Provide Pandemic Relief For 500 Cambodian Families

  Story from Kanika (name changed for privacy)." I’m 29 years old. I live in a small rental house in the Boeung Tumpun area of Phnom Penh with my parents and my three children. I am also 7 months pregnant. I used to work in a factory and my husband is a construction worker. Unfortunately, my husband and I had an argument recently and he has left us." She continues.

"Now, because of the lockdown (interview taken in May 2021) and my pregnancy, I can no longer go to work. I have no income and can’t afford to buy food or pay for my medical bills or my children’s education. My parents are both very old, but they still work and now my family has become their burden. One of my brothers is a tuk-tuk driver, and the other is a factory worker. Sometimes they will help us with food, but they can’t do very much because they are also trying to take care of their own families. Right now, neither of them has a job because roads and factories are closed. So, we have no income at all and are just trying to get enough food to survive. I’m so worried about when I have my baby and that I won’t have enough money to get care at a hospital or even afterward. I can only hope that the COVID outbreak will be over soon so that my brothers and parents can go to work again. We are poor, fortunately, we are immune to Covid. We have to live and need to work to live each day.

For now, I just want to say thank you to the people who have been generous enough to give us food and other groceries. This relief package will help us hold on for just a bit longer.  Thank you."

In partnership with other groups, more care packages are distributed to families in Chak Angre Leu neighborhood Phnom Penh, where one of the Dove staff lives. We found this neighborhood hadn’t received any assistance yet. The staff talked with each family to understand their situation. Some work as garbage collectors or cleaners, while others are unemployed, elderly, or widowed. On May 2^nd, 40 families received packages and the remaining 57 families on May 11^th. We were happy that some of the Dove Yesic students volunteered to help with the second distribution. 

Thank you to all of you who have supported Mission Dove Cambodia’s Covid Pandemic project! Dove is also grateful to GlobalGiving for a direct grant for Covid-19 relief in July. These gifts gave Dove staff more opportunities to bless their Cambodian neighbors during this challenging time.

On July 18^th, Mission Dove Cambodia staff partnered with Cambodia Care Center (CCC) organization to distribute care packages to 71 families in the Chbar Ampov area of Phnom Penh. One of the Dove staff who helped was Ms. Raeksmey, who grew up in this neighborhood and previously worked at the CCC school. Mr. Sun, who is a Dove leadership student, was one of the CCC staff who helped organize the distribution. Families in this neighborhood have found it difficult to make a living during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some collect recyclables, but the market for resale is much reduced.

It was also encouraging to see some of the Dove students, whose families have received care packages, volunteer to help with the distribution. Care packages included two 25 kg (100 lbs. total) bags of rice, 1.5kg of sausages, 30 eggs, and other cooking staples. For families that just own bicycles, Dove staff helped to deliver the heavy bags to their home by motor scooter.

After we ate lunch, Sun led us to visit two families. Both families live in shacks near the Bassac river. It’s jarring to see that just across the way is Koh Pich Island, where houses sell for over a million dollars. We listened to the story of one family. The mother, 35 years old, gave birth just 4 days before to her 6^th child. The baby was premature and still at the hospital, being taken care of by her older sister. She was afraid to see the baby and decided to come back home to take care of her other children. They lost their house when the riverbank fell into the river, due to sand dredging. For a while, they rented land to live on for $10 a month. The mother sold vegetables to earn money until Covid hit. Her husband is a drug addict. They have ended up squatting on a dead end by the river, using water from the river. One of the children attends the CCC primary school. A neighbor, who is a caretaker for a church nearby, gives them food from the church.

Sun shared with me that when he was young, his family’s house in Chbar Ampov would flood every year. So for part of the year, they would go to live in the local wat (temple complex) in a shack similar to the ones these families live in. As a child, he had to help his family collect recyclables to sell, so he was only able to finish 6^th grade. Then he had an opportunity to study English, and now works at CCC part-time and is also security staff for the city. He has a lot of compassion for these 2 families. Sun’s wife and child tested positive for Covid-19 a few months ago, but they recovered.

Now it is monsoon season in Cambodia. In September, Dove staff bought 4 tarps. Sun went with some Dove staff and several students from the YESIC Leadership Club to visit the families again. They helped to make the shacks more waterproof using the tarps and adding more wood and bamboo to the structures.

The Mission Dove Cambodia staff, and Sun and the other Dove students are all wounded healers. They are caring for others out of the pain and understanding brought by their own wounding.