Good Intentions

Namaste,

Hugo in France recently connected with his thoughts on the Orphan Tourism article. This is what he wrote.

Hugo met Benoît sailing over The Silver Sea to Uruguay. 

"It happened Benoit made a trip in a neighboring country named Cambodia.

"And there he saw. He saw the refugee camps on the border. He saw and he realized.

"He began the first Cambodian foundation to help children. The task was huge and often thank less.

"He had to deal with a lot of people, customs and beliefs. Blind or deaf children were considered as useless and cursed beings. You have no sight because you have a bad karma. You have a bad karma because you were evil in your previous life. You have what you deserve, so I must not care. At the time, there wasn't even a Braille system for Khmer language. They had to create it, with help from the Thai Braille language.

"He had to use his trust with great caution. Try to explain long term big projects to people more interested in small time big money.

"And however, here he is. Here they are. Twenty years later, they have their first few bachelors. Those who don't pursue studies do traditional work, earning money for their families, who don't see them as useless anymore. The foundation is recognized by Unicef, and its staff is mostly Cambodian.

"We discussed about humanitarian associations, and he said to me a lot of them are runby either unprincipled or too naive persons. Due to his financial work experience, he was able to give his own association a solid and viable structure.

"But this kind of practice is not so common in such organizations. He also told me about the complete stupidity which is called child sponsoring. Attract western compassion, but create division. I am a sponsored child, you are not. The road to hell is paved with good intentions..."

Cambodia roads are red dust.

Thank you Hugo.

Krousar Thmey

Metta.