Month: April 2010
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Eyes that tell a story
A friend told me recently that when they see photos of children from countries like Cambodia, they cannot help but see the difference between their eyes and the eyes of western raised children. This is so true. And what is it about eyes? They are the first thing we meet normally in a person, the…
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More than one reason to smile…
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by
Sombath Srey Toch is a 13 year old girl who has been coming to the Cambodian Children’s Painting Project for two years. Srey Toch never smiled when she first started coming and she had no good reason to. Her mother died leaving her and her brother to the care or rather abuse of an older…
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More inspiration and many thanks overdue…
I just love it so much when I come across people in my life who do so much good, have so much dedication, offer so much service without realizing how much they do. Most of the time these people do not hear enough “thank you” or “wow” or “amazing”. They are so much into what…
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Chab Chamreoun, social worker, inspiring Cambodian
Huge smile always on the ready, willingness, brightness, intelligence are a few of the qualities that emanate from Chab Chamreoun, also know as “James Brown” around the Cambodian Children’s Painting Project. He was studying for 8 years at a wat (Cambodian Temple) near Sihanoukville. There he studied and received a degree in social work. Despite…
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so little can be so much- rain in Phnom Penh
Yesterday I was about to leave the guest house in Phnom Penh to make my road trip to Sihanoukville when suddenly the sky opened its floodgates and within minutes the streets in Phnom Penh were transformed into brown swimming pools. I was standing there with 2 cambodian boys trying to help me with my bags,…
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Phnom Penh- Day one- part 2- peace at last
After going through the wide range of emotions that places like the killing fields and S1 genocide museum cause, it was so delightful to see the other side of Cambodia’s history. The royal palace and the national museum, so much peace, so much beauty, so much spirituality, so much yellow and gold, so much silver…
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What gets into a humans to make them do something like this?
On the first day of my trip to Cambodia I took a morning trip to visit The Killing Fields also known as Choeung Ek, where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Vietnam War. About 2.2…
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So hard to leave you behind.. part 2
It is time again to take a trip for BY ART WE LIVE, this time to Cambodia. I will be meeting with underprivileged children who take refuge in Art. The project I plan to visit is CCPP (the Cambodian Children’s Painting Project) in Sihanoukville. http://www.letuscreage.org Last October I traveled for the first time without my daughter…
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A first care package goes to Safari in Congo
The first “by art we live” package is on its way to Safari in Congo! Safari is one of the child artists profiled by “by art we live” and his story is one that moved me so greatly. Safari (a self chosen name) is a 17 year old demobilized child soldier in the DRC. I…
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A photograph captures a lot more than a smile, a look or a moment in time
After coming back home from my trip to Congo, I keep going back in my mind to the thought of what the camera really captures. It is strange how many cultures believe truly that a photograph can capture part of their soul, and so they hesitate to let you photograph them for fear of losing…