Pattaya, Kerry and the Tamar Center

Pattaya - the Thai city of sin?

Today we caught up with our friend Kerry (who is one of our regular commentators on this blog). Kerry is on a 6 month sabbatical to Pattaya to work with the Tamar center. Before we talk about this project we need to explain a little bit more about Pattaya. Pattaya is a tourist developed town but the tone for this development was set by the near by  US navy base. Sailors on shore leave came to Pattaya to drink and sleep with girls. The whole tourist development is geared up around the commercial sex industry. The navy base is still here with regular influxes of sailors but Pattaya has grown to such a point that it doesn’t need sailors to find enough men looking for sex. Men come from England, America, Europe, Russia and increasingly Arab states primarily for sex.

Prostitutes waiting for business in a bar

In the lonely planet guide is starts it description of the city like this

 “Synonymous with prostitution, Pattaya is unapologetic about its bread-and-butter industry.” 

 The Tamar center reaches out to help the women and children who find themselves working in the tourist sex industry. The center runs a number of projects including doing outreach to the girls based in the bars and the girls working from the main beach front. A regular service they provide is free English language courses.

Kerry and Namwaan the team training leader

IT skills base

Coffee shop kitchen

The lovely coffee shop - VERY good pancakes!

They run training and employment to help the women earn money outside of prostitution. This work includes card making, hairdressing, bakery, restaurant skills, IT skills and life skills. The cards are fantastic and you can buy them online here. The coffee shop they run is excellent. I would recommend the cheesecake.

Amazing hand made cards for sale

The Card making hub

Some of the girls in the training 

Everything is centered on helping girls find dignity hope and a future.

The project runs a hair salon on a major bar street and many of the working girls come to get their hair styled. The salon provides a very gentle introduction to the team and is staffed by women who used to work as prostitutes but have gone through the training Tamer provides.

The hair salon in the outreach centre

Some of the outreach team

Dozens of bars line the streets with thousands of girls in the city ready to sell their body to foreigners

Kerry took us on a little tour of the town and we were both shocked with how blatant the prostitution was. Even though prostitution is illegal in Thailand there is no attempt to hide the work. It is everywhere in the city; from bars, clubs, massage parlors and girls on the street. It creates a very odd atmosphere and not a pleasant one. Whilst it has been nice to visit the local Starbucks, enjoy some home comforts (Kerry took us to a cafe for a British fry up!!!!) and it has been great to visit Kerry, we are glad that it is a short trip as we would not want to holiday here. 

Michelle and Kerry relaxing in the counselling room used to help girls start dealing with some of their issues.

We have only told you a tiny amount. The team is also involved in preventative work in the poorer villages that most of the girls come from.  The team also helps girls who want to return to their villages. Kerry and the team are doing an amazing job in this city and greater things are yet to come! 


Also in Pattaya we had the opportunity to go with Kerry and her very funny friend Gemma out of the city and on a boat trip to some local islands, we will get some pictures of that fun trip up later. We are now heading down to the south of Thailand to learn to dive and relax before heading home in a few weeks. We are going to Phuket via a flight to Kuala Lumpa. As we need to extend of Visa and it is easier to fly in and out of the country than to deal with the Visa authorities. 

AIDS projects in Thailand - The House of Grace - Sing Buri

Our first week in Thailand was visiting two amazing projects connected with Gareth's work (ACET aids education). We visited The house of Grace in Chanthaburi and a schools education project in Sing Buri. We stayed with two amazing missionaries called Alan and Maelynn who are both over 70 and have been working in Thailand for over 40 years. 

The House of Grace

We first went to the HIV orphanage on a Friday morning, as the children and young people where heading off to school. 

The House of Grace looks after children who's parents have died from HIV and no family members can/will look after them. Some of the children are infected with HIV and some are siblings of infected. The house of Grace provides a safe loving place for them to grow up.  

 
We had a good look round the purpose built buildings and meet some of the children to young to go to school. Michelle had great fun playing hide and sneak. 

Lego (Duplo) is appreciated in every country 

The House of Grace grows mushrooms in a purpose built shed. They sell them in town. This days crop was 10 kg

On the Saturday we made friends with this group of residents and they even let Gareth see their bedroom, much tidier then the boys :)

   

They had great fun digging up and moving some trees around the garden

This group shot was taken by one of the girls who borrowed the camera and was happily going around taking loads of pictures. They all eat together in dinning room and regularly receive donations from the local community of food and cooking essentials.

