Community & Business
30 April, 2024
Couple’s Cambodian adventure awaits
Pittsworth couple, Geoff and Linda Birch, will soon be travelling to Southeast Asia with a team of volunteers, to make a difference in the lives of families and communities in Cambodia.
Mr and Mrs Birch have travelled across the globe many times over the years, even as far as Greenland and Iceland.
However, this trip is sure to be a little different, as they spend a week in the newly established Every Piece Matters (EPM) bamboo village outside the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, with the not-for-profit organisation RAW Impact.
Since 2013, RAW Impact has built over thirty bamboo homes for families in the EPM village.
The houses are made in three pieces, then assembled to create a dwelling for one family.
Each house is built by volunteers with the help of family members who will reside in the home upon completion.
Also provided at EPM is access to community gardens, toilets and clean running water.
RAW Impact offers more than just housing solutions for displaced families living in the slums, but also strives to create employment opportunities, provide quality education, and establish sustainable solutions.
Mr and Mrs Birch are travelling with a group from I Love Real Estate who contribute regularly to RAW Impact’s cause, supporting it with donations of money and volunteers, through the organisation of these trips.
RAW Impact is dedicated to providing a hand up, not a hand out, to Cambodian communities, and Mr and Mrs Birch are looking forward to being part of this experience.
Their decision to take up this challenge was all but sealed after hearing from the I Love Real Estate team which visited EPM in 2023.
“The people who went last year, you could feel their energy, it was wow.
“But at the end of it, they had a handing over ceremony, and even from an outsider watching in, you’d just cry,” Mrs Birch said.
“These people [Cambodians] are just so overwhelmed to have somewhere to live.
“To know that their family is safe, and they are not going to get thrown out.”
Many families in Cambodia are at risk of losing their homes, because they do not own the land they have built on.
The EPM village has been established on land owned by RAW Impact.
Mr Birch said this security gives families a foundation
of reassurance in their lives, and the opportunity to remove from the streets, and turn away from a life that could result in slavery or trafficking.
Cambodia’s history is fraught with political turbulence, and over-shadowed by an event that devastated the country in the 1970s.
In 1953, Cambodia gained independence from France and entered a short period of peace and prosperity.
This was until 1975, when Prime Minister Lon Nol was overthrown by the Khmer Rouge, a radical communist movement, who mounted an attack on the capital city, and established a new government to rule the nation.
The military leader of the movement, Pol Pot, became Prime Minister, and so began a reign of terror by the Khmer Rouge, across four years that resulted in the mass murder of millions of Cambodian people.
Civil rights were taken away, and public expression of religious beliefs was forbidden.
Civilians were forced to empty the cities for the countryside and engage in agricultural projects; working as farmers, digging canals and tending to crops.
This had devastating affects on the economy and led to shortages of food and medicine, with unrecorded numbers of people succumbing to disease and starvation - in its own right, a significant humanitarian disaster.
However, the Khmer Rouge would tighten its control over the Cambodian people, eliminating “traitors” who did not conform to the movement’s communist ideals that stated the only acceptable lifestyle was that of a poor agricultural farmer.
Professionals such as doctors, lawyers and teachers, or those who were considered “intellectual” were wiped out.
Prisoners were brought to Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh and tortured until they confessed to their “crimes” against the regime.
They were then executed and buried in the killing fields, 17 kilometres outside of Phnom Penh.
This Cambodian genocide saw an average of 2 million people killed, almost a quarter of the country’s population at the time.
Mr Birch explained this forgotten generation has left a gap in the legacy of families, particularly with the educated elite being exterminated by Pol Pot’s regime.
Today, the killing fields in Cambodia are commemorated by a museum, and the Birch family hopes to visit there after their time at EPM.
They anticipate their trip to Cambodia will be like no other, and a rewarding experience for them to see where funds are distributed to create change, and be part of what Mr Birch calls, ‘helping out humanity’.
It will be the wet season when they travel to Cambodia and expect a climate of high humidity and heavy rainfall.
The Birches are fund-raising money to contribute to RAW Impact’s projects in Cambodia.
The family has been working hard to organise a garage sale for this weekend from 8am to 3pm, both days, at 68 Hausler Road.
The money raised will be put directly toward the EPM village to purchase the materials needed to build houses, toilets, gardens, purchase fuel, as well as support the local staff who will guide the I Love Real Estate volunteers to build safe and secure structures.
Helping out humanity is a selfless act.
Indian leader and visionary Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
