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THE FOLLOWING SPEECH WAS DELIVERED ON BEHALF OF GEOFF SHAW, DIRECTOR OF PROJECT INDOCHINA TO A FUNDRAISING DINNER HELD IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA ON APRIL 19, 2010
Good evening and thank you for coming tonight.
The work of Project Indochina commenced 5 years ago in Cambodia with a personal donation of $1000 to an orphanage that desperately needed a roof over its kitchen and eating area, as well as toilet and shower facilities for the older girls.
This was soon followed by the purchase of a power generator for an orphanage in Hoi An, central Vietnam.
Now, as a fully accredited and licensed Non Government Organization, PIC is involved in numerous aid operations in those countries.
These operations separated into three categories; humanitarian, education and community development and include food and clothing, health and health education, housing, child protection, income generation, specialized education, scholarships, supplementary mainstream education, water, sanitation, drainage and building construction.
Humanitarian aid aside, each of these aid activities share a common objective and that objective is sustainability, sometimes called capacity building.
Providing long term aid is not the answer to breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty, giving people the incentive, the tools, support and guidance is.
At the moment, PIC is funding or intends to fund in the short term:
• Secondary and tertiary scholarships for 36 disadvantaged children
• Construction or major repair of 16 houses for the poor
• Renovation of 2 wards at a home for the aged
• Palliative care for 4 people
• Wheelchairs for 2 people
• Medical or surgical assistance for 14 people
• Construction of 20 toilets
• Transport of 6 HIV positive children 1000 km for treatment.
• Supplementary education for 300 children
• Installation of 7 water purification plants in schools
• Construction of a toilet block at a secondary school in a disadvantaged community
• Construction of classrooms at a primary school in a disadvantaged community
In addition, PIC is about to undertake two major aid programs that will take place over 5 years.
One is in the Nam Giang district in central Vietnam adjacent to the border with Laos. This will be a massive undertaking in remote, primitive conditions and will involve:
• Water supply and purification
• Sanitation (particularly in schools and public facilities)
• Hospital and medical clinic waste water treatment
• Public and private building construction
• Student housing
• Medical intervention
• Health worker education
• Funding of essential medical equipment
• Community health and hygiene education
• Funding of school equipment
• Income generation programs
The other 5 year program is in the communes of Chumkriel, Andong and Trey Kho, located in the province of Kampot, southern Cambodia. Again, this is a huge undertaking, involving:
• Water supply and purification
• Sanitation
• Building construction
• Drainage
• Community HIV education
• Community health and hygiene education
• Funding school programs and equipment
• Funding supplementary education
• Provision of scholarships
• Capitalizing sustainable school and community income generation programs
• Supporting sustainable agricultural enterprise including crop irrigation and
live animal management
• Funding programs to encourage children to attend school
• Improvement of teacher salaries (They are currently earning $30 per month)
All PIC aid projects are executed only after critical assessments are carried out.
Nearly always, if a health issue exists, or is likely to influence the outcome of the program, it must be dealt with first.
In Cambodia, 7.3 million people out of a population of 14.2 million do not have access to clean water. In Vietnam 6.8 million out of a population of 86.2 million face a similar problem.
In Cambodia, 10.3 million people, nearly 73% of the population do not have access to sanitation. In Vietnam the number is 30.5 million
Government expenditure on health per capita in Vietnam is $86, in Cambodia $43, while in Australia it is $2100.
If there are any economists here tonight those figures are adjusted to purchasing power parity, sometimes referred to as the Big Mac index.
It is no wonder then that 48 out every 1000 Cambodian and 12 out of every 1000 Vietnamese babies born live, die shortly after birth. In Australia, the number is 3
Similarly, infant mortality in Cambodia is 65 per 1000 live births, in Vietnam 15 per 1000. In Australia, 5.
This sad tale continues. Under age 5 mortality in Cambodia is 53 per 1000 live births if the mother is educated and 136 per 1000 live births if the mother is uneducated. In Vietnam the numbers are 29 per 1000 and 66 per 1000 respectively. In Australia the number is statistically insignificant.
Unfortunately in developing and third world countries the chances of a child surviving to teenage years is directly proportional to the wealth and education of the mother, therefore much of our health and hygiene education work is concentrated in this area.
In recent times there has been a lot of publicity and concern, dare I say paranoia in some quarters about H1N1 bird flu.
Last year around 1000 people world wide, died from bird flu.
In the same period, approximately 50,000,000 people, mainly children, died from preventable gastro intestinal disease, mostly diarrhoea. A similar number, again mainly children, died from preventable respiratory infections.
For a relatively 11pt amount of money, most of these lives could have been saved. Every day in Vietnam and Cambodia, babies and 11pt children die from disease that is preventable. It really does not cost much. A can of baby formula costs a lot less than a bomb and does far greater good.
Before concluding I would like to briefly touch on the subjects of charity, compassion and humanity.
I have often heard the expression “charity begins at home”.
I strongly disagree with that. My view is that the world is our home. We enjoy the benefits of cheap consumer products originating from our neighbours in South East Asia, we benefit from exports to them, those that travel enjoy visiting them and sharing their culture.
Above all, they are our fellow human beings, and they are dirt poor through no fault of their own.
They are kind and gentle people that have had to endure centuries of war and mistreatment by their colonial masters. Their cultures have been fractured and fragmented, their infrastructure and institutions destroyed and rebuilt over and over again and their very way of life impacted in a way that we can not imagine.
They now need our help. In Australia we have a welfare safety net, here they have absolutely none. If someone here slips through the cracks, that is exactly where they stay. No one is able to pick them up.
We measure our prosperity in a sense by the assets we accumulate, they measure theirs by their ability to put food on the table each day.
I challenge anyone to spend some time here and return home without changed values. It has certainly worked for me and I am a far better person for it.
Thank you for allowing me to share this information with you.
Please visit our website www.projectindochina.org for more detailed information. It is a new site and more information is being added to it each week.
Enjoy the evening
Good night
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