...who wants to contribute to the community and is not choosing the easiest way to do so.

Give person a fish, and they will not be hungry today. Give them a fishing rod and teach them how to fish, they will not be hungry again. 

It isn’t so easy to explain what a fishing rod is and why it is liberating to be able to catch fish by yourself to a person who never had an opportunity to know the freedom of being able to provide for themselves. 

It’s far easier to receive gratitude from people who get fish from you, because it benefits them directly. They do not need to use their imagination and planning skills to apprehend how to deal with this challenge in the future. 

Yet, this is the path that Soon Kek who recently established the Fish Island Community Art Centre (Kampot, Cambodia) is choosing. She knows better than many of us, what it means to live on food scraps and to be dependent on the benevolence of others.  She learned the hard way to be her own boss and manager and caretaker. How to take a challenge and go for it. Look for help and advice but not to give up. Find a way to learn and develop yourself. And this is what she wants to give back to her community. 

The power to be yourself is not a concept that a Cambodian child, a girl especially, learns at home. Or at school, or at the church. The girl learns how to behave properly, dress properly, follow properly. She does not learn how to take care of herself. Most likely, simply because her parents do not know how to either. It’s hard for them to understand what Soon wants to give at her school and why she works so hard to help their kids. 

The skills that girls learn at the Centre are very practical skills that would hardly qualify as proper education in the West. However, if you place yourself in the shoes of someone from the local community, you will see that this may be the only functional education that they will get. They learn to read and write and count at their local school. But this does not teach them how to survive and thrive in nowadays Cambodia. With no practical skills, you have no opportunity in life to be independent. You have no freedom, you can’t really be yourself. 

At FICAC, the girls learn to cook organic food, following original receipts and using only local home-made ingredients. They learn to bake, take care of the garden, how to take care of the house and establishments guests, how to organize tours. They learn how to speak conversational English, how to cater, wait tables and serve wine. They learn the art of painting, wood-block and canvas printing. They learn to dance and to make music… We wish that they could do more. And right now, we badly need your support for that. 

In the days before the pandemic, we had tourists who came for a cup of delicious coffee. We had visitors who would buy paintings and original prints, who would listen to the traditional stories, who would be swept by the view, taken by the welcoming hospitality, calm and warmth of the place. Who were happy to support the teaching social enterprise, so that they can buy ingredients to learn to cook and provide equipment and facilities for art and computer classes. The girls who would finish training, would get excellent opportunities to find suitable employment nearby. 

With no tourists, it is not possible to run a café or sell art that tells stories. Soon needs to continue to run classes, however, because gaining trust and support from the parents and the community was hard enough. To maintain it remains a challenge. If she is forced to close the doors, the girls who just start being engaged may not ever come back. The pandemic is there, but their life isn’t. One day their skills can make them if not prosperous, but at least enable them to lead a decent life and have a real job. Maybe even with some security. 

We really appreciate it if you can give them a chance to. A small contribution goes a long way. For $10 a day, a cooking class for up to 10 girls can be organized. For $20, we can buy paint and paper, so that 10 girls can do an art workshop with a professional skilled volunteer. We have some facilities, which is worth a lot. We have a name, which might be worth even more. We need your help to still be here, until the moment that we can be proud to earn again. All by themselves. Healthy, skilled, powerful and independent.  

My name is Olga. I am 36 years old, I lived in 4 different countries over my life so far. I have a PhD in Economics, I worked for the government of the Netherlands and I was contracted for research projects by the EU institutions. But today I am teaching these girls how to ask if someone likes their coffee with milk and if they appreciated the cookies that were served. I teach them how to dance hip hop and I am doing yoga classes, when the mood is right. I do it because Soon has asked me to, and because I believe this is good for their health, both physical and mental. They don’t talk much about it in Cambodia. Yet, with the pressures and stresses of their daily life, I hope they can benefit from it. Even if only a bit, it is my contribution. I believe that every single person in this world would be happier if they knew how and had the means to be themselves. To feel content and proud of their achievements. To make their own choices. To stand on their own feet.