By Edward Yee
Personally, when reflecting about USLS 2016 in Hanoi, it is difficult to separate those 6 days with the rest of my 3 months trip around Asia. Starting off in Bangladesh for a Social Business Immersion Program for a month, I proceeded to travel to Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam to visit various social entrepreneurs and the management teams of social businesses and non-profits. Suffice to say, the past 3 months has been the most amazing and life-changing 3 months of my life. I have found new purpose and direction, but more importantly, it left me humbled and ready to offer myself whatever the world needs of me.
For USLS 2016 in particular, it served as an amazing capstone to my 3 months of travel. Many of the themes brought up by the speakers and fellow delegates resonated deeply with me and made me look back on the stories and lessons learnt over summer. As such, much of my reflection going forward would incorporate some of these experiences to give some context to my reflection.
I could talk about how inspiring many of the speakers are, but that is something which is expected. Instead, I will focus on the one speaker that really touched my heart and made me tear. She is Geraldine Cox, the founder of Australia Cambodia Foundation – a non-profit that helps educate and home children. Having came from Cambodia just 2 weeks before, and having met many social entrepreneurs and non-profit founders, I do understand the unique and painful challenges which exists over there. Just walking down a normal street in Phnom Penh, you could see hostess bars with girls not more than 18 years-old calling out, looking to “accompany” men for the night. You would also bump into Rickshaw drivers or “motodok” drivers who would offer you anything from a ride to drugs and women.
But all these are just the symptoms of deeper systematic problems in Cambodia. One in 42 girls eventually make their way into the sex industry in Cambodia. Many of whom become the very pimps they hated while working. (60% of sex traffickers used to be trafficked) The boys? Some may argue they have it worse, many of whom are sold to nearby countries in the hope of a better life. Instead, they land as slaves to cruel businessmen who constantly chain and lock them up. A recent movie produced interviewed two such boys who were locked up and worked on fishing boats for 20 years. They were chained almost all the time, even in warehouses or on the fishing boats.
These problems don’t even begin to highlight how difficult it is for Cambodia to come out of the rut as it is. Paul, the founder of HAVEN Restaurant in Siem Reap explained it very clearly to me: Having been ravaged by the Khmer Rouge 30 years ago, three million out of eight million of their population were slaughtered. The worst part? These three million were the educated, meaning to say that a whole three generations of educated people were massacred. This made it especially difficult when Cambodia tried to restart its education system – or any system at all. A large part of their education system is taught by role learning, even math! Paul shared that he was teaching a kid math, the boy knew that 1 apple + 1 apple tallied to 2 apples. apples. But when the kid was asked what 1 banana + 1 banana was, he did not know the answer. This presents huge problems for the entire population because any higher education given to locals has to rewrite the whole system which was taught to them since young.
One story told by Geraldine which really stuck in my mind and probably will for some time is that of Noodles. Noodles was a six-month-old baby she met after being told that he was behind by his parents and was being taken care of by the owners of a pushcart selling noodles. However, she was just going back to Australia to raise funds on that day so she said she will come back to take him once she returns. When she came back though, she found that unscrupulous middlemen had harvested Noodle’s eyes to sell to the wealthy. For me, I was able to vividly imagine it happen in front of my eyes while facing the pushcarts in Siem Reap. The most heart-breaking part was that I knew this story was not an exception but rather the norm in Cambodia. Having seen 15 year-old boys on the street working as pimps selling the 13-14 year-old girls at the corner of a street, it – painfully so – is no surprise that this could happen.
During the conference, I was also fortunate to have met many delegates who have and want to change the world for the better. It was truly inspiring to hear them speak about their vast experiences, and more importantly, their dreams for a better world.
Overall, I am deeply humbled to have been able to attend such an amazing ceremony and I know that my life’s calling goes far beyond what I want for myself. It is to serve what the world needs of me. Some of the key takeaways I have learnt from my trip and the conference is:
- Seeing myself as part of humanity instead of by country, income, race or religion;
- I need to solve problems holistically, thinking about the implications to all parties;
- How so little is able to make such a big difference in the lives of others and how finance is able to help to solve so many of these problems;
- Humbled that a mere twist of fate is all that separates me and those who are less privileged – my life is not mine;
- Immense respect for those in need.
I do hope to remember what I have learnt and what I am feeling in the years to come and always look back at this time as a turning point in my life.
