I have met so many incredible people during my stay in Cambodia, I could probably write at least a hundred posts if I tried to tell you about them all.  There is one, though, that I think you need to “meet”.  Sophary is one of our JWOC scholarship student graduates.  After leaving university, Sophary chose to work for the Cambodian Self Help Demining (CSHD) organization – an NGO whose mission is to locate, de-activate and destroy the millions of landmines and unexploded ordnance that remain strewn widely across the Cambodian countryside following the Vietnam War and the years of internal conflict and civil war during the 2nd half of the 20th century.

CSHD was founded by Aki Ra, once a child soldier forced to lay landmines for the Khmer Rouge.  After the wars ended, and starting on his own, he began to find and clear the explosive devices he once was part of putting in place.  Later he founded CSHD as well as the Cambodian Landmine Museum Relief Facility , which serves not only as an archive of the history, but also as a home that provides education and support for dozens of at-risk youth and landmine-affected children that they have rescued.  There is no accurate tally of how many explosives remain undiscovered, but all estimates are in the millions, generally in the range of >3 million still in place.  As you can see from these couple of articles I copied from the Phnom Penh Post in just the last few days, this remains a very real part of daily Cambodian reality.

I think Sophary is probably about 4’11”, if that.  And yet, I think she is one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.  Beyond wanting to help her country recover and be safe, it is deeply important to her to help other women and to show them that they too can do anything and be truly strong.  That is one of the reasons that she chose this as her profession — and it is one of the reasons that she supports not only her own younger siblings but others from her village.  Like her, they have no opportunity to finish high school if they stay in the village and must find a way to come to the city in order to continue their education and have any opportunity to continue on to university.  Her older brother came before and brought her along once he was settled, and now she is doing the same for several others.  She is an incredibly positive force and amazing role model for so many that she touches.

I did visit the Landmine Museum, as well as the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields and S-21 Prison while I was here, but can in no way do justice to them — or to the impact they had on me — in writing.  If you do have the opportunity to visit Cambodia, I urge you to make them a part of your experience.