Case Study Writing

Part of being a not-for-profit NGO is just that: it is not for profit. Trailblazer's funding relies on donations, and soliciting donations is not an easy feat. Roughly just over half of donations come from individuals, meaning that the personal case studies from Trailblazer's projects are very important. They need to make that person reading them at, say, 1am be compelled to send a check or click on the paypal icon. Last Friday, I went to Chea Smun village (per usual, not how this village is spelled in Khmer (obviously) but how I understand and pronounce the name) to interview two students who had received donated bikes from Trailblazer. 

Srei Mau and her bike

Chea Smun, about an hour by moto away from Siem Reap, was one of the most remote and undeveloped (in terms of infrastructure) village I have been to while in Cambodia thus far. The dirt-clay road was a brilliant sinopia-tawny color, accentuated even more by the puddles left from the immense amount of rain the night before and that morning. We arrived at the secondary school: two lines of classrooms with a portico attaching all of them and a tattered Cambodian flag in the center. 

One of the hardest parts of doing the case study was making sure that the questions my Cambodian partner, Lon Sey (works with Trailblazer), asked were indeed the questions I had prepared. A lot can get lost in translation! Getting more sentimental / opinion answers to the questions (versus one-word answers) I was asking was a tough feat as well from the the boy and girl I interviewed. They were so shy! Then again I would probably be shy too if this massively tall foreign woman wearing strange clothes came to my school asking questions about my bicycle. As for the case study itself, this is what I have written: 

FINALLY got a smile :)

Every day many children in Cambodia have to walk long distances to get to school, meaning they arrive physically tired and mentally drained before class even starts. This situation is exacerbated in Siem Reap province, one of the poorest in Cambodia, and specifically in Meanchey Commune where children often walk to school. The reality is that walking long distances limits students’ capability to succeed and disincentivizes them from attending school. To address this problem, the Trailblazer Foundation has provided bikes to multiple students in Siem Reap Province, allowing for the students and their families to have more mobility and save valuable time. 

As part of Trailblazer Foundation’s Cambodia Assistance Program, Trailblazer provided bikes to students at Chea Smun Secondary School in Chea Smun Village, located in Meanchey Commune of Prasat Bakong District. Besides this, Trailblazer has also installed four biosand water filters at Chea Smun Secondary School to help the students maintain good health. More than half of the students at Chea Smun Secondary School have bikes, making it important to help those who do not integrate at school. The donated bikes in general are easy to use and bike maintenance has so far only included simply repairing flat tires. 

Seyha, a 17 year old student in his eighth year of school, received a bike from Trailblazer four months ago. He said that already his studies and day-to-day life have greatly improved with the time gained from biking as opposed to walking to school. It used to take him thirty minutes to walk to school, and now it takes him five to ten minutes with his new bike. His father finished his studies through grade eight and his mother did not even go to school, so Seyha is excited to attend high school next year and complete his studies as he aspires to become a mathematics and chemistry teacher. Seeing as Chea Smun Secondary School currently only has six teachers for 176 students, Seyha finishing school and becoming a teacher would greatly help the Cambodian education system at large. Because Seyha’s high school next year is 10 kilometers away, his bike is going to substantially reduce the time it takes to get to and from school. On the weekends, his parents also borrow the bike to go to and from the market to buy food for Seyha and his two younger brothers at a much faster pace than before. 

Another one of Srei Mau's neighbors

One of Seyha’s neighbors, Srei Mau, also received a new bike from Trailblazer. Srei Mau is 15 years old and in grade eight as well, and her favorite subjects are chemistry and biology. Similar to Seyha, Srei Mau wishes to become teacher but for biology, yet admits that she has a lot more to learn. Srei Mau loves that her new bike allows her to stay after school for longer to continue studying rather than have to dedicate time to walking home. She will also attend the same high school as Seyha next year, likewise surpassing the education level of both of her parents. Her parents use the bike on Sunday to go work on the farm, while she uses it also to go to the market for her 3-person family.  

Seyha and Srei Mau thank Trailblazer profusely, smiling widely, for giving them the bicycles because the donation has helped them concentrate on their studies with more passion. Bikes save students’ valuable time so that they can study and learn more while following their dreams. Both students also ask if Trailblazer can donate more bicycles or school supplies in general to other poor students, Srei Mau relating poignantly, “please try to help us some more...because we need it.” For only $45, you can supply a bike to help a Cambodian student pursue his/her educational goals, thereby improving wellbeing and quality of life. More educated Cambodian youth means more power for development and social change, and a brighter future for Cambodia.

Me and the cutest savior ever! 

We went to both Seyha and Srei Mau's houses to get photos with their families (that I had to really try to coax smiles out of) and bikes. In both cases, the father was not at home. Seyha actually did not have his bike at school in reality because his mom used it that day. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in these cases albeit slightly awkward (I mean, we were doing an interview about how he bikes to school). Nevertheless, his bike was at home which was great because using the same bike in their individual photos at school was honestly super obvious. 

