Leaving a Life of Grime - The Indochina Starfish Foundation
14-Oct-2009
AFG Venture Group Chairman, Peter Church, is also Chairman of the Australian arm of The Indochina Starfish Foundation. ISF is an international charity focused on improving the lives of children in the cities of Cambodia. The following article from the Phnom Penh Post (2 October 2009) by Arielle Burney provides an excellent insight into the work that the charity is doing.


Leaving a Life of Grime
Phnom Penh Post (2 October 2009)
by Arielle Burney

Volunteers help the infamous Stung Meanchey 'dump kids' toward a brighter future

The yard surrounding the Indochina Starfish Foundation (ISF) in Stung Meanchey is nearly deserted on a sunny Saturday afternoon, save for one small girl engaged in a heated game of football against the wall. When Tup first arrived at ISF last July, bug bites covered her body, her belly was distended from starvation and her hair was cropped so short that until the requisite doctor's visit, everyone assumed she was a boy.

When her classmates got hold of her that first day, the girls cleaned her up, did her hair, and put the tomboy in a dress.

"When we took her back to her family that evening," Kate Griffin, ISF Country Manager enthuses, "it was like watching the makeover reveal on Jerry Springer," she says, mimicking the hoots, shock and jaw drops the family gave upon their daughter's return to their plastic tarp-covered hovel.

Despite the superficial improvement, Tup, along with many of her classmates, has suffered from years of malnourishment, which often leads to physical and mental delays. Although she is 13 years old, she looks no more than 8. But according to the growth charts kept in the nurse's office, the two meals a day the children receive are making a significant difference.

ISF has two education facilities catering to more than 160 students in Stung Meanchey and Boeng Salang, where they follow Khmer and English curricula.

Its education program is intended to get these kids, "the poorest of the poor", to catch up with their peers in public school and eventually matriculate there, which entails teaching two grade levels worth of material in one year. The children must complete sixth grade in public school, or they won't receive the government certificate in basic literacy that will help them land jobs.

The effort, though, pays off.

"Upon enrolling in public schools their confidence shoots up - they go from the bottom rung of society to being equal to everyone else," Griffin says.

Each child at ISF has a hygiene kit of scabies-treating soap (for morning showers), a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a clean school uniform, all of which are kept at the school in order to ensure healthy habits and proper usage.

"I would rather all of their teeth fall out of their heads, than have them sharing toothbrushes with family members who could pass along diseases like Hepatitis," Griffin says.

As these are the children of rubbish collectors, their presence in school means they are unable to help their parents with work. To supplement the lost income, ISF rewards the families with food rations if their children have missed fewer than four days of school in a month. As truancy is the greatest challenge, this system helps to guarantee attendance.

The Stung Meanchey dumpsite closed in July this year, but most families living around the dump have remained in place.

According to community development research ISF conducted, most of the families do their trash scavenging throughout the city, because once the garbage arrives at the dump it has already been combed through for recyclable materials. Therefore, the community has not yet felt the impact of the dump's closure.

But the real consequence of living near the dump is the health risk.

"The dump is the children's playground," Griffin remarks, as she gazes out at the trash heaps containing hypodermic needles, medical waste, raw sewage and smouldering pockets of everyday filth. She tells of the vaccination programs being put in place to compensate for that risk: tetanus shots and eventually vaccines for hepatitis A and B, polio and typhoid.

"Many of the children begin school covered with scabies, their homes have no running water, they frequently have diarrhoea, they're malnourished, and have no basic hygiene," Griffin says, adding that a dentist described the children's teeth as the worst in Cambodia. ISF gives the kids daily fluoride tablets to compensate for the lack of fluoride in the water.

The children at ISF also receive free medical treatment: there is a registered nurse employed full-time and they receive dental and optometric care, as well as drug prevention education for those 13 years of age and older, and other public health courses.

"School is fun here," Loy Vey, 14, says outside his drug prevention education class. "I play football and study with friends."

Mom Sreyroth, 13, who is also attending the Saturday health class, declares, "My dream is to be a nurse."

Before enrolling at ISF, these two students, and many of their peers, had never been to school.

Health, however, extends beyond medicines, vaccines and even preventative education. As UNICEF proclaims on its website: "Sport and play are important... because they are vital to the health, happiness and well-being of children and young people."

Recognising this, ISF also runs a football programme involving hundreds of children from NGOs across the country. There are currently 23 NGO-sponsored football teams. Each of them receive kits and all of the necessary equipment, and 65 part-time coaches are employed in the effort.

In 2006, when ISF was founded, the football programme only targeted boys.

Today, there are female teams as well, and of the 22 players on the Girls National Football team, 18 are from the ISF program. The idea of girls playing football was not received warmly, Griffin recalls, as it did not comply with cultural norms, but as the organisation acquires more female coaches, the game is gaining popularity with young women.

"It's a great way for the girls to express themselves and get aggression out," she explains, as the more traditional female activities don't provide the same level of intensity or competition.

Griffin, who has been with ISF since April 2008 and has seen their enrolment double, emphasises the single aspect she cares most about is that the children are having fun.

"They're being kids. They're getting the chance to have a childhood. Too many of them miss out on that."

A number of older boys are on the path to receiving their certificate for completing primary school and will then be eligible to go for training to become football coaches.

"I would love for kids who came through the program to come back and be part of it [as coaches or staff]," she says.

"It would complete the cycle."


AFG Venture Group is an Asian and Australia based corporate advisory and consulting firm focused on business services. Our Group was formed by merging Asean Focus Group, with its 20 year history of creating alliances, relationships and transactions in South East Asia, and Venture Group, with its 14 year history of corporate and equities advisory in Australia.