Sing Buri School Education 

We had the chance to go with the team of HIV educators into a local school. This was a great experince to see how they teach the topic Gareth teaches in England. We had loads of fun and so did the students.

They did lots of similar exercise to what we do in the UK, group work and listening (they are very well behaved)

They also played some games we could never get away with! Like the one below where they get into team and then sit in a circle and link arms. Then another team of young people has to rush forward and try to pull them apart and drag their captured class mates across the floor to their team! looked great fun but not sure if I will be allowed to play it in the UK

 

     

  
Also flour in the face. Which we have played in youth clubs but would never get away with in schools!!

The school based work the team is also doing youth work in the town. Building up the work so the young people have positive adult role models. 

It was great to meet a team working on the same issue as Gareth but in a completely different country. 

Daughters of Cambodia - Project Phnom Penh

The final Project we visited in Phnom Penh was Daughters of Cambodia a organization reaching out to victims of sex trafficking in Cambodia. The project looks to work with individuals who want to get out of the commercial sex industry but feel themselves trapped. The project outlines two areas of need for those wanting to get out of the industry, internal capacity (Emotional healing, self esteem and confidence) and external resources (being able to still provide food for a family for example). Using this two pronged approach Daughters of Cambodia seeks to help women (and a number of male ladyboy prostitutes) who want to leave the industry, to be able to leave by their own effort. This is seen as a more sustainable approach then making them dependant on charity hand outs. 

We meet Heather from Daughters of Cambodia at their shop/cafe/spa. This premises is a key employment option for the people in the project. The shop is stocked with clothes, ornaments and jewellery made by people from the project. The cafe is staffed with women from the project who are being trained in catering and hospitatly and the spa is operated by women trained in health and beauty care by the project. It was a lovely place to have lunch (great burger!). Their are a variety of employment options, all with training, to ensure the people have future job opportunities. Michelle loved the shop and bought some pretty things. 

   

The commercial sex industry is not a pleasant thing to be in and many of the women have suffered through some very cruel situation with the ladyboys in the project sometimes suffering worse then others due to social prejudices. Many of the victims of this industry are sold into it by their family  (due to extreme poverty). In a few cases women may be ticked into being sold to a brothel by a boyfriend or close friend. Sadly a family will sometimes sell their daughter into the sex industry because she has been raped, once she has suffered that trauma she is then seen to have lost her 'value' as a potential wife and is now 'worthless'. Treatment within the brothels can be horrific. The Daughters of Cambodia website has a picture drawn by a 12 year old victim detailing some of abuse she suffered. Along with the practical training the project provides counselling and support for the victims. Helping them to recover psychologically and emotional from the abuse they have suffered. 



Please visit the website to learn more about this amazing project and the good work it is doing for women and men in Cambodia desperate for a way out of the commercial sex industry. 

Daughters of Cambodia

Christians for Social Justice - Project Phnom Penh @Freethe15 #free15BK

Meeting in a lovely street cafe we chatted for a long time with Steve who is passionatly involved with Social Justice issue in Cambodia. Steve also was involved in setting up Justees, which we visted earlier in the week. Now Steve has focused his work in helping Khemar people stand up for their own rights. A large part of his work includes bridge building between non human rights groups and Christian projects. Helping both groups of passionate people work together on tackling social inequaility in Cambodia and helping linking protests with project work for the benefit of local people.

According to the Corruption Index Cambodia's government gets a score of 2.1. This puts it just a little bit better the Libya, Venzula, Iraq and Haiti and more corrupt then Laos, Nigeria, Russia and Syria. Much worse then neighbouring Vietnam and Thailand. It is also sadly true that many of the people involved in the leadership of the Khemar Rouge are still in government positions. Corruption may be called endemic in Cambodia. With extra bribes or "fees" being asked for by everyone from policemen to teachers who refuse to teach a child teh whole curriculum unless they get paid extra "fees". Sadly many government workers are badly paid (with some months not getting paid at all) so charging bribes can be the only way they can support themselves and family. We heard one almost comic story of a foreign couple driving a car being pulled over. The police fully inspected the car and all their papers, looking for any even minor fault they could charge a bribe for. They found nothing. Eventually the police just admitted to the foreign workers. "we're thirsty can you buy us a coke?"