For the photos at Srei Mau's house, I hid the TV that Srei Mau had in her house toward the front entrance within visibility of the camera. Contrary to popular belief, you can be in dire poverty and still have a television--but most people do not want to see or know this. "If they can afford a television, why do I need to donate a bike? Shouldn't the latter be the top priority?" Well, it can actually be easier to access a 3G network in the jungle than it is a proper waste system in a town, for example. What's more: who are you to tell a family how to spend its money? Just because a family cannot readily afford a bike, does not mean it should be deprived of any simple entertainment. Must a family live extremely basically / in borderline squaller if it cannot afford rudimentary items, but can afford a small toy for a child for the time being? I also made sure not to  photograph the solar panel that a Japanese NGO installed on Seyha's roof the day beforehand. The family also had a water filter from yet another NGO, furthering my burgeoning opinion that NGOs in Cambodia are, in a sense, enabling the government to continue their corrupt practices by doing a ministry's job. That being said, would the government actually step up to the plate? Moreover: we cannot wait ten years for water, transport, education, etc. etc. etc. 

What was most shocking about where Seyha and Srei Mau live is that the flooding is so bad in the rainy season that they must take a boat to cross the murky river that separated their neighborhood from the main village roadway (bike is not going to help in that situation!). Right now, a very slippery and narrow bridge connects the land masses--a bridge that a little girl held my hand walking across. Houses are right up against the river, and I can only imagine the living conditions inside of them during the wet season, and what this does to water supply as well as sanitation practices. Sadly on the way to Lon Sey's motorbike, the little girl was not there to hold my hand. But I sucked it up, realizing how silly I probably looked towering over this girl yet nearly shaking with my fear of heights. 

A Plethora of Goods

First, sincere apologies for the lack of photos in this post. Also, please comment with questions or other opinions (as I say at the end of this post).

Markets in Southeast Asia range from live fish flopping about after being severed alive (I really do wonder what Peter Singer would say to that sight), to piles of fruit I don't know the names of in English, to women screaming "buy something?!" about their kitsch and ubiquitous elephant emblazoned handbags (most of which I have been told are from Thailand or Vietnam), to circuitous halls and halls of batik sarong cloths, to where I went yesterday: a NGO sponsored market with all locally made handicrafts and goods. I went from stall to stall learning about the different NGOs while also looking at the handicrafts being sold (often scarfs not meant to be worn in tropical heat, post cards, pendants, bracelets, etc.). And I saw serious problems with much of this.

Some NGOs, it seems, have basically taken over different villages with no route of action in mind to leave. They help the children (always the children, or children and women, not the (male) adults who are also in need of help) buy school supplies to go to school rather than beg on the streets, and also provide art (the photographs are made into postcards) and English lessons. Pictures of kids brushing their teeth and looking doe-eyed into the camera dot the brochure. To compensate for the parents' loss of income, the organizations will often provide rice or other forms of non-monetary help to the families. The NGO begins to thus dictate their livelihoods. Although helping children is 110% important, so is helping the adults who force their children to do beg on the streets. What about helping parents find work? If there are no jobs (and this often seems to be the case, unfortunately), what is the underlying problem, here? There is more to the story than just the children.

Most NGOs also help women, and female-made products becomes a sort of branded attribute. It is a selling point of the commodity--one might even say a "trend." The women from one village bead bracelets and pendants for a tourist market in order to provide for their families.  The Australian head told me all but three of the men walked out when I asked her what the men do while women bead. This is excellent, the women are able to help their families now when before they were not able to.

But it is also problematic: beading these bracelets still marginalizes women to do handiwork as well as relies on a tourist market to buy the goods. Without this Australian woman, and without a tourist market, the women would still be impoverished. NGO work today is reminiscent of my studying the French Indochina Empire but in a lighter and more charitable way. The white power is still coming into the impoverished country to "help" to poor people who cannot help themselves, while also benefiting themselves (goods are still being produced for a western market). Yes, this is a stretch but a reasonable connection.

You could argue: what would these women do without this NGO if there are no jobs? And this is a very valid point--the NGO has provided these women with a skill they can market to the flood of tourists in their country at the moment. By having their own business, this empowers them. But I also ask, more cynically: what would the NGO and its often white founders do without these impoverished women? Rather than have the women bead, it might be more productive to get to the root of unemployment rather than place a daintily embroidered scarf over the problem.

Many NGOs have a program where you can tour local villages and really get to know "authentic" and "traditional" Cambodian life. Yes, tourists often strive for this authenticity and yearn for simpler times--but a tuk tuk driver's life is just as "Cambodian" as a rice farmer's. Touring villages helps people who might not otherwise know what life is like sans electricity or plumbing see this, but again, the villagers then rely on the tourists for their income. Tourism is a lucrative industry, but tourism as the primary industry creates problems.  The villagers have to do this day in and day out, making their village more like a museum rather than a place to live. As tourists bike through, they don't want to really see the real, nitty gritty and not pretty life. And eating lunch with a local family? They often want to try the local food, but not too local. And I am not referring to the people who really do want to dry duck egg (no, not a duck's egg, but a duck's egg with a was-about-to-be-hatched-and-then-you-ate-me duck inside the egg), I mean the people who would be disappointed eating only a small helping of rice for lunch. That's local, for you. Of course, there are exceptions to this.

