A better country starts from each of us

Being a part of Initiatives of Change Association (ICA) for many years now has been one of the greatest moments in my life. What made me so proud isn’t the title of a president, but the opportunity which has been given by this association to witness the greatness, kindness, friendliness, and a lot of commitments by young people of Cambodian in seeking a better country starting from them. Last weekend, ICA Food Program committee had organized the 6^th annual food program at Cambodian-Russian Hospital. I usually cannot help much except I do test the food they cook and taking their pictures. It just a short periods of time, the committee have been working very hard and resulted in having enough contribution to cook food for about 300 patients in that hospital.

HIV Patients

The food itself wasn’t really the main point of this program. What matters most is that those patients were visited and served by young people who don’t even know them but sharing the same nationality – Khmer. Most of the patients are poor people who were affected by HIV and TB disease. Let me go back into history a little bit to show the connection of why offering food related to helping Cambodia.

I’m sure we all know the regimes of 1975-1979 – Pol Pot regime. We all acknowledge that Pol Pot and his crew were the major cause of such a terrible leadership, but how could several people managed to get support by millions and turned the country into a zero year? Several people cannot kill 2 million people….right?  In a radio drama which was produced base on true story by the Women Media Center called “The last road” and together with my reading of some history books plus my family experiences in that regime, I came to realize that the killing of 2 million people were possible because of the hatred of poor people against rich people. In that mentioned drama, the poor people joined revolution military to revenge the rich who, in the previous regimes, enjoyed their luxury and not caring at all for the poor. The gap between the rich and poor were very huge. Many people were poor and lots of young people were jobless.

Kids who comes to the hospital with their family

 ICA is just a small volunteer organization and the food program can only serve food for some hundreds people. It won’t help much to close down that gap between the rich and the poor, but isn’t it better than not doing anything at all? Offering food was only our tool, but offering love and care were our aim.

I deeply thank, on behalf of ICA, to all the contributors who have made this program possible for 6 years and more in the future. A very big thank to the organizing committee who have contributed their time and energy to organizing this. 

A better country starts from each of us!