​Kanitha sharing her own experience with a group of girls.

​
​Another GLC member, Dane, who always presented shy and lacking confidence to speak in front of others has now become a charming speaker. She took the role of hostess during our Khmer New Year celebration event with more than 500 students attending. Receiving guidance from staff as well as lots of rehearsal efforts by her own, she was able to speak with confidence and the audience was well-entertained.
A wonderful improvement indeed!
                                                                                     Dane planting a mangrove tree while attending an AusCam excursion trip                            

​We’ll be highlighting more specifically about our Girls Leadership Council members, so that you can get to know each of them more. So stay TUNED.
​
We would love you to send an encouraging message to our GLC girls. Make a comment below!

MENTORING | EMPOWERMENT | LEADERSHIP


Sokleap, Muoyhim & Leakna. 

                       SOKLEAP                                                      MUOYHIM                                                               LEAKNA

Sadly we live in a world where the dominant news gracing our TV's, newspapers and social media every day is a story of some kind of human cost and tragedy. 

It can become very overwhelming and make us feel helpless. 

As an individual it is unrealistic to think we change the world, but making a difference in the world ~ or making a difference to even one person's world ~  is possible.

A couple of years ago I was having lunch at a local venue and there were thousands of people walking around with lanyards around their neck. Someone sat down beside me and I was able to read what they were attending.  The Happy Conference. Intrigued I googled it (thanks technology!) and discovered that these thousands of people paid over $1,000 to attend a conference to teach them how to be happy. I was gobsmacked!

If there is one common thread across all cultures and people, it's the quest to find meaning and purpose for your life ~ to be able to know that who you are and what you do matters in the world and that ultimately this will bring happiness. Spending big dollars on a 'Finding Happiness' conference is a good example.  If you google finding happiness or finding the meaning of life you will be given a whole range of differing opinions and philosophies on the subject.  

But, what if your search for meaning could begin to solve the world’s problems?

What if everything you are passionate about could save a life or change history? 

I recently read a book 'A Selfish Plan to Change the World ' by Justin Dillon acclaimed social activist, filmmaker, and musician and founder of Slavery Footprint and Made In A Free World which Justin describes as your 'self help -others' guide to a life that matters', demonstrating how you can re-purpose your existing talents, backstory and networks to improve the lives of others.  

Justin takes you on this amazing journey asking us to look at global challenges like poverty and injustice through a different mindset. While pity is something that we all feel — but what’s inside of every one of us, and something that’s far more powerful than pity is our capacity for parity — the acknowledgment that we are connected to those who live very different lives. 

Justin describes two Poverties ~ Poverty of Means & Poverty of Meaning. He discusses how the lack of resources and power that impoverish so many across the world, their “poverty of means”, is echoed in the “poverty of meaning” in the lives of so many who in other respects seem wealthy. His “selfish plan to change the world” then relates to addressing this poverty of meaning by engaging those who lack purpose with the challenge of empowering those who lack means. I love the simplicity of this description.

If I relate this to our work at AusCam, we have hundreds of girls who live in the impoverished communities of Cambodia and have a need for an education but their 'poverty of means' prevents them from this basic human right. But when we share this need ~ everyday people respond ~ perhaps out of their  'poverty of meaning'. ?

Is it really that simple?  If we hear of a need and we have the ability to provide that need, will that give us the purpose and meaning we are looking for in our lives? I dont have all the answers here ~ in fact no body really does, but using Justin's description helps me to put my own life in to perspective.

Geoff and I live simply since founding AusCam. We live off 1 salary, we rent a modest apartment and drive a 13 year old car. I will be honest, sometimes we do stop and wonder where we would be today if we didn't go to Cambodia.  We certainly had a very comfortable life.  Maybe we would be living in a beautiful big house, driving the latest Range Rover Discovery and getting ready to retire, (but I doubt it!) but would all that really matter if we then spent the rest of our lives searching for meaning and purpose.

What I do love about our life is that we have each other, we are blessed by a beautiful loving family, we have wonderful and supportive friends, and so many people who are selflessly walking our AusCam journey with us.  Knowing we are somehow making a difference in the life of someone else does bring me a sense of fulfillment and enormous gratitude for our life. It doesn't mean that we are not faced with challenges, that some days I feel sad and unhappy, and that I may feel frustrated that I cant have that new dress or those boots that I just saw in Myer.