The darker side of this corruption is currently publicly played out by land-grabs. These are times when individuals or companies with money/influence will claim a bit of land (by paying off the right people in government) regardless of who is currently living on the land (usually the poorest in the community). The land grabbers will the forceably evict the people and destroy their homes to make way for a new development, hotel, office block or residential complex. The corrupt developers are very cleaver and will often pay off the community leaders with large cash sums or new cars. This makes it harder for people to organise themselves. Also playing on the old divide and conquer tactic some developers will give a little compensation to some of the displaced people and none to others. Stirring up resentment and again making it harder for people to get organised. All over Cambodia people are having their homes and livelihoods ripped away from them. Steve works with local Cambodians to help them organise and protest to stand up against this corruption. One cause, Christians for social justice, is currently involved with is  Freethe15.wordpress.com. This campaign looks to help a group of Khemar protesters "arrested while demonstrating peacefully on the sands that now cover what used to be Village 1 in Boeung Kak. Two days later, they were brought to court, and charged" These peaceful protesters have received on average of 2.5 years and they were denied proper legal treatment. Please visit the website to learn more about this terrible injustice. 

Freethe15.wordpress.com. 

Christians for social justice have a central theme of non-violent protest. Steve runs workshops helping local people to explore non-violent protesting. The workshops explores the roots of violence and how people respond has a huge impact. A simple summary could be "If you respond with Rocks they respond with bullets". But Non-violent protesting results in less violence and better responses. You stand up for what is right not by doing something wrong. If you want to read about a local lead campaign against a rainforest land grab click here Prey-Lang-Its-Our-Forest-Too.

It was great to learn about this project doing great work linking together various groups all interested in social justice in Cambodia, focusing on non-violent methods and equipping local people to lead the way. 

Prision Fellowship Cambodia - Project Phnom Penh

We meet up with Adam and Colleen Hutchinson to talk abpout the work of Prison Fellowship in Cambodia. This is a member of the international prison fellowship. Gareth's Mum and Michelle's Aunt both have worked with UK Prison Fellowship projects. Prison Fellowships across the world are projects with a heart for helping those effected by prison. In each country the exact work will be different meeting the needs of the local people. The Prison Fellowship in Cambodia has the wide aim to

"To see those affected by crime and imprisonment 

restored and empowered to improve their communities"

The project has been running for over 10 years and they have grown to be the primary providers of education and reintegration services in Cambodia. They have a small number of foreign workers and a large majority of Khemar staff working in prisons all across the country. They take a holistic approach looking at how to best help the individuals. So the education they provide will give practical skills to help them get a job, mechanics or sowing for example. But they will also provide classes on emotional and social education helping the prisoners to be better prepared for life outside when they are released. Prison sentences in Cambodia can be very long. Some people this project have worked with went into prison during the civil war, obviously Cambodia has changed a lot since that time. Working to help ensure smooth reintegration is at the heart of the work they do. 

I was very impressed to hear how the project also works with other people involved within prisons. For example they have provided training for prison staff on things such as I.T skills, communication skills and non violent approaches.This has been proven to help improve the relationship between guards and prisoners. It was  this holistic all round approach that we were most impressed by! We believe the project is making a significant improvement to lives of people impacted by prisons in Cambodia, both the prisoner ans the wider community.

They did smile and laugh a lot in the visit
I think I just took the picture before they expected me too. 

Chab Dai - Project Phnom Penh

Today we visited, Chab Dai, a project that instead of being just a single project, works as a coalition. A coalition of over 50 projects all working with the issue of Human Trafficking. 

We walked back from the Chab Dai
offices under a glorious (hot) blue sky

The issue of human trafficking is not limited to one country or continent but is a global issue, yet in each country it will have its own specific styles and issues. In Cambodia poverty is a huge driving factor in people ending up being trafficked. 


The sensationalised media accounts of trafficking usually shows people being snatched and dragged away in chains. This is far from the common way people end up in the trade. Helen Sworn (the coalitions International director, who we got to meet and talk with) estimated that less then 2% of trafficked people have that sort of experience. Most trafficked individuals are trapped by much more subtle approaches. 


