THE DISABLE PEOPLE WITH PASSION TO be ABLE Credit to: Plan International Cambodia and Krousar Yoeung I have been living in Phnom Penh for too long to the point that seeing disable people begging on the street is very normal. Same when traveling to tourist places. Last week, I got the chance to listen to inspiring stories of disable people who live their lives even better than normal people. They might not have hands, legs, ears, or mental, but their commitment, passion, responsibility and positive thinking let them have the life I never expected. Here is one of the stories. I was walking into Angkor Thom Junior High School. Looking from long distance, I saw a man on a wheel chair with a small boy on his lap. I thought that he must be Mr. Samnang who we aimed to interview, and yes I was right. Plan staff told me that this was Mr. Samnang and the boy on his lap is his grandson who was 2 years old. Mr. Samnang who has been a teacher at this school was having activities with his students so we waited for him. While waiting for him to be ready, I walked around this school and have seen a young woman walking around by herself who seem to be having mental problem. Staff from Krousar Yoeung told me that she was Mr. Samnang’s daughter who was born with mental health problem. She was the mother of the boy sitting on Mr. Samnang’s lap on the wheel chair. Mr. Samnang’s daughter was raped by an old man from another village and got pregnant some years ago. Even with witnesses, polices refused to investigate on his case till now. Because his daughter wasn’t able to take care of herself and the son, Mr. Samnang brought them along when he come to teach at school. At home, Mr. Samang has another 3 children living in a small house isolating from others. His wife who went to work at Thai border never returned and has lost contact since many years. We went to his house after lunch and that’s when I got to know Mr. Samang even better. I was amazed by how strong and committed he was, despite the sad facts I have mentioned above. One of our teammate asked him about his daily activities, and he told us about his teaching at school, raising ducks, taking care of the grandson, and more. By the way, his other children are also in school. With his poor living standard, Mr. Samang volunteers to teach English for free of charge for children in the village. He said that if he charge fee from students, nobody would come to class. Now that he teaches for free, there are many students and the most he expected to get in return is to see them study hard. He added that people here in the village are very honest people but they don’t have knowledge. He wanted to teach younger generation of this village so that they would be different. Another amazing sentence he said was, I want my students to be able to compete with other youth from ASEAN Countries after ASEAN integration 2015. Our teammate continued to ask question regarding his future plan. Mr. Samnang said that he wanted to form a Disability People Organization (DPO) because he wanted to support other disable people in this commune. When asked when, he said Next Year. There are many more he said within the 2 hours interview. There is no way I could write enough. Mr. Samnang is one of many others disable people we met who inspired us.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 15:59:48 +0000
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