Antonia and I have been unbelievably busy with this project. sourcing materials has been a huge huge huge challenge. there is no jewelery making industry in cambodia.... only some higher end gold and silversmiths who set locally mined rubies and saphires. of course, most of the local population is too poor to purchase this jewelry, rather they buy the super cheap stuff that's imported from china.... so it has been very hard to find supplies for the girls.. but i've managed to do it... today was actually a big day at the shelter. i finally got the kids to the point where they can start making some jewelry to sell. they all made necklaces and we paid them for their work! the kids were VERY excited. we've made plenty of jewelry with them that they've been able to keep, so they were more than happy to get the money rather than the necklaces this time! I think the kids are finally beginning to understand the potential of making jewellery. So much gets lost in translation, and i don't think they've been able to understand that we are trying to empower them and give them some money making skills and some options for the future.... but actions and sometimes money speaks louder than words, and we definitely got their attention today. When i return to the states, and Antonia returns to the UK for Christmas, we both plan on doing some slideshow presentations and selling the jewellery in order cover the costs of the project thus far.
It was a brainmelting day today. Unseasonably hot for this time of year. We started out the morning with a painting class but the volunteer supplying paper to the shelter was half an hour late, so we used the time to pick boquets of shrub flowers to use as still-life subjects. The kids are unbelievably patient, they amaze me. I got frustrated thinking about how they don't even have the ability to draw a picture when they feel like doing so. but half the population of cambodia is under the age of 16, all growing up among aftermath of the khmer rouge. I'm sure all of these children have grown up with very little. they are strong little souls, survivors.
The shelter itself is down a little dirt road about a half our drive out from the center of Phnom Penh. It is located so far out to keep the kids from being lured onto the streets, or back into brothels, in some cases to keep brothel owners from finding the kids. .. I just want to clarify, not all of the kids have been trafficked. Some are victims of domestic abuse, some have lost their mothers and suffered from total neglect, and some are economic orphans whose parents live in slums or on the streets and have no means of housing and feeding their children. Also, not all trafficking is for the purpose of sex, while the great majority is sex trafficking, there are many young children who have been sold and brough to Phnom Penh to a life off indentured servitude selling newspapers, flowers, or trinkets on the streets.
But regardless of where these kids are from or how they got here, they are still kids, still playing, laughing and craving attention, curious about the world, listening to khmer hip hop, painting their nails........
They have all fully accepted me into the shelter and they are most definitely tugging on my heart strings.
