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. 

China and Cambodia, sitting in a tree

One of the most circulated pictures depicting Sino-Cambodian
relations. Prince Sihanouk and Mao Zedong in 1956. Taken
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mao_Sihanouk.jpg

China and Cambodia have had a long, interconnected history. Today, it is China that exerts imperialistic hegemony over Cambodia as opposed to the globe's normal imperialistic culprit: the United States. I am primary focused on the more recent history of Sino-Cambodian relations. Cambodia was first inhabited by people from what is now Southeastern China perhaps as long as 4,000 years ago, although no one is exactly sure (Gerd et. al.). This led to a small minority of ethnic Chinese in Cambodia’s population—many of whom were killed during the Khmer Rouge as they were the elite and intellectual. 

Khmer Rouge and Chinese Official pose together. Taken from
http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/blog/2012/05/sar-kim-lamouth
-proves-amenable-witness-examination-proceeds-smoothly-0

China supported the Khmer Rouge seeing as both Pol Pot and Mao Zedong were trying to instill complete revolutions in both societies. Pol Pot was able to live in what Joel Brinkley, author of Cambodia’s Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land, called “a luxury jungle house” due to the copious amount of money he was receiving from China—a lot of it from timber and mining (Brinkley 60). Still today, large mining and forestry projects in Cambodia are due to Chinese patronage and China remains one of the world’s largest importers of tropical timber from the region (Burgos & Ear 624, 631). Deforestation and mining has led to loss of livelihood in the Cambodian people and massive environmental damage.

In the 1990s, China set out to instigate a Chinese cultural revival in Cambodia, even though today only 2.5% of Cambodia has ethnic Chinese background (Burgos & Ear). As academics Burgos and Ear describes, there is a distinct Chinese influence in Cambodian education systems today—even though Brinkley belabors the point that almost all schools in Cambodia are incredibly corrupt and essentially ineffective. There are more Chinese-Cambodian social organizations and even Chinese TV channels than ever before (629). China can exercise this cultural imperialism due to its heavy monetary influence in the Khmer government.

Chinese president Hu Jintao visited Hun Sen in Cambodia
 in 2012. Taken from http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_6420
-1442-1-30.pdf?120411130155

Presently, China gives more than 25% of Cambodia’s aid money, and $6.7 billion of Chinese capital has been used in Cambodia to build roads, dams, and other primary/secondary infrastructure (Brinkley 349).  For example, China offered Cambodia $600 million no strings attached loans for two bridges near Phnom Penh and a modern fiber-optic cable network (Burgos & Ear 624). Prime Minster Hun Sen even said that “loan grants from China have released Cambodia from certain kinds of political pressure from international countries…[Chinese aid] helps strengthen Cambodian political independence” (Brinkley 349). The aid in reality does come with strings attached. In order to receive Chinese monetary support, Cambodia has to support the “one-China” policy on Taiwan as well as comply with what China wishes to implement in Cambodia, even if it might be (or rather often is) detrimental to the Khmer people (Brinkley 349; Burgos & Ear). With China’s supposed “help” come consequences: “unlawful land-grabbing, choking of freedom of expression, illegal logging, unregulated mining, labor abuses, illicit resource exploitation, environmental damages to rivers, lakes, and water-dependent eco-systems” (Burgos & Ear 630). Essentially, the Cambodian government is aware of these consequences and turns a blind eye.

Mekong River in Kratie, Cambodia.
Taken by yours truly in December 2009.

A good example of Chinese imperialism in Cambodia is the hydroelectric dams that China seeks to install. China is currently building a fourth hydroelectric dam at the upper reaches of the Mekong River in China, even though this could have detrimental effects on the other countries, namely Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, that rely on the Mekong (Burgos & Ear 622). In Cambodia, water contribution from the Mekong is 70% during the dry season and is arguably the one country in the region most reliant on the Mekong (624, 633). China plans to install a hydroelectric dam in Cambodia as well, giving the countryside electricity and potentially opening up the possibility to sell excess energy to Vietnam and Thailand (622). Multiple NGOs and Cambodians, however, claim that the dam is poorly planned and will lead to human rights and environmental abuses (635). The Irrawaddy dolphins that normally thrive in Cambodia’s northern part of the Mekong are at the brink of extinction due to harmful aquatic practices (634). In mid-2004, Mekong River levels were at a record low, and there was a 50% drop in Cambodian fish catch from 2003 (634).  Indeed, only Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam are part of the Mekong River Commission--an organization founded in 1995 to agree upon sustainable development of the Mekong (634). 

See that small little "bump" in the water? That is an
Irrawadday dolphin! Taken by yours truly in December 2009.

According to Burgos and Ear, China sees Cambodia as in a “pivotal geostrategic position” (Burgos & Ear 615).  China needs to secure natural resources to sustain it’s growing and urbanizing population, and Cambodia can supply many of these natural resources. China is “thirsty” for natural resources such as timber, gas, oil, water, rubber, fertile cropland, and minerals (gold, iron ore, and silver), and has already supposedly secured rights to Cambodia’s off shore oil (630).

Regardless of the large amounts of aid that China is bestowing upon Cambodia to “help” the country, the consequences are detrimental and irreversible. It is unlikely that China will help with any of Cambodia’s real deep-rooted problems, and it is unlike that there will be any transparency in any Chinese-Cambodian deals. Cambodia’s repayment to China for their monetary help is to give them anything and everything—at the expense of the Cambodian people.

Works Cited

Brinkley, Joel. Cambodia's Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land. New York, New York: PublicAffairs, 2011. Print.

Burgos, Sigfrido & Sophal Ear. "China's Strategic Interests in Cambodia: Influence and Resources." Asian Survey 50.3 (2010): 615-639. Print. 

Gerd, Albrecht et. al. "Circular Earthwork Krek 52/62: Recent Research on the Prehistory of Cambodia." Asian Perspectives 39.1-2 (2000): 20-46. Print.