Throw Them a Rope!

I live five minutes away from a slum on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

An Undesirable Reality

Slums are to be seen in almost every third world country, and they don't stop growing.   I have seen these shanty-towns of despair in Manila, Bangkok, Johannesburg, and Rio de Janeiro.   Although humanity has existed on earth for thousands of years we are now experiencing a kind of humanity that was virtually unknown - the slum community.  Most slum communities are less than fifty years old yet more than one billion people now live in slums.  If the United Nations prediction is correct by 2020, TWO billion will be slum dwellers.

In the slums of Phnom Penh you often find seven or more family members competing for sleeping space in some small scrap-metal hut.   Most of the family members are out every day working, with even children as young as 5 or 6 busily scavenging through rubbish heaps and along the roads and market places of the city.

A Genuine Case

Two years ago I became frustrated with the fact that in spite of all the programs we had in the slums, the good schools different missions had set up, medical help, church activities, camps, and sport, the children were still going out every day to the streets.  I went to see a mother whose boy had been working for years.  Va, 13 years old, would start his rounds at 3 every morning, pulling his cart up and down the streets picking up scrap metal, boxes, cans, anything that would end up at the recycle warehouse.

In that little wooden shack I chatted with Va's mother and asked,
“How much does your son earn a day?”
“About a dollar, sometimes a bit more,” she replied
I said, “Here's a plan.  Each week we will give you the exact amount your son would get for working on the streets.  But you must sign a contract agreeing to stop sending him out to work and to make sure he goes to school every day.
She signed the contract and from that day on Va has never been back on the streets but attends school every day.

More & More Interested Families

Then we tried it with another needy family.  Then another.  And kids were finally leaving the streets.  I've told my friends many times: “The best thing I've witnessed in Cambodia is when a parent puts their signature on the contract, and by doing so breaks the chains that have kept their son or daughter in bondage for so long.”

I wish I could say that all those we wanted to help have left the streets for good, but  unfortunately many still follow their old ways.  Nevertheless it's great to know that some have been released from the pit.  I tell the parents who have signed the contract: “If you do not keep to your word, we won't be able to help you.  We are going to make sure your child is not out on the streets and  some nights we may even come to your house to check if your child is in.  We will also visit their school unexpectedly to make sure your child is attending class.”

In the long term, the idea is to reduce the amount of money we give to the families and help the parents start some kind of micro-business so they eventually provide for their own children.  This would be step number two in the process of moving from dependency to self-sufficiency.

Throw a Rope down the Pit!

Recently I read this saying:  “If your son or your sheep fell into a well on your rest day, would you not pull him out?”

The following day while walking along the beach  I momentarily pictured a huge well -  an immense pit.  Not just one child had fallen into it, but hundreds of children: boys and girls who had come to big cities like Phnom Penh, Siam Reap, Bangkok, or elsewhere to look for a better life.  They had fallen into the pit of child labour.  They had joined the many children who have already spent years collecting rubbish for a living.  The pit was just too deep for them to climb out so they were damned to stay down there in the filth, for who knows how many years.

Then suddenly I saw a rope near the well; long enough to reach the children.  As long as the rope was being held securely at the mouth of the well, those children would be able to climb out and be free.  There were people there too, who could hold it, but...

  • Some wouldn't do anything to help because it “just wasn't the right time for that kind of work.  It was rest day.”
  • Others were concerned that such an initiative would cost too much money.
  • Others felt that more research was needed before trying to get those children out.
  • Others who actually had a heart for children had set up a “children’s program” around the well, singing nice songs.  A puppet show was presented and made the children down in the pit smile and even laugh at times.  Before the team left they threw some candies down the pit.

However, during all this the children were still there, in the filth of the pit, trying to eke out a living by scavenging through piles of trash.

Sponsoring Programme – a Rope of Hope

The “sponsoring program” described above could be such a “rope” to bring them up into freedom if people in Cambodia and abroad would only give generously while others keep the rope down in the pit.  Only when the children are out of the pit for good can we get them properly plugged into a school, a caring community and a future with hope.

Some possible 20,000 children in Phnom Penh are “stuck down the well;” and how many more across the whole of Cambodia? I wouldn’t know.  But as long as there is one down there, we need to be doing something: rescuing, supporting, mentoring, training them into useful and valued citizenship.

Come hold the rope with us!                                                                                                                    
(Timothée Paton - Bridge of Hope, Cambodia)