For example, a recruitment agency may be set up in Cambodia that will send out recruiters into the countryside, to poor rural villages. When at these villages they will talk to families about all the good money their children (usually but not exclusively female) could make by working as home help in Malaysia. The recruiter will promise to get the girl trained, organise VISAs, transport and set them up with a paid position in Malaysia. Only after they have finished their long recruitment enticement will they mention that the girl must be 21. This then leaves the parents to choose if they wish to fake their daughters age on paper work or by using an aunts I.D. If they agree the girl should be recruited the parents will be given a $50 payment, which is a substantial amount of money for rural areas. The girl will be taken to a "training centre" in Phonm Penh were they will be given a few basic training sessions with hundreds of other girls. They girls are locked in the compound where hundreds of individual's are now unable to leave. There are a growing number of reports of the terrible conditions in these holding centres, wide spread accounts of physical abuse, neglect and even sexual abuse. If the parents try to get their child back, maybe if they heard that the training may be something else then they were promised, something dangerous, they can come to Phonm Penh. But they can only get their daughter back if they pay $800 to cover imaginary training costs, transport and administration, no one has this much money! The girl is now trapped. 


After the victims paperwork has been sorted out transport is arranged to get them into Malaysia. The victim on arrival will have their passport taken away by the agency for "safe keeping" and sent to work in a house. She now has no I.D. in a country she doesn't know and a language she probably cant speak. The conditions for these trafficked girls vary depending on where they end up. Some will be neglected and abused. Some physically abused, some sexually abused. The exact work they will do depends on many factors but can include sexual exploitation. All are trapped, unable to come home with no rights, working hard for tiny amounts of money. If they try to escape they may be picked up by gangs who will sell them. Either selling them back to the original agency or possibly to brothels and into the commercial sex trade. 


This example is just one way people may end up in the human trafficking trade. It is a good example of how people may be tricked into it. With the level of restriction increasing at each step and with options of escape being cut off. All this for the sake of profit! 


The Chab Dai coalition aims to

"address human trafficking and exploitation through coalition building, advocacy and research. "

They do an enormous amount of good by helping dozens of agencies working in Cambodia. Helping with training, aid with writing policies, encouraging coalition and more. They do a vast amount of monitoring and evaluation and are currently undertaking a 10 year research study into the risk factors that lead people into trafficking and sexual abuse. It has been great to meet such a well structured and forward planning project. I think that many UK organizations both christian and secular could learn a lot from the way Chab Dai looks at long term strategic development.  

For more information please take a look at their website

www.chabdai.org 

Justees - Project in Phnom Penh

We have reached a significant shift in our travels moving away from tourist routes, sight seeing and history and are currantly staying with the wonderful Bob and Pam Toan (who we know from Chester). Bob and Pam work in Cambodia for interserve, supporting workers who come to Cambodia to help with various projects. Staying with Bob and Pam has given us the opportunity to visit a number of projects, helping to meet the individual and social needs of people in Cambodia. Our first stop was Justees please find some pics and more info below.

In its own words 

Justees is a project in which young men 

who have kicked their drug habit can work 

for a fair wage while still continuing their 

schooling through flexible work hours.

In Justees we highly value work as a 

creative outlet and a means to earn a living.

    


The project aims to be self sufficient by selling the t-shirts it prints as its principle income. The t-shirts are made by a sewing co-operative under fair trade conditions. The t-shirt designs are made by either, the two heads of the project Dave and Steve (we meet Dave, a lovely Australian) or by graphic designers both local and international, who give their work for free. All their T-Shirts have a social justice message and are very well designed (in our opinion).

Justees also prints custom orders and when we visited they were working an an order for a local justice campaign. The campaign is fighting against land grabs which displace people by force and leave them homeless, so that those with power can develop land for business, tourism or government. We will talk more about this in a future post. The simple message of this print is "the whole world is watching" in English and Khmer. Emphasising that what they do and how they treat people will be recorded and shared, there is also a picture of a camera phone on the front of the t shirt. 

Me and Michelle have many talents but T-shirt printing is not one of them. However Michelle found a useful job in helping the team fold up their latest catalogue/leaflet. 

After talking with the staff and Dave for a bit we bought a few t-shirts and sadly said good bye. If you go to their website you can see they will deliver world wide. The T-Shirts are great and you will be supporting a great social enterprise project. 

Justees Website