September 14, 2007
The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 1: UNICEF in Cambodia
John Vink
Except for a few rare occasions over the last thirty years John Vink arrives too late... Or does he? When he gets where he wants to be, the paroxysms of the crisis are gone. So are most of the media, on to another spot on Earth where violence and tension are mounting. John thinks it's starting to get interesting when no one is watching anymore...
In 1989 he spent one month in Cambodia. He came back in 1991. Then again in 1999. And in 2000 he stayed. More than six years later he is still there and hardly moves outside the Cambodian borders. He is somewhere else without having to travel.
A pawn in the cynical game of geopolitics, Cambodia was dragged into a war it initially didn?t belong to. It was left stunned and bloodless by the second genocide of the 20th century: an estimated 1,7 million people died during the 3 years, 8 months and 20 days of the Khmer Rouge regime. It was liberated/occupied by a foreign country for ten years and was ostracized by the West for that. After the 1991 Paris Peace Accords it was kept breathless by a civil war which lingered on until 1998 and by political unrest. Today it still has a heavy price to pay for its reconstruction in an unbridled market economy where literally everything, from governmental property to human dignity, seems to be for sale (Cambodia is ranked nr 151 out of 163 on the level of corruption according to Berlin based Transparency International)?
The destruction caused by all those years of turmoil was not only physical. It was moral as well. The very particular and intricate values which built Khmer society over the centuries were shattered by a constant urgency to survive. The country is far from having recovered the tissue of solidarity which binds a society and which provides protection to those weaker members of its community.
Khmer Chronicles proposes to give you a glimpse of that Cambodia. John Vink won't talk about himself right away but it'll tell you a lot about what he is interested in... And you can always ask him a question. Probably he'll answer...
Cham Bakkuy, Svay Chrum district (Svay Rieng). 16/08/2007: Immunisation set up by the ministry of Health in conjunction with UNICEF. Antenatal care is also provided on the same spot. © John Vink/Magnum Photos
These pictures were made during a local assignment for UNICEF.
Established in Cambodia since 1972, but interrupted by he Khmer Rouge regime ripping apart the country from 1975-79, UNICEF, today with a staff of about 140 people, has set up a widespread range of programmes in six provinces with its usual focus on children to support the government in rebuilding the country.
The country programme for 2006 to 2010 has a budget of 92,5 million$US which will be used for the Seth Koma (Child Rights in Khmer), the Child Survival, the Expanded Basic Education, the Child Protection, the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care and the Advocacy and Social Mobilization programmes. These programmes cover an impressive array of topics ranging, among many others, from hand washing campaigns to the improvement of water quality or child-friendly classrooms, from dengue fever protection to supporting NGOs dealing with drug addiction or Buddhist monks doing HIV/AIDS prevention, from implementing a decent treatment of children caught up in the judiciary system to thorough immunization campaigns or avian influenza awareness campaigns.
The road ahead is still steep though, and several years of economic growth with double digits have by far not rendered the presence of UNICEF in Cambodia obsolete. In fact the rapid growth of the country and the ensuing increase in economic disparities among the population have made the presence of UNICEF and many other active international organizations in Cambodia even more indispensable.
Ladies and gentlemen: fire your questions...
Links:
» John Vink's website
» John Vink's Magnum portfolio
» John Vink's Magnum In Motion story "Terre Rouge"
» John Vink's feature: Cambodia. 2000 - 2002. The Quest for Land
Published on the Magnum Blog on September 14, 2007
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