countries polices do not need to whistle much in the middle of the roads.  Because some people in Cambodia do not respect the traffic light or sign and that’s why polices try doing this when the roads are being noised. Still some people do not listen them at all, people just want to go, and they (passengers) do not care the other people who also travel on that road. They go fast and sometimes they cause accident happen, especially with some of the high rang people who pass on this, they (traffic polices) can be threatened by this high rang people due to the power can make them afraid. I notice some traffic polices   stand on a piece of pedestal to control traffic.  What the work is! How pity they are!

Look at another side to their condition of their living, they (polices) get little salary if compare to other works, and they work under the sun or in the rain. How can they live with less than two hundred US dollar per month? What if they have family with four members or more than this?  How can they pay for their breakfast, lunch and dinner and for their children? Some of them may work extra time, not only do they work as traffic police, but they also work as Moto tub driver or other works  to earn more money to support their family.

Okay, this is just my piece of view. What about you, people? What do you think about traffic polices? 

Words of the day!

Words of the Day!

Obstacle

A short video of the ICS Cambodia volunteers -Cycle 2-Stung Treng -July-October, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zScZta9Nb7c&feature=youtu.be

VSO/ICS programme, July-October 2014, Stung Treng Cambodia

Experiences during the ICS programme

The workshop on the Effective Readiness for Job employment Opportunities, 7-8 September 2014

After the ICT, the team departed to Stung Treng province to work with the NGO I had selected. My team has 3 Khmer volunteers and 2 UK volunteers worked with PyD which focus on job employment and to promote the Women’s Development Center service. The group had to move away from the initial ICS team plan which had a focus on supporting the work of the job employment service. This was due to PYD making it clear to us that they felt the service was not at a stage yet where they could handle an influx of interest in it, which would be generated by holding events promoting it. As such, it was brought to the group's attention that another focus of PYD’s is supporting the work of local CBO’s, especially around issues to do with gender and education. Cycle one had also highlighted in their handover report that lack of education was a major impact on jobseekers. As such the group moved its focus to working on the proposals of the local CBO’s.  We worked with the CBO on their proposal with two activities. For the first, we focused on the importance of the education for children which was conducted on August 28th 2014. It was run successfully, since we cooperated well with CBO, or CWGG.

To achieve this the team and I had a meeting and negotiated for almost 3 hours, to discuss and find out the point which one CWGG wanted to do and which one PyD team want to do on the session (meeting was in Khmer due to CWGG could not speak English). On the other hand, all every event succeeds because of the team work, even I sometimes had challenges in the team, but I still worked with the team to find the solution. In the team, I had worked so hard, although I had different language barriers with the UK volunteers. I tried to listen and think carefully. I had good relationship not only in the team, but also with the NGOs I worked with. I can say that my communication has been improving throughout this program. For instance, before doing the event the team and I always had the meeting with CWGG and BBU to hold the workshop. I had contacted and talked and chit-chatted along in a good way; it was great that I could do it with my team to run the events smoothly. Moreover, it taught me about the public speaking (even on GCD, events run by team..). I did not believe that this program gave me a lot of opportunities to talk in front of many people. I did not feel confident enough before giving a talk, yet during the GCD session I could make the session more interesting to all volunteers. My other partner and I worked and understood each other so that my GCD run smoothly and the other pairs followed the activities of my session. On the other hand, during the workshop I could do it, especially when I was giving a talk at the University event that I could make all participants laugh and interested in my session. More experiences were learnt from cross-cultural; as we were born with different perspective, I  still learnt from each other as from the UK volunteers that some of them worked very quickly and came up with many ideas that I sometimes really appreciated them so much. Last but not least, about solving   problem and exactly, whatever we do, it always has mistake or problem, just it is small or big. Even it is small if we do not deal with it in time, it would become a big one that affect to the whole team. So as I experienced during working with the team or with the other, the team and I discussed to find the solution. Example, One of the small issues was when the team had a meeting with CWGG about the event, first the team thought that it was great that we can make the event with them, but after the meeting, CWGG had talked with PyD that CWGG should have involved more than this. However, after the team knew the problem, I had phoned to CWGG to have another meeting again in order to know about the main problem and share the responsibilities equally. That’s why the team and I had a long meeting due to the team had many things to discuss. And lastly, both teams found the solution and we worked together well during the event. All in all, I have been changed because of joining with the ICS program for three months and this was another step that I can move myself to be more productive in the near future. Everything can be changed and changing started from me. Try it do it, face it solve it with positive thought even it cannot be solved a hundred percent, yet at least it is better than nothing. 

And this video shows you about the activities what we had done! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zScZta9Nb7c

VSO Cambodia

International Youth Day-VSO/ICS 2014 (ទិវាយុវជនអន…: http://youtu.be/Plw8bav9xSg