I think it is unrealistic to believe that we can live a life only filled with happiness.  But I do believe that if we don't spend our lives constantly looking inwards and we focus on what we can do for someone else every day then you are on the right track for finding meaning and purpose.

I feel so encouraged by our community of supporters and the knowledge that this world is filled with people who choose to live an outward - looking life. Who choose not to look the other way and who choose to use their 'poverty of meaning' to help alleviate the 'poverty of means' for a person that they dont even know. 

Julie Dowse
Founder & International Program Director
​julie@auscamfreedomproject.org

​The fight for gender equality and justice with gender issues across all spheres of life has picked up pace more recently again.  Women in leadership.  Gender pay gaps.  Education for girls.  #MeToo

These are not new movements but fresh branding on old issues that range from intellectual policy advocacy type pushes, through to good old celebration of ‘girl power’.  (The #MeToo movement was founded on female sexual harassment and abuse issues but is more currently encompassing all sexual harassment and abuse).

There is so much great information spreading around about these issues, that choosing to write on this almost seems lazy and perhaps redundant.  This was until I reflected on some of my interesting conversations with my son this past year.  He has grown up watching his family live a life committed to social justice.  He has been by our sides as we worked alongside victims of child exploitation.  He has seen girls in Cambodia not be allowed to go to school or 12-year-old girls with babies.  Therefore, I guess I had a beautiful assumption that of all the males in my world, that he ‘got it’.

My son would often hear me educate others on gender violence issues in Cambodia.  This is a place where second generation PTSD has been recognised to have such a pervasive effect on its people groups.  It is a country where the newspapers run warnings (The Guardian) and social media floods with campaigns (Cambodia Safe Cities) in attempt to stop the attitudes that most men have sex on Valentines Day regardless if the women choose to participate or not. Cambodia, to my understanding, is the only country where the gang rape statistic had been higher than individual rape at one stage (SEA Globe rape).  Evidence of a dysfunctional attitude where gang rape was almost a rite of passage for some males.  Due to our previous work, my son got to know victims as people, hearing their stories and seeing some of their pain and consequences close up.

My son, alongside with my girls, have also been exposed to multiple discussions and fun YouTubes that explain just why there needs to be such a large push for girls to have educational opportunities globally.  Both the consequences of a lack of education, and what the potential becomes when a girl is educated.  We have even had interesting discussions on the difference between what a boy does with his education compared to what girls often do (Girl Effect).  The global issues of educating females in developing and developed countries already has wide and deep bodies of research (UN Stats) that are easily found and do not need repeating here.  The interesting moment for me was to watch my son want the best out of life for himself and have to reconcile that even on his worst day, he still has better opportunities than his sisters in some small, easily hidden ways purely because he was a boy.  I watched his mind tick over trying to reconcile that what he had access to was not noticeable to him, nor even interesting or tangible at this point in time, but yet he was part of an unjust situation.

One night 8 months ago, my son and I stumbled across a TV show by SBS’s Insight that discussed why more older women were homeless later in life (SBS Insight).  This show talked about how there is a new wave of retiring-age women who were finding themselves utterly homeless and without resource due to situations that had occurred throughout their lives.  Often the narrative was similar amongst them whereby an ugly relationship breakdown had seen them subject to losing everything.  It often would involve the natural consequence from them taking more time off work to raise children that put them behind in the career and superannuation game.  This created vulnerabilities so when relationships failed, or jobs were lost, there was not enough margin for failure and the whole system tipped over on them.  It was sobering for my son and I to realise that there was a cultural transcendent situation in the western world mirroring that of the developing world.  That the most vulnerable of people are females and children.  And the single mother probably has the toughest draw of the lot across all the cultures (Global Issues).  We had personally seen that Cambodian single mothers faced the greatest prejudices, education and financial challenges and often were doomed to repeat the cycle of impoverishment.  To watch this show on Australian women and hear the similar things out of their mouths we had heard from our time in Cambodia had both my son and I feeling moved.