What's more, the people who are buying these goods think that they are greatly helping the situation. They are certainly putting their money to a good cause, but this "passive activism" worries me. Buying ten scarves made by women in the rural village will not change the country. Eating at a restaurant where all of the profits go to some school children will not change the political situation in the country that makes things how they are today. It can begin to help, but buying your way to change is not the answer. Although many tourists and people in general simply do not care enough to make lasting change--they are going home soon. Those who stay do try to make a change, but (as this post describes), I fear it is not the best pathway. And no, I do not have a different, viable, and practical method in mind.

This is not meant to denounce any of the NGOs in Siem Reap and Cambodia at large, it is just that I find multiple flaws and many of them and hope that you, dear reader, might have a different opinions to enlighten me with. I am very very open to other thoughts as I would love to prove the cynic in me wrong. Maybe....is this NGO society the first step to changing Cambodia on the whole? 

First two (sunburnt) days in Cambodia

One of the lettuce gardens. The filter is "toaster" because I
literally feel like a burnt piece of toast in this heat -__-

I arrived in Cambodia early yesterday morning (by early, I mean I had to be up at 2:30am in Kuala Lumpur to make it to the airport--of course, there was no traffic so I could have easily slept until 3:30am (!) but oh well) and was able to get to Trailblazer foundation by 9:30am. My home-stay unfortunately fell through, but I booked a guesthouse for three nights and will go on the hunt tomorrow to find a cheaper one with a monthly rate that is closer to Trailblazer. I have been taking motos or tuk-tuks to Trailblazer and unfortunately, this will begin to add up more than I would like (even though I love motorbikes). My other option is to bike, but unfortunately bike helmets are hard to come by and gawked at; however, if I rent a bike I will insist on a helmet not only because my biking skills are not 100%, but also because other people's bike/driving skills are not 100%. I might look dumb but I would look even more dumb having exorbitant yet avoidable hospital fees (although Siem Reap has a branch of Bangkok Hospital, bb <333 #gapyearmemories).

Yesterday, I had a tour of the NGO grounds, and learned more about what they are doing. The three main areas of work that Trailblazer is involved in are agriculture, water for families (filters), and township water (wells). The Cambodian people pay a very small amount ($5) for the water well, and the money is collected by the town and creates a sort of town trust. People can borrow from the trust to buy chickens or to take their child to the doctor's office, for example. The filters provide water for three families, and I have already witnessed that this water comes out very slowly so it cannot be used for commercial use (such as creating a fish pond). As for agriculture, Trailblazer is working on setting up local gardens in towns in order to jumpstart economic activity with the  vegetables. At the moment, Trailblazer is test driving arugula and other high end salad greens to sell to tourist restaurants in Siem Reap as that is where the most money is and the demand is highest. If all goes well, Trailblazer will set up gardens in the village communities. Trailblazer also attempted to grow and sell mushrooms to restaurants, but this did not work and right now, I am helping with the aftermath of this.

Look at all of those mushroom bags!! 

Type of bag that I have been
putting the mushroom
compost into. 

After the mushroom attempts failed, I have been opening each plastic bag that held the soil, comprised of lime, sawdust, and rice for the mushrooms, and emptying it into large former fish bags to be used for compost in the future. The mushrooms were grown in plastic bags molded in the shape of plastic bottles. Yesterday was brutally hot, while today it has cooled down a bit after it rained last night--making this work much more enjoyable (because I went to bed at 6pm last night, and accidentally screwed up my alarm and woke up 11pm, I missed this rainstorm although I heard the thunder was very loud--a testament to my heavy sleeping). By hot, I mean it feels like the sun is pressing against my shoulders, and as sweat drips off me (in waterfall proportions), my knees my buckle into the dirt ground and I will slowly melt. Although it is somewhat mundane work, I am still learning a lot about how things are run at the NGO and although it sounds corny: I am learning that not everything attempted works (which might seem obvious), and it is good to know that when things do not work, they don't try and pretend they do but rather stop (what also might seem obvious  but think about it: how often do people recognize their mistakes and backtrack like that?). Mushrooms can work in Cambodia, so I have been told, they just need to have very specific conditions.

Doing all of this work makes me sweat up storm, meaning I have a great excuse to replenish electrolytes with young coconut water!!

On a more academic and environmental note, rice farming in Cambodia overwhelmingly uses pesticides, while there is a new push to use organic pesticides (don't be fooled: organic pesticides are not always better for the environment than synthetic, and in fact, synthetic pesticides can be better), according to my supervisor Rataunak.

[Fun Fact of the day: the verb "to eat" in Khmer actually means "to eat rice." This reminds me of the verb "to work" in Indonesian and how it literally means "to work in the rice field." This further proves how rice is not only ingrained in the culture and nutrition of Southeast Asia, but also in linguistic structures.]