How many people know that? Who is concerned about the fate of 100,000 children orphaned by AIDS, children who have lost their mother, father or both parents? Many of them are HIV-positive themselves or have already developed AIDS. Approximately 20,000 children live on the streets of the capital Phnom Penh because they have no one to look after them.
Movie Cambodia Journey 2008 Diary 2007
Less than 50 cents a day
The small kingdom between Thailand, Laos and Vietnam has almost become a forgotten country since Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror came to an end.
Between 1975 and 1979 Khmer Rouge killed around 1.7 million of their fellow countrymen and systematically put teachers, doctors and students to death.
Although the regime was overthrown by Vietnam, Khmer Rouge went underground and continued to fight until 1999. The country was completely ruined as a
result of the civil war. Even today 35 % of a population of 14 million is still living below the poverty line of 50 cents a day. Medical care,
especially in the countryside, is very poor.
Free medicine
Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff first travelled to Cambodia in 2007 to prepare several AIDS projects for the Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff UNICEF Foundation.
The conditions she found there were dire. Even the state-run children’s hospital in Phnom Penh was poorly equipped to look after its young patients.
Some immediate measures to help this children’s hospital were decided upon. These have already been implemented, as Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff found
out during her second visit in September 2008. Medical care outside the city is also being improved. Hospital wards just for children are being built
in two provinces. HIV-positive children can be examined here regularly and receive their vital drugs free of charge.
Future for street children
There is still great ignorance about HIV / AIDS in Cambodia and this disease therefore represents an acute risk for the street children in Phnom Penh.
“Friends”, a private aid organisation, is fighting for their survival and future. Donations from the Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff UNICEF Foundation allow
social workers to look after even more street children and to provide foster families with financial support.
So far a total of € 669,130 has been raised by the 4th Schafhof Festival in September 2007 and other events.