I notice that as my 4-wonderful chipper little humans have those common impossible conflict moments (yes straight up fighting!), that my son would sometimes struggle to fathom concepts of why I expected him to treat his sisters in a certain way when the stack seem loaded against him in his mind.  Push aside the fact that mothers of large families would probably make the best Secretary-General of the UN due to our highly refined negotiating prowess under extreme duress, I have been intentional in attempting to raise a son who would advocate for the vulnerable and exploited.  Yet in the moments where his sisters would instigate and provoke large reactions, he would react in ways that would require me to step in and point out why this behaviour is not acceptable and often would have much more severe consequences when he becomes of age.  Watching his reaction has made me wonder why his response was not more empathetic due to all the unusual understanding he has in comparison to the average young teen.  It showed me that nothing short of proactive advocacy will help change perspectives .

The lesson I have learnt from my son and from the current global pushes towards equality, is that all the information in the world, will not change the situation.  What changes it is either facing it through experience then making a choice to allow this experience to create a drive for advocacy.  Or an intentional digging for understanding that creates an empathy that will not sit easy with merely clicking ‘like’ or share on social media, but will engage and even sacrifice time, energy and (gasp) finances to activate momentum from opinion to a value.
​
So I guess my call out to you as a reader is that you may know 'oodles' of information on social gender issues, but do you truly ‘get it’ in a way that moves you to be part of creating a world of equality?  Because the alternative may be that you are contributing to the inequality...

​Let me know your thoughts!

​I had the privilege of being asked to contribute to some of AusCam Freedom Project’s blog posts and jumped immediately with a ‘yes’ then realised the daunting process of putting thoughts into print! 

​I was given a range of fabulous areas to cover within the broad field of what we do.  From girl’s education, gender equality, human trafficking, fashion’s role in labour trafficking and exploitation, Cambodian specific social justice issues, development in culture, to ethical story telling and the marketing of the work that is done. 

Wowsers! 

I am excited to share some of my thoughts around these issues and see what great conversations we can be part of and perhaps even instigate.

However, I have decided to start on an interesting topic of conversation that I believe needs to be discussed and understood more by all those who are ‘wanting to do something’ or even have an interest in social justice.  This is the discussion around what international and community development, humanitarian aid, emergency relief, missions and global outworking of faith should look like in this current day.  It is often a hot debate between the professional development side and the missions side and I have watched industry colleagues struggle with reconciling the two sides just as much as myself.  Even writing this has been challenging!  Trying to explain the issues succinctly and in a readable fashion is not for the faint of heart!

To give a quick overview – professionally trained development workers often find no credibility, understanding of culture and development practices, and sustainability within many of the Christian mission groups.  They see a lot of harm done by well-meaning church groups, outcomes of abandoned church buildings and damaging colonialist ideas implemented on a vulnerable community.  On the other side, Christian mission workers can often see the development community as cynical, egotistical and lacking in essential ‘soft skills’.  Where spiritual health as part of a holistic approach not being attended to is hopelessly negligent at worst and misguided at best.

There are amazing experts who are out in the field and seeing true impacts of their work and making education and informed adjustments to ensure best practices and outcomes for the beneficiaries.  Within this group, there is a subset that ranges between those that are deeply knowledgeable and academic but have no experience of the real world, to those that have deep real world insights of how decisions play out ‘in the field’ (a term used for the places where the development work occurs, often in regions of poverty or disaster, or vulnerable communities).

The other side of this narrative are passionate Christians and unskilled non-Christians who are brave enough to be 'called to action' as an expression of their faith.  They are seen to be willing to launch themselves with little training or knowledge upon a nation or situation with the idea that sheer willingness, good intentions and elbow grease will help change a situation or fight injustice.  Within this group, there is also a subset that stretches between those that are more mindful of development and cultural practices to those that do not care but just want to dance and wave ribbons around those that are poor whilst singing and dancing the Lord’s praises.  (Ok, that sounded a little cynical!)

As we clearly now know more, there is a clear need to evolve.  What we did 60, 40 or even 20 years ago is now proven to be mistaken and so changes have been made.  For example, taking babies from single mothers, or creation of orphanages, or forcing church attendance to receive aid is no longer a practice accepted in the Western World, yet sometimes we still see it as part of the answer for vulnerable nations?  In fact, the damage through such practices see litigation in our countries, yet continue to be perpetuated by us in impoverished nations!  History has shown us that this ‘help’ has often undermined the social fabric of a society and actually exacerbated the problem. 

