Ravuth's Story

My name is Huot Ruvuth. I was born on 08 th March 1992 in Kandal province. I am the youngest boy in my family. I have two brothers and two sisters. I have only mother left, my father passed a way as a result from high blood pressure when I was 4. 

One of my brothers is working in Phnom Penh as a Factory worker. He earns about 60 $ per month and he finished his education at 8 th grade. My other sisters and brother are working at countryside in Kandal province at present.  

Since I was born until I was 8 years old I always worked hard with my family at the countryside as a farmer. When my father was still alive, he worked very hard to support my family. Every day he was working with palm tree by getting its sweet water to make palm sugar. Sometimes he did not work at all and that meant more problems in my family, since he always gathered with other drunkards in my village and other villages and got drunk. When he came home he always hit me and other family members, especially my mother. Sometimes my mother got nervous breakdown, because of her depressions. I tried to stop my father from hitting my mother too, even though I could not even help myself. After my father passed away from high blood pressure, I felt very sad and so disappointed because he was my father after all; and he was the one that could help my family when he was not drunk. I knew already that after my father died I had to work harder to improve my family life style, however it did not change and the situation was getting worse and worse every time; because everyone in my family were uneducated people so we had no proper jobs to do. After that I committed myself that I must go to school and study very hard to change my family situation. My mother said “Your are right my son, you have to study hard and get a very high dream to become a good person to help our family and other poor families in Cambodia.”, after my lovely mother advised me I felt very confident and I never gave up on what my mother wanted me to do. When I was 6 years old I was enrolled to study at first grade in Ang Proch primary school, which was about three kilometers far away from my house. I always walked to school with my friends in my village, I still remember that when my first week at school I was very happy and glad to study in that school, but after a month I felt very tired. The school that I went was very far after I came back home I felt like my legs broke or could not walk any more.  

Even the trip was a challenge I always tried my best to go to school, because I always kept being hard working as my mother told me to. After school I always tried to do more homework exercises with my mother, brothers and sisters. I was an outstanding student in my whole school so I got a lot of presents such as books, pens, pencils, school uniform from my teachers, and especially I made a lot friends in my school. After I had been given those present I felt like someone was giving me hopes and made me more confident with myself. When I came home with many different kinds of new things my mother and my siblings were wondering at me and they thought that I stole those things from somebody or begged from someone. When I told all those good news to my mother she was very proud of me, and appreciated me with a huge smile to show that she was very happy.

I loved my mother’s smile so much because I have not seen her smiling a very long time, as most of the times she cried. I told myself that I must make my mother happy and change my family condition so when I entered to second grade I got number two out of fifty five students in my class again, my teacher was happy and selected me to be a student leader in my class. I enjoy leading people because I could help them to do the right thing.  

Life at countryside:  

I and my two brothers and two sisters got up at 4:30 in the morning to clean my house such as cleaning my cow cottage, chickens, and brushing my yards. After that I went to the rice field with my family without any breakfast as the same as other families. I and my sibling regularly went to the rice fields as a group, and with other farmers too. Along the way I always tried to get some fruits to eat from wild trees or plants, because I was very hungry. Soon we arrived at the rice field we started to work altogether. I was the youngest and the smallest among everyone so I carried bunches of rice for the workers. Sometime I cried because some of the farmers were shouting at me and each bunch of rice was very heavy so I worked very slowly; however I must worked because they paid me and my siblings to work.

When the time was twelve o’clock, I and everyone came back home. Along the way home I swam across the river and I also caught crabs, snails, fish, and got vegetables to cook for lunch at home. Those animals and vegetables gave me energy so I could work in the afternoon. In the afternoon, I left my house at 1:30 to the plantations and grass fields with my friends for taking care of cows and cutting grasses to the cows to eat at night. I remember that when I was hungry it made me very tired and I had no energy to work. I told my siblings that I could not work and I felt sick one of my siblings brought me home for taking a short rest.

When my mother was sick I always took care of her for full time. Sometime I did not have any money to buy medicines for her so I worked harder to earn money from people in my village. Sometimes some of my neighbors came to visit my mother when she was sick, but some other neighbors they did not care because they were rich and they were looking down on my family. I was not angry at them, because they all were not educated people.

However I really loved my home at countryside. At countryside I got fresh air, natural fruits…and wild vegetables and my family. 

Life at the landfill,

I and my family moved to the garbage dump landfill in 1999 as a garbage picker. Garbage dump landfill is located in Steung Meanchey, out skirt of Phnom Penh city. My