Hope for CAZ is currently involved with two separate projects in Cambodia. These two projects include assistance and funding Cambodian Handicraft Association (CHA), and a small Vietnamese Christian elementary school. We are very dedicated to helping these groups and projects succeed and flourish productively. All of these programs need a lot of monetary funding and help and Hope for CAZ is committed to assisting their needs.
Cambodian Handicraft Association
This group is located in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh right across from Tuol Sleng Prison,
where much of the Pol Pot genocide was centered. Cambodian Handicraft Association, established in January, 2000, is the working place for Landmine and Polio disabled Cambodians. Based within the compound of AFS (Association Francaise De Solidarite, Siem Reap), their primary objectives are to teach the skill of Traditional Handicrafts, Tailoring and Weaving subjects in a one-year course, train in small business and help trainees to make a sustainable small business plan for when they graduate from the workshops and go home to their villages with their profit shares and tailoring, weaving skills. As important as the skill training is the promotion of self-confidence, independence and integration into Cambodian Society. The tailoring workshop works closely with the weaving component of CHA workshops in producing silk handicrafts to be sold in the CHA showroom and the weaving workshop can produce silk fabrics and silk scarves ordered from the ministries, companies, NGOs and for export. In selling handicrafts through the CHA showroom and export in foreign countries, trainees have the opportunity to earn profit share that they invest when they leave CHA Workshops.
Those employed and trained by CHA are Cambodians who are victims of Landmines or Polio
disabled. This training and employment gives them an opportunity that might now be available to them because of their disability.
Vietnamese Christian School
This is school is located in Phnom Penh, Cambodia . This school is comprised of 25+ children who learn about God in an otherwise Buddhist country. Here the children sing, mingle and learn in a friendly environment. Most of these children were drop at the doorstep of the school and the teacher has taking these orphans in. All of these children are eager to learn, despite growing up without a parent or in a third-world country.
Landmine Awareness& Eradication Efforts
CAZ Foundation aims to help the landmine eradication efforts in Cambodia . Through donations and volunteer work, CAZ hope to remove these harmful, explosive devices from Cambodian soil. Cambodia is one of the world’s most landmine and UXO (unexploded ordinances) affected countries. Mines and UXO have contaminated 45.5 percent of villages surveyed in a Land-Mine Impact Survey. Mines kill and maim innocent civilians. Mined agricultural lined and water contributes to malnutrition and waterborne diseases. Mined public places and roadways prevent food delivery and make it difficult for mobile health and vaccination terms to access the area, which can result in an increase in childhood killer diseases that are otherwise preventable. Amputation and injuries requiring blood transfusions drain local blood supply.
War in Cambodia has left scars in many forms throughout the country. One of the most lasting legacies of the Khmer Rouge conflict, that continues to claim new victims, are landmines. Because of landmines laid by the Khmer Rouge, Vietnam , and the United States , Cambodia has one of the highest rates of disability of any country in the world. More than 40,000 Cambodians have suffered amputations as a direct result of landmine injuries since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. That represents an average of almost forty landmine victims a week. It is estimated that there are between four to six million landmines and unexploded ordinances in Cambodia . And at the current rate of progress, it will take as many as 100 years to clear all the mines in Cambodia . If the country were not polluted with landmines, 35 percent more land could be cultivated. Victims of landmine explosions that die, leave behind their dependents and those who survive are disabled, a condition that guarantees a lifetime of ostracism and severe impoverishment in a country where half the population already lives below poverty. The Khmer Rouge used to tell the Cambodian people, “You are of no value to us, to the system. To destroy you is no loss, to keep you is no gain.” Unfortunately, this saying has revived itself in the lives of landmine victims. When a Cambodian loses a leg or the ability to walk, they too, earn the ideal of “worthlessness” in the agricultural-driven society.
In addition to helping the Landmine Clearance Front, CAZ finds it important that we also raise awareness about the landmine problem in Cambodia . Through lectures, movie screenings, awareness dinners, distribution of flyers, and simple word-of-mouth, CAZ is dedicated to spreading the world about the devastating effects of these landmines.
This group is located in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh right across from Tuol Sleng Prison,
where much of the Pol Pot genocide was centered. Cambodian Handicraft Association, established in January, 2000, is the working place for Landmine and Polio disabled Cambodians. Based within the compound of AFS (Association Francaise De Solidarite, Siem Reap), their primary objectives are to teach the skill of Traditional Handicrafts, Tailoring and Weaving subjects in a one-year course, train in small business and help trainees to make a sustainable small business plan for when they graduate from the workshops and go home to their villages with their profit shares and tailoring, weaving skills. As important as the skill training is the promotion of self-confidence, independence and integration into Cambodian Society. The tailoring workshop works closely with the weaving component of CHA workshops in producing silk handicrafts to be sold in the CHA showroom and the weaving workshop can produce silk fabrics and silk scarves ordered from the ministries, companies, NGOs and for export. In selling handicrafts through the CHA showroom and export in foreign countries, trainees have the opportunity to earn profit share that they invest when they leave CHA Workshops.