Now this all sounds challenging and overwhelming especially when you are searching for organisations to support or become a part of.  But here is the exciting part, in among the myriad of charities, foundations, organisations and missions groups, there are fabulous entities that are arising from out of the mix who are doing amazing work. 

As a Christian, finding a place that operates ethically and with integrity, does not sensationalise or exploit the exploited in their marketing or engagement campaigns, truly raises up the local community with healthy exit strategies, does not perpetuate the dreaded ‘white saviour’ mentality or push hidden agendas is not easy for the novice.

The reason why I wanted to bring this issue up as my first blog with AFP, is because having our supporters know this and ask us questions is important.  As a Christian I believe that the two (development and faith) CAN and are supposed to go hand in hand not in combat.  That we need people to discuss these areas more deeply and hold organisations to account and only support those who are actively chasing what is best for their beneficiaries and not just appeasing what feels good for the giver.  In fact, there are so many wonderful Christians who are leading the pack in world class aid and development practices and innovations.

This first blog highlights AusCam Freedom Project not just because it has a special place in my heart as I know the founders and was privileged to serve as their Country Director for a season.  I have seen the tough decisions that have had to sometimes be made by them.  I have seen the sacrifices to ensure each girl in their care is being looked after holistically.  I celebrate the boldness to step back from control and let the Cambodian staff shine.  I applaud that each year looks so much different from the last as it builds upon its strengths and evolves as it grows in capacity and reach.


I look forward to continue to mull over some thoughts with the AusCam Freedom Project family throughout this year!

Please leave your comments below, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Kimbra

​
​Kimbra Smith has been advocating, studying and working in the sphere of social justice since 2010 with specific interest in areas of exploitation, human trafficking and disaster relief.  She has overseen a couple of projects in organisations in Cambodia between 2013 - 2017 whilst living there with her family which includes four (!) children.  The last role there was as Interim Country Director for AusCam Freedom Project.  Kimbra is currently recharging the family batteries back in Australia, working part time with an organisation that focuses on poverty alleviation whilst chasing sunsets and new adventures with her family.  Coffee is her only requirement in friendship.

Cambodia is the country that I belong to.

I always feel a sense of peace and beauty to be who I am.  However, inequality between a man and a woman in my social context still exists. The older generation’s mindset still holds a negative perception on the role a woman or girl has in our society and sadly still so many of the younger generation also hold this negative viewpoint .

Many believe that a girl’s value is connected to her virginity; she cannot stay out at late night the same as man; she cannot go far away from home; she should get married at an early age rather than pursue higher education; We (women) cannot have the freedom to do what men can do, to be what men can be, with a lot of cultural expectation and pressure.  These outdated viewpoints are still happening today!.

In the 21st century, the mindset of Khmer people including my parents and relatives has changed slightly, but sadly  many still hold on to the old and oppressive values. I can see slow progress and changes happening; women & girls now have greater access to technology and education and are much more aware of their human rights. Many girls from my generation are lucky to have the freedom to be who they are and to choose what they want to do with their lives.

I am proud to celebrate March 8 as International Women’s Day because this day is about empowering women, encouraging women, motivating women, providing a platform to elevate women’s voices and to inform women and girls that they can do what men can do and can be what men can be.

Today sends a clear message to women and girls worldwide to be who you truly are.

International Women’s Day sends a strong message about what women’s role in society should be and to inspire them to realize their full potential.

In general, International Women’s Day in Cambodia is not a meaningful day and is certainly not celebrated by all Khmer women and girls. For many they would not even know this day exists. Interestingly, it is declared as a public holiday here, so if you are employed or attend University then you would know the day exists – you may even spend the day relaxing with friends and family, but most will not understand the meaning behind this day.

I am lucky that I live in the city of Phnom Penh. I work for a women and girls empowerment organisation, I have friends who believe in equality and the value of celebrating this day. We know how fortunate we are to have been educated.

