If you were to ask me what I remember most about 2014, it’s the smile on Marie Cammal’s face when we told her about the amount we had raised at our WIT Charity Auction and how 70% of it would go towards her efforts to build the dormitory for young girls on the Thai-Lao border.
(The rest goes towards Project Hammer, an organisation that supports various charities in Cambodia.)
“Now we can get started,” she said, beaming.
Marie Cammal: Life’s work began in Laos and “it will end in Laos”.
Cammal will head to Luang Nantha in early January, her fourth visit to the area. This time, she will travel with a volunteer Dutch engineer from Singapore who will start feasibility work on the project.
“We will check on the conditions of the soil, water supply and source materials,” she said. Her target is to finish work on the dormitory which will have a capacity for 90 girls before the next school year, sometime late next year.
Cammal has estimated that it will cost US$65,000 to build the dormitory.
It was always Cammal’s dream to return to Laos – to finish where she started. The French-born registered nurse first came to Asia when she volunteered to work in a Lao refugee camp in Ubon, northern Thailand in 1980.
That trip changed her life. She never returned to France and instead spent the rest of her life working in Asia. In 1983, she worked in Singapore for the United Nations and for the last 27 years, she’s been in Cambodia, dedicating her life to helping children, through her organisation Sok Sabay.
She started Sok Sabay in Phnom Penh in 1995 to “give children a future through education and love”. Currently, the shelter in Phnom Penh provides care for almost 50 children, and countless others have had their future given back to them, thanks to Cammal and her volunteers.
In 2014, Cammal decided that Sok Sabay should extend its activities to the highlands of Laos and support the Akha community by building a dormitory and school for young girls in Luang Nantha. “Akha girls are often denied access to education and they end up in the cycle of poverty, doing manual work for their families. Or worse,” she said.
“I started with Laos and I will finish my life’s work with Laos. It’s my dream,” she said.
The dormitory is essential because it will ensure the girls are housed while they are educated and won’t have to make the trek down everyday to school. Often, education is denied these girls mainly because, one, they live in remote areas and two, because their parents would rather they work in the fields.
Another organisation that WIT has supported with its charity auction is the Island Foundation, which was started by Nikoi, the private island resort in Bintan, but is run independently by executive director Heena Patel. The Singapore-based Island Foundation works with coastal communities in the Riau Archipelago to help improve their income, health and education.
WIT raised approximately S$60,000 in 2012 towards its projects which include setting up learning centres and handicraft workshops. Said Patel, “Tourism in Bintan has exploded, there are several new hotels coming up and there’s frantic land buying. How do local communities benefit from this growth? They can’t stop it but they can grow with it and carve out something for their future.
“What we’ve found is these local communities are keen to develop work within their villages rather than work in hotels where usually the only jobs available are as waiters or as room cleaners. This means that they can still be with their families and maintain a connection to their own land.”
One successful collaboration it has done is with the Orang Suku Laut community where Swarovski, inspired by the fishing nets handmade by these fishermen, commissioned a unique art piece. The Swarovski Crystal Fishing Net was created by the community using over 14,000 crystals and is being shown at an exhibition in Singapore from December 16-January 16, 2016.
Thank you, everyone who’ve contributed to our charity auctions over the years. It’s the best gift ever.
Christmas cheer from the children of Sok Sabay
SOK SABAY IN LAOS 2014
