History

In February 2002, my wife Lauren & I were on our annual trip to Southeast Asia. I have been documenting Cambodia since 1992, visiting there twice a year to photograph the changing landscape since the 1975-1979 genocide.

This trip my long time guide and motorbike driver ask if he could take me to the Phnom Penh garbage dump to view a horrific situation involving hundreds of young children. There we found a small city of naked and half-dressed children picking through garbage in 100 degree temperatures to help support their families. Some wore ragged, torn clothes and most were barefoot or wore oversized shoes that they had found in the debris.

After taking pictures in horror, we started to talk to the children to try and understand how they ended up in these deplorable conditions. We found out they were forced to work at the dump every day by their guardian or parents to help support the families. They could not attend school because the $10-12 dollars per month they could make as scavengers was vital for their family’s survival. We left appalled and speechless. The next day we decided to go back and choose one child to fully support as a small gesture in trying to at least do something about this overwhelming nightmare situation.

We chose a little girl named Srey Na, who was 10 years old. She was sad, hopeless, skinny and tattered like all the others but for some reason she stood out from the crowd. She was afraid of us, but agreed to take us to her house to meet her mother. The house was the worst dilapidated shack we had ever seen. No toilet, water, electricity or means of privacy. The area was dangerous, rat and bug infested with smoke from burning rubbish fires. It smelled like a septic tank.

Srey Na lived with her sister and a friend whose mother had died and father had abandoned her. We decided that we would try and help all three girls to the best of our ability (as a tourist). We suggested to their mother that if we paid her the money the girls could make at the dump each month, she would never allow the girls to work at the garbage dump again. Their mother agreed.

We enrolled them in both Khmer and English schools and paid for all necessary school expenses and gave the family a small budget for food. We thought if they could at least learn English they could someday get a job in town at a tourist hotel or restaurant. We took them to the local market and bought shoes, clothes, soap, blankets, sleeping mats, mosquito nets and other necessary household supplies to improve their existence as much possible. We left money with my driver and trusted him to give the family their monthly payment and keep a weekly check on their school attendance.

Six months later we returned to Cambodia and immediately went to visit the girls. They were much cleaner and would smile. They had perfect attendance and were getting good grades. We started to consider them our unofficial “daughters”.

We would take them to the zoo, water parks, museums, Royal Palace, etc., so they could experience a little life in their own hometown. We grew closer and closer to them and worried constantly about their safety at their village. In 2004, we rented a small house with running water, electricity and a real bathroom in Phnom Penh and relocated the girls and their mother.

Each time we returned home our friends and relatives would ask about the girls. We begin to receive money from friends to support other children. This “casual” support effort snowballed. Soon we were supporting forty children! It was becoming hard to oversee and control but it was harder not to accept money to help more children.

Although the sponsored children were enrolled in Khmer and English schools and were no longer forced to work at the garbage dump, they still lived in the dilapidated shacks and breathed in the stench of the dump. We were proud of our efforts, but we dreamed about raising enough money to help these and other children by opening a facility that would serve as a children’s shelter/center. There the sponsored children would be able to live while they attended their new schools. The center would provide a clean, safe environment with three meals a day, clean water, bathrooms and a well-lit place to study their lessons.

In June 2006 I put together a video program called “From the Sports World to the Third World”. Joe & Susan O’Neil held a fundraiser to help promote awareness of my project. We were fortunate to have Chicago Tribune sports editor Dan McGrath in attendance. He was extremely moved by our presentation and decided to assign a writer to tell our story. K.C. Johnson brought the story to life in a three page article than ran on Christmas Eve in the sports section. The reaction was immediate and overwhelming. We received donations to sponsor over 150 children. Our dream was now possible! We formed a foundation called “A New Day Cambodia” (ANDC) and became a 501c3 non-profit organization and a verified NGO (Non-Government Organization) in Cambodia.

Bill Smith