But sadly, for our sisters who are from rural areas, who live in impoverished communities, who do not have access to education, today is just like any other day. I hope for a future where all my sisters, all over Cambodia will know their value and worth in today’s society and will have the freedom to choose how they live their life.

Celebrating International Women’s Day does not mean that I forget men’s rights. I know that many men in Cambodia have many challenges. They too are often exploited. There are many good men in our society who also challenge their peers and the older generation to stand up and advocate for change and to see their women friends as equal.  Today is about highlighting equality.

In the future, I believe young women will play many important roles in Cambodian society; they will be leaders promoting change in the government sector, the development sector, the education sector, and will have greater decision making powers.. I am hopeful for a new vision of Cambodian women, fully participating and engaging in advocacy and social activities and will become stronger pillars for community change and development.

No longer will women’s worth and value be only associated with her virginity; no longer will women be told they cannot go out at night,  there will be no more discrimination against girls having access to education. I am excited to see women and girls rise up in my country.
 
“Men deserve their right, why not women?”  

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!

How will you #PRESSFORPROGRESS?

Leakna Sam
Career & Guidance Counselor
AusCam Freedom Project.

​

​Leakna is our Career & Guidance Counselor and mentor to our Girls Leadership Council and a very valued member of our team empowering young women and girls.

Leakna is a wonderful example of the future for girls in Cambodia. She is a graduate from Royal University of Phnom Penh and was a Seeds for the Future grant recipient of the Young South East Asian Leadership Initiative. (U.S mission to ASEAN). The competition provides funding up to $15,000 for the ASEAN region’s most promising young leaders to carry out projects that improve their communities, countries and regions.  Through this grant, Leakna co-founded Eco Life Cambodia. 

​
​Today we are celebrating our 6th Birthday.  For Geoff and I this is a great cause for celebration to see our vision that was initially handwritten on a piece of paper in a little coffee shop by the beach in Dolls Point Sydney on the 18th January, 2012 now flourishing and impacting so many lives.

​We had been living in Phnom Penh for a little over 1 year. In reality this is not a long time to truly be immersed in a new country and culture, but we had experienced every emotion one could possibly feel in this short time.  Pure joy, excitement, frustration, anger, sadness, overwhelmed, happiness, determined, loss.
 
As Christians we relied heavily on our faith to get us through the tough times and we gave praise for the miracles we witnessed.
 
We loved our work – I was working in a large human rights organisation and Geoff was working in various engineering jobs volunteering his expertise. We also were devoting our spare time to a little orphanage where we fell in love with 70 children who we believed at the time were orphans. Naively and unknowingly however, we had allowed ourselves to get caught up in what is now referred to as ‘orphanage tourism’.  This orphanage was running a for profit business using vulnerable families to make money by presenting all these children as orphans. Keeping them in squalid conditions. Not only were they living in these conditions and separated from their families but we also became aware that many of the children were being abused. It is still heartbreaking for us to think we had been caught up in this.
 
Once we discovered this, we moved swiftly to report the orphanage to authorities and before long the orphanage was closed and the children were either returned to their families or placed in other safe foster homes. However, there were a group of teenage girls who for various reasons and challenges were unable to return home.
Those girls became the seed of AusCam Freedom Project. 

​This bible verse became our vision  
 
“She is Clothed with Strength & Dignity and she laughs without fear of the Future”                                                      Proverbs 31:25

​Not long after that day in the little coffee shop where we wrote our vision and registered our organisation, we returned to Phnom Penh as a newly formed Charity with dreams and a vision. We had little time in Australia to prepare well, fundraise and cross all our t’s and dot all our i’s. We had a sense of urgency placed on our hearts. Geoff and I were very fortunate we had our own nest egg tucked away and we strongly felt the call of God to use this and that all our own needs would be taken care of. In Philippians 4:6 Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”   We knew that if we lived by faith in this promise of future grace, it would be very hard for anxiety to survive.
 
