Sao Sary Foundation: Stop Human Trafficking Before It Starts!
SSF believes in a proactive approach in protecting children from any form of violence, exploitation and abuse. Rather than waiting until it’s too late, SSF strives to identify at risk children and provide sustainable assistance to both the
children and their families.www.ssfcambodia.org
We hope that this inquiry finds you well. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for our foundation. Sao Sary Foundation is facing an immediate crisis – due to lack of timely funding we may have to terminate our Child Protection Program which currently assists 50 children in care ranging from room and board, medical care, education, and vocational skills training. Our program affords them the opportunity to be children and not have to worry about the burdens of finding work to support their families. Such desperation makes them vulnerable to being trafficked.
SSF aims to alleviate child poverty in Cambodia’s poorest communities, while preventing all forms of violence, exploitation and abuse against children, especially commercial sexual exploitation, trafficking, child labor and child marriage. We do this through a proactive approach in protecting children from any form of violence, exploitation and abuse. Rather than waiting until it’s too late, SSF strives to identify at risk children and provide sustainable assistance to both the children and their families. It is our mission to achieve lasting improvements for children living in poverty in Cambodia's poorest communities, through a process that unites people across cultures and adds meaning and value to their lives.
Sao Sary Foundation is immediately seeking funds of US$5,000 by December 1, 2009 to continue operations for our Child Protection Program for a period of three months while we continue efforts to acquire long-term funding. Any immediate assistance that can be provided to the Sao Sary Foundation would be greatly appreciated than could be described. If you or anyone you know are aware of any emergency grants (i.e. one-time grants that have short/no waiting periods and/or not attached to any partnership agreements), please email us at: ssfcambodia@gmail.com. Additionally, personal donations can be made at: http://ssfcambodia.org/index.php?page=donate.
Thank you for your time and consideration of the plight of these children.
WHO: Anyone interested. WHEN:November 14th, 2009 - February 10th, 2010. WHERE: San Francisco, CA. WHAT: Groundwork Opportunities has partnered with Marathon Matt to launch "You Can Run 13.1 for GO", a training slash fundraising program to benefit Groundwork Opportunities, which concludes with your completion of the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon on Sunday, February 10th, 2010.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. You Can Run 13.1 for GO includes the following:
A comprehensive training schedule
2-3 weekly professionally coached run workouts (see below)
A weekly email newsletter supporting your training and fundraising
Technical training shirts
A $25 Fleet Feet gift certificate
100+ killer teammates to run with plus social events
Your own personalized fundraising webpage
A fundraising strategy workbook
Ongoing support from Marathon Matt and his team for both your training and fundraising
And much more
PARTICIPANT DETAILS There is no cost to register for the program. But You Can Run 13.1 for GO participants are asked to commit to a fundraising minimum of $1,300. Note: We take your fundraising commitment very seriously. We will do everything in our power to help you reach/exceed your goal but it is our expectation that you do everything in your power to play an active role in this process. If you are not comfortable with this, please do not sign up for this race.
WORKOUT DETAILS Professionally coached workouts take place every Saturday @ 9:30AM, every Tuesday @ 6:30PM, and every other Thursday @ 6:30PM starting on Saturday, November 14th, 2009. The program concludes on Sunday, February 10th, 2010 with your completion of the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon.
SSF's Child Protection Program aims to alleviate child poverty in Cambodia's poorest communities, while preventing all forms of violence, exploitation and abuse against children, especially commercial sexual exploitation, trafficking, child labor and child marriage.
This is achieved through a comprehensive and integrated one-to-one child sponsorship program that takes care of each child's needs in terms of health, education and social welfare. Currently, SSF supports 50 children, half of which are fully sponsored.
Health: The majority of supported children have had little in the way of medical care before their involvement with the Sao Sary Foundation. Health assessments are conducted immediately when the child has been selected for aid. Additionally their progress is traced through monthly follow up appointments while full medical checkups are conducted every six months, with the goal of improving and maintaining the overall physical and mental health of all sponsored children during their participation in SSF’s Child Protection Program.
Education: In order to ensure access to basic education for all program participants, every child is enrolled in public school. This includes providing bicycles if necessary, all required school materials, pocket money, and daily meals. Moreover, SSF offers informal English and computer literacy classes in order to prepare each child with the skills that are required for success in the workplace and in institutions of higher learning.
