I didn’t yet know this sort of place of another world; a type of nightmare, terrifying, scandalous, revolting, like we could never imagine existed!!
And yet every morning, with the sun not even risen from the night before, hundreds of children work all day long on the rubbish dump of Steung Mean Chey in the neighbourhoods south of Phnom Penh, just to try and make a few riels to feed their family. They live on this wasteland with their families, even in houses made of wood or cloth. When a truck arrives, the chase behind it, in order to be the first to sort through the rubbish dumped by the truck. Their gloveless hands plunged into a nauseating, smoking gunk, some wearing boots, some not, some simply in sandals or even barefoot. Under the scorching sun, feet deep in the stinking waste, they look for anything that can be recycled and resold (cardboard, plastic and aluminium), for just a pittance. Most have red hair and bloated stomachs due to malnutrition, not to mention their skin problems.
The dump at Phnom Penh smokes incessantly. Smoke and fumes which attack at the throat. We are talking about numerous cases of deformed children due to dioxin fumes, but also sicknesses such as typhoid, tetanus and once again malnutrition.
As a result, the infant mortality rate in Cambodia in 2005 was the highest in Southern Asia : 14.3% of Cambodian children die before reaching the age of 5 and 9.8% die before the age of 1 (source : Unicef, 2005).In Asia in 2006, the number of children estimated to be working was 122.3 million.
Deeply moved by these unbearable images, a French couple, touring the world in a camper van in 1995, Marie-France and Chrisitian des Palières, decided to create a school close to this dumping ground in order to educate children in difficulty. This was to be their project « Pour un Sourire d’Enfants » (For a Child’s Smile). Today there are practically no children at the rubbish dump. Every morning at 6:30, the association serves hundreds of meals, just next to the dump. The straw hut is a place equipped to enable the children to wash, eat, to rest or to be taken care of.
Results in 2007 : approximately 4000 children are taken care of regularly, 800 children are schooled at the PSE remedial centre and 3000 in 7 public town establishments, 70 girls are residents at the centre, 150 girls and boys have been housed in 42 foster homes, 400 youngsters have already completed their professional training and have found work, 800 are currently being trained. Between 10,000 and 15,000 meals are served every day, 340 people are employed by the PSE, including 330 Cambodians, amongst them 115 are teachers.
Efforts rewarded by the independence of more and more students, leaving the rubbish dump, and pursuing higher education such as medicine, law, sales, etc...
Today, the rubbish dump will shortly be a thing of the past, making way for a park, financed by a Japanese fund.
Photographic Reportage realized in December, 2008
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