Our first project was born – “TLC” as it was affectionately known (The Transitions Life Centre) was a home for adolescent girls who had little or no supports, had experienced various forms of abuse, exploitation or were at risk of such and needed a safe home to live and thrive.  Of course it wasn’t that quick or simple – navigating the bureaucracy in Cambodia is no easy task! However through many long hours of work, wonderful support from our Khmer friends we signed our MOU with the Cambodian Government (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation) as an International Non-Government organisation. TLC was official.
​

TLC home operated until June 2016 and we cared for 18 beautiful young women and girls throughout this time. Today we are still in close contact with several of them who were from that original orphanage. Socheata graduated with a bachelor Degree in Accounting and is now a supervisor accountant with a large chain of coffee shops, Srey Leak graduated with a business degree and has a secure future with a great job within the construction field and Srey Nuch is married with a baby and has been working as a teacher assistant. “oh be still my beating heart” – we are so proud of all their achievements. 

Socheata Graduating!

​In 2013 after spending 12 months doing an outreach program in the red light districts of Phnom Penh, we recognised a common thread among the hundreds of young women and girls we encountered – none of them had an education. This was revelation for us as we were struggling emotionally with hearing the stories of all these precious girls. Many had been put to work by families, sold to pimps or poverty sent them to work the streets. 

Strategically we decided to create a new program and focus on identifying those girls who were at risk of dropping out of school and ensuring they could finish their education with a new found hope for a positive future. The Freedom Education Scholarship Program for Girls was born in December 2013 with 25 girls.  5 of those 25 girls have just graduated with their national grade 12 exams and in University, as well they are also part of our Girls leadership Council and are now mentoring our younger girls, organising events and consulting with us on our programming. What an awesome achievement!! 
​

​ 
Today we have 125 girls on our scholarship program, we have 5 partnered schools and work in several others as well. In the last 6 months we have engaged with 528 girls with our Life skills and personal development workshops and had 100 girls attend our Girls clubs in 4 of our schools.

​Saying Thank You to our Cambodian Team!
 
We could not have achieved anything without the commitment, tenacity, perseverance and loyalty of our wonderful team over the years. They have and continue to work tirelessly in the field in often harsh environments and yet humbly go about their day serving our girls and families.
 
We began AusCam with one program manager, 1 house mum which soon became 2, a counselor, an awesome long term missionary volunteer from the US and Geoff and I.  Over the years we have had some staff come and go, hosted some truly wonderful volunteers who are still a part of our AusCam family through sponsorship and ongoing support. Each one has firmly cemented a little piece of themselves in our organisation. Today our organisation is totally run by a national team and we have 15 incredible staff members. They are our unsung heroes – Geoff and I are so proud of them and everything they bring to AusCam and especially to the hundreds of girls and their families who we exist for.
 

Saying thank you to our team in Australia!
 
When Geoff and I decided to found AusCam, my son Benjamin who had just turned 24 years old at the time was involved in all our discussions and decisions from day 1. With no business experience (He was a sound and audio engineer and a guitarist in a band!) he took on the role of President with gusto and determination. He singlehandedly set about to cross all those t’s and dot all those i’s I mentioned earlier. He was inundated with paperwork registering us as a charity with the Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission, getting our ABN, setting up our bank account, developing our website and the biggest task of all getting our Tax Deductibility Status.  He remained as president for several years, managed our website, operated our online social enterprise store and did whatever he could to support us. What a champion… I am so proud of him.

​Benjamin & Geoff at a fundraising Event

We have an awesome band of board members – we have an Executive Team and a Creative Team. Some have been with us since our very early days and some have recently joined us –  they are the ones who work tirelessly behind the scenes here. It takes a lot of funds to run an operation like AusCam, ensure our governance is top notch and our pitch to the outside world is transparent and authentic. We can’t do this without great people working behind the scenes. Geoff and I are so grateful for their constant love and support. The day to day operations in Australia runs with 2 volunteers. Myself working full time and Leonie – who many of you have regular contact with – manages our Sponsorship program. We operate very leanly here to ensure all your support goes directly to the field.

​Board Meeting – Our Board has recently grown and we welcomed 5 new members to the team. No pictures of them yet….

Saying thank you to our donors!
 
Well what I can say about you all… you breathe the life into AusCam. Without you we can do nothing!  Your generous hearts have literally touched hundreds of girls over the past 6 years – in fact more like a thousand girls. Personally, my heart is touched by every single donation that comes through. I see every single one and each time I give thanks for you. Your belief in what we do and why we do it keeps me encouraged and gives me the strength to keep fighting the good fight. We know that if you Educate a girl SHE can change HER world.