Social welfare: The organization places importance on supplemental training that seeks to build social skills that many children do not develop at home. Examples include health awareness, social morality, human rights, legal rights, goal setting, craft skills, vocational training (sewing, haircutting, small business management, etc), and agricultural skills (vegetable gardening, poultry raising, composting, etc).
Shelter: Although the SSF compound provides shelter to children with no other options, its primary focus is to serve as a support within the community to reinforce the organization’s mission and goals. Additionally SSF has pursued partnerships with local Buddhist temples (for boys) and run own compound (for girls) as an alternative to living at home in special circumstances.
Income Generation – Because emergency aid only offers a temporary solution to a long-term problem, SSF encourages supported children to take responsibility for their own future in order to ensure that they will not always need to be dependent upon aid to survive. Following emergency measures that include helping families to settle their outstanding debts that prevent them from doing anything other than pay interest and purchase food for their families, SSF has sought teach children the skills they need to earn money through participation in projects such as the banana cake selling operation located at the front of the SSF compound.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Wells of opportunity
Author: Sao Sary Foundation
Water is a crucial commodity to life. Despite this, access to clean water is something that many Cambodians in rural areas are denied. In a sub-village of Prey Rongeang, thirty families, who live in severe poverty, were deprived of this basic human essential. The lack of water in this sub-village, called Kraing Hong, not only caused health problems, but financial problems. They were forced into buying in water at an inflated rate, costing them around $0.5 - $1 every day. This meant that the people of this village spent almost all of their small income just on obtaining water, and the rest of their income on other essentials, such as food. Having to spend all of their money simply on surviving meant that this village had no opportunity to lift themselves out of extreme poverty. They were unable to save any money to enable their children to go to school, let alone money to invest in small businesses, or anything that could provide them with a higher income.
Spending all of their money on surviving and stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty meant that many of the villagers became vulnerable to moneylenders. Moneylenders charge a ridiculous interest rate of 10% a day. According to villagers, when they borrow $10 the charge is $1 a day, meaning that in ten days the amount they have to pay back doubles to $20. This obscene amount of interest means that, once a family borrows money, it is very unlikely that they will be able to escape their debt and, instead, find it spiraling out of control. This spiraling debt is often how people fall victim to outside human traffickers, leading to abuse, exploitation, commercial sexual exploitation, child labor and child marriage.
This village suffers severely from outside human traffickers, who come presenting themselves as respected businessmen and promising a better life. With the assurance of work and a way to support their families, many people are quickly swayed into leaving their homes, but the reality when they arrive at their destination becomes quickly apparent. Several boys from the village were taken to work in cities in Cambodia and different parts of Thailand. Many describe the work as slave labor, involving abuse and little or no money. Two boys trafficked to Thailand to work on fisher boats, who managed to escape back to Cambodia, said that they were in constant fear of their lives. Similarly, girls who find themselves persuaded into moving to Phnom Penh, or other major cities, believing that they are going to work as cooks or cleaners, invariably end up sold to brothels. This was the fate of two such girls from this village, who ended up, not only sold to brothels, but thereafter contracting HIV and dying.
Sadly, this village is particularly vulnerable to outside traffickers because it lacks support from the local authorities. Unfortunately, the local village authorities in Prey Rongeang believe that this sub-village supports the political opposition of the ruling Party. The local authorities are, therefore, completely unwilling to give any assistance to the people of Kraing Hong, even when they ask for it. It is obvious then why rich, sharp-looking business men, who offer assistance and the chance at a better life, can easily manipulate these people into being trafficked.
In the 2009 fiscal year, in collaboration with Groundwork Opportunities, SSF found the funding to install a well in Kraing Hong. Well construction began in April 2009, providing the entire village with access to clean water. The well took two weeks to build,with much help from the villagers themselves, who also built a fence around the well as protection from cattle.Amongst these people,five residents were selected to learn the skills required to maintain and preserve the well, so that any problems that arise with it can be dealt with directly by the villagers. It is important that the villagers know how to keep the well in good condition, so that they do not have to waste money in the future on its maintenance, and can sustain the well themselves. By providing the village with a well, it has alleviated a severe financial burden that affected every family. It’s construction has meant that the villagers no longer have to spend their entire income simply on surviving. Through SSF support and guidance, this will even lead to opportunities to save money, which can then be invested in small business ventures to generate a regular income for the villagers.
