The Children of The Stung Meanchey Dump - Cambodia

This is the place one goes to when there is no place lower to go – ‘Smokey Mountain’, the municipal rubbish dump in the Stung Meanchey district of Phnom Penh. Watch the kids there, well over 1000 of them, pick through fresh medical waste with their bare hands, throwing plastic syringe cases in their bags and baskets, tossing used needles on the ground. Watch a bunch of them surround the 10-wheeled pick-up trucks like a pack of starving city dogs, nudging each other for position to be the first to sift through the new pile of trash with their picks, pokers, and even bare hands. They even clamber into its ‘jaws’ to get first pick: some of them don’t clamber out again. And Smokey Mountain really does smoke: there are small fires scattered about, though some of that smoke may well be noxious gases.

Youngsters toil for up to 16 hours per day here, digging through 5-metre-high mounds of refuse in search of plastic, metal, and anything that might be worth the effort required to pick it up.

About 2000 riels ($1.25!) will be their reward for a long day spent wading through garbage where everything – and that does mean every single thing – gets picked over. If it can be reused, they will dig it out. Despite a job that both figuratively and literally stinks, they haven't lost the will to work

COMPASSION APPEAL FOR CAMBODIA

Take an interpreter and talk to a few of them. Most of them are quite friendly. They'll laugh with you (or, more likely, at you), smile and even say "hello". Maybe you'll meet Poung, a 13-year-old girl with a real sweet smile but completely illiterate, never having spent one ay of her life in a classroom. Her whole family works here – those that are still alive. None of them know where the next meal might be coming from. Still, as far as she and many other hopeless girls here are concerned, this is heaven compared to being sold by the family for the sex trade in Phnom Penh.

And you think your life has its bad moments

Paul and Aileen Munn have been to Cambodia many times and are raising money to help hundreds of these children by providing regular meals, education, and shelter. They will return there on the 8th of July 2008 and partner with aid programs already operating to release these children from this terrible injustice.

A recent article in the Sunday Mail (click here to view) exposing the plight of these people resulted in an outpouring of generosity from the South Australian Public but we still need your help.

To make a donation please phone 8298 0555 or contact us by mail at 356 Brighton Rd, Brighton 5048.