​ Education changes everything!

Imagine a seed and that seed is a young girl growing up in poverty in Cambodia.
 
Given the chance to blossom, she has the potential to change the world.

​But the likelihood is, she will face many obstacles in either being able to go to school or remain past primary school.
 
 
When we founded AusCam Freedom Project our mission was to provide a safe home and programs for young women and girls who had experienced trauma in their lives because of exploitation, trafficking and abuse. Our Transitions Life Home  operated for 4 years and cared for many young girls each with their own sad story.
 
It was hearing those stories over and over again that inspired us to want to do things differently.
 
Firstly, I want to share one of those stories with you:
 
Marnie* (Not her real name) is from a large family of 11 children who come from a very impoverished village in northern Cambodia. Her parents worked as seasonal labourers and sadly used alcohol and gambling as a way of coping with life’s adversities. They were in debt and had no fixed home.
 
When Marnie was 12 years old her mother was approached by a female villager who explained that a fruit seller was looking for staff and that money would be provided as a salary. The woman told her that she would need to take out a loan to pay for her daughter to go and work for the fruit seller.  Marnie’s mother agreed as they were desperate for money. Consequently, she was taken out of school and handed over to the villager.
 
Unfortunately, Marnie’s mother was tricked by this woman who was acting as a trafficking broker which sadly is all too common in poor Cambodian villages.
 
Marnie had been sold for sex. She was 12 years old.
 
We heard many stories like Marnie’s over those 4 years.  We didn’t want to continue to hear stories after situations like this had already occurred. We wanted their stories to be different. We wanted to do something to PREVENT situations like Marnie's before it happened.
 
In response to this we changed our whole focus of our organisation and developed our  
Freedom Education Scholarship Program for at Risk Girls.
 
Our move from rescue and restoration to prevention using education as a tool emerged because of our strong conviction that when girls are educated a transformation begins.
 
We partner with Government Schools and Communities from urban poor communities to find those girls who are at risk of dropping out from the school system because of poverty and the expectation placed on them to work to contribute to the families income.

​Wow what a 3 months we have just had! Jammed packed with lots of exciting new things, new staff, a new baby for Soknin - our amazing Fiance & Admin Coordinator and the launch of our SHE Project Life Skills Curriculum in to our partnered 4 Government schools. Our adolescent Girls Clubs are really developing with large numbers of girls now attending across the 4 schools.  

​You can see our impact in numbers below.. 

We also recently took 4 of our Girls Club leaders up to Siem Reap where they were trained by the Cambodian Chapter of Days for Girls in Menstrual Health and we received 125 kits to hand out to our scholarship girls following peer to peer workshops. So proud of these leaders who show courage and determination to stand up and be counted as young women leaders in their schools and communities.

We also celebrated International Women's Day, had a wonderful time gifting bicycles out to 33 girls through our partnership with Lotus Outreach and hosted a health day in our community centre which was attended by 17 family members and 18 girls who all bravely stood in line to receive vaccinations.


Sadly, we also bid farewell to  Jenna our Communications & Marketing Coordinator after 6 months as a volunteer. You may have noticed the quality of the photos and stories that have been coming through of recent times which has been amazing.  Jenna is getting married in a couple of months and we wish her well as she begins a new journey.



​We celebrated the 5th Anniversary of AusCam Freedom Project in January!
On the 18th of January, 2012 armed with a notebook and pen,  Geoff, myself and son Ben sat at a little coffee shop in Dolls Point Sydney and scribed out our vision to see young women in Cambodia given opportunity, choices and freedom. We went and registered our non profit and a week later returned to Cambodia and began the process of developing our partnership with the Cambodian Government and our first program - Transitions Life Centre (TLC Home) for girls.     So began the incredible journey of AusCam Freedom Project!

Geoff and I are truly humbled by the support we receive all around the world and watching the growth of our programs and to see our vision come to life through a hardworking, passionate and committed Cambodian Team. They are outstanding and do such an awesome job. And of course the many young women and girls we have had the pleasure to walk beside and are continuing to support through the power of Education. They are the real champions.. fighting for their rights and a hopeful future in often very challenging circumstances..