Along with the well, SSF hope to be able to install home gardens so that the villagers do not have to be reliant on outside sources of income to feed themselves, with the added potential that these gardens could lead to a small source of income. Education will be provided alongside these home gardens about the importance of looking after the natural resources that these villagers have at their disposal, with particular emphasis on the importance of using non-chemical fertilizers. Moreover, SSF plans to organize regular meetings to create Self-Help groups to monitor the well and the village’s progress. This will provide ground to connect the people with their local authority and encourage the villagers into a greater sense of community, turning to each other when they have problems, financial or otherwise, to minimize the use of moneylenders. SSF hopes, through this support, the people of this village will begin to understand and seize the opportunities that they have to work themselves out of poverty. SSF not only hopes to inspire them to save, but also appreciate the resources around them to produce an income. Moreover, it is vital that the people of this village are educated about the dangers and legalities of human trafficking and child labor, so that it ceases to be a solution to their problems. SSF concentrates on solving problems at their root cause. The installment of the well, along with SSF support for the next three years, providing that SSF continues to get the financial backing that it requires, will hopefully alleviate the vulnerability of this village to debt and, therefore, their vulnerability to human trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, child labor and child marriage. About the Author:
Nonprofit organization works to help absolute poor families to care for their children, avoiding them from all forms of violence, exploitation, abuse against, including child sexual commercial, trafficking, child labor and child marriage.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Wells of opportunity
Emphasis on Education Key to Alleviating Child Trafficking in Cambodia Wednesday, March 11, 2009 | posted by Doug Smith | 0 Comments
Last January, Global Playground had the opportunity to visit the Sao Sary Foundation ("SSF"), located an hour's drive outside of Cambodia's capitol city of Phnom Penh. SSF was founded in 2006 to "help improve the living standard of the poorest of the poor and vulnerable families . . . and to develop support for the education of orphans and other vulnerable children." The ultimate goal of SSF is to ensure that vulnerable children are kept safe from all forms of violence, exploitation, and abuse, especially child trafficking. This was also the lifelong goal of the foundation's namesake, Sao Sary, deputy chief of Takeo province in Kus commune, who was gunned down after intervening in a robbery.
SSF runs a house where students live so they can attend school, develop skills, and generally be in a safer environment than they might otherwise be in their own homes. Children at SSF are considered those particularly susceptible to being trafficked, such as those who have been trafficked before, who live well below the poverty line, or who come from single-parent households or families with physical disabilities and low earning potential. In addition, the beauty of a child and lack of access to education also make a child a likely target for trafficking.
To contribute to their keep and to support SSF, the girls who live at SSF spend hours on end making hundreds of elaborate flowers fashioned out of metal rods and colorful nylon, which are then sold at market for use in weddings or other ceremonies. But not all of the organization's work is at the home itself--much of what the organization does extends into the community. Global Playground saw SSF's outreach efforts firsthand when it toured the Cambodian countryside and visited with several of the families that SSF is helping. One family consisted of a single mother and her daughter who were living in a dilapidated structure, but because the home had no walls the daughter was in constant danger of abduction and trafficking given her beauty. SSF is rebuilding the home. In other cases, SSF teaches families how to run a business and provides them with startup capital to do so. For example, SSF taught one mother whom Global Playground visited how to raise fish and grow rice and morning glories (a marketable vegetable in Cambodia) so that she could keep her family out of poverty and her daughters safe.
Global Playground visited SSF to better understand the import of bolstering education in Cambodia. Board member Doug Smith stated, "Part of the reason Global Playground is operating in Cambodia is because there is child trafficking and education is a means to alleviate it." Although SSF's goal is not education alone, Global Playground does see education as the ultimate preventative measure. "If kids are in school and gaining education to allow them to enter jobs successfully and earn decent income, then trafficking is not as serious of a risk," said board member Doug Bunch.
During its visit, Global Playground purchased the entire inventory of the girls' nylon flowers and will sell them at Global Playground's March 27 event in Washington, DC at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
-Jennifer Rinker
To read the profile of one of the families SSF is helping and to view pictures from Global Playground's visit with the family click here.
while preventing all forms of violence, exploitation and abuse against children, especially commercial sexual exploitation, trafficking, child labor and child marriage.
