The Value of a Life

On 9th July 2009, a villager from nearby Obak Rote Commune was hit by a big truck. Our community ambulance rushed him to a hospital in Phnom Penh but he died on the way.


The case was handled by the local authorities, and the company owner of this truck agreed to pay $500 to the villager’s family as compensation for his death. $500! You may be shocked to know how cheap a life is valued in Cambodia, particularly in the countryside. Most of the time, powerless villagers have no choice but to compromise over the death of a family member with a few hundred dollars. If the deceased was the breadwinner, the household will inevitably fall into extreme poverty. In the case of this accident, we put our weight during the negotiation process and, somehow the company agreed to pay this amount of money. But we heard that the company owner commented that even $100 would have been enough. This is one of the sad facts in Cambodia.

Slowly but Surely

Sorry for the long silence on this blog. Life sometime brings unpredictable changes, and that’s what happened to us these past months.

Two volunteer experts who had been working with us on the development of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) system in Phnom Penh needed to leave Cambodia in April, for family reasons. They were key players in our endeavor, and it was a big loss for us. As a result, we had our hands fully occupied in Phnom Penh to keep the operation running while reorganizing it with other collaborators.

We didn’t forget about the ongoing construction of our Health Center however. We needed to slow down the preparations for a while but our work for the Health Center has continued without interruption.

We have just completed the concrete roofing works. As it takes a month for the cement to dry, we were anxious about the process, as Cambodia had entered into the rainy season in May. Heavy rains may cause the cement to loose density before it dries, making it too porous to provide effective insulation.

Thanks God! Rain was kept at bay! One month later, the cement had cured completely without problem. From the photo, you may think: “the roof is only half done!” Well, yes… Now that the concrete has set nicely, we are going to put translucent plastic sheets on the rest of the roof, in addition to solar panels. A key point of our Health Center is that it will be environment friendly and energy efficient, using as many natural resources as possible. The transparent plastic sheets will allow more sunlight inside the Center in daytime, as well as moonlight at nighttime. You cannot imagine it? You will see it soon!

Main Donors Gathered!

On 23rd March, we had a ceremony with our main donors, GRAPHIS, the Japanese student volunteer group, as well as the Japanese NGO, Side by Side Inernational.

It was supposed to be an "Opening Ceremony" Unfortunately, the construction work couldn’t be completed on time, for various reasons. So... it was rather a "Launching Ceremony".

Anyway, about 20 students from GRAPHIS, Mr. and Mrs. Sasaki, President of Side by Side International visited our site and we also invited 200 villegers to the ceremony.

An Accident on National Road No.4

On March 22nd, at around 2pm, a severe accident occurred on the National Road No. 4, only 10 minutes drive from our site.

A sedan-type car was smashed by a big truck. We rushed to the scene with our community ambulance and a command car, but it was already too late, the driver of the sedan was crushed to death. There were no other passengers in the car.





What happened? It seems that the sedan first hit a tanker running in front of it, and that the sedan’s bumper was trapped. The sedan probably then detached itself from the back of the tanker but lost control. It was then smashed by a big truck running fast behind the car.

This is not a unique case. Such tragic accidents are happening all the time on National Road No.4. It would have been even worse if the big truck had hit the tanker, as it would have caused a huge explosion.

This is one of the many tragedies occurring on the roads in Cambodia…

Vegetable Garden for the Health Center

We have started growing vegetables, which will be served at the health center.

In this remote area of Cambodia, people rarely grow vegetables at home. The reason is that either they lack water to grow plants, or they are not aware of the nutritional benefit of vegetables, focusing instead on getting any food to fill their stomach. They mostly eat a lot of rice with a salty fish paste. Since they don’t grow vegetables themselves, they need to buy them at the market, and it is costly. They thus tend to give up eating vegetables.


We grow vegetables not only for the health center meals, but at the same time we want to use our garden as a demonstration farm for the community people. They will see how vegetables are grown, how to take care of them and how they can be cooked.

We are also planning to provide cooking classes for nursing mothers and pregnant women, and to give them a kind of starter package to help them start their own vegetables garden in the near future.

Children malnutrition is a critical problem in this area. We very much anticipate that this kind of programme will contribute to improving the current poor nutritional status of the local people in the long term.

We often obtain seeds from the existing vegetables and fruits. Tomato, paw paw, mango etc.. All grown from the seeds remaining when we eat those things. It works quite well!

Construction Up-Date 2

The father of one of our workers passed away in the beginning of February. Since all our workers belong to the same community, they all left the construction site, in order to help with the funeral. We had no choice but to leave the building site idle for an entire week.The work has now resumed and we are about to put on the roof.


We are planning to organize an opening ceremony on March 23rd, 2009 with GRAPHIS and SIDE-BY-SIDE INTERNATIONAL, the main donors of the health center. We have only one month left…..

The Road Branch to the Health Center is opened!

At the end of January 2009, the repair works on the road branching out from Road No. 4 to the Graphis Health Center were completed. It was a very rough rock littered dirt road overgrown with grass, which made access to the Health Center difficult and dangerous.

Thanks to the support from the local authorities and from the main donor, GRAPHIS, a Japanese students group, we could manage to repair this road section in three weeks!

The local authorities contributed heavy machinery and workforce for 3 weeks. GRAPHIS provided the funds needed to cover all the costs, including fuel, food for the works and other costs.

It now takes just 5 minutes to access the health center from National Road No. 4, instead of half an hour.



There is still more work to do in order to keep the road smooth throughout the year. As it is not paved, we are planning to cover it with tiny red stones that will act as gravel to prevent it from becoming slippery when wet.



We dug a ditch on both sides of the road. During the rainy season, the ditch will work as drainage. In the dry season, we will fill the ditches with water, to be used by the villagers.
We also plan to raise fish in the ditches. It will be a valuable source of proteins for the people of this area who rarely have opportunity to obtain it.
The ditches will be connected, to keep water moving and prevent it from becoming a breeding ground for malaria-spreading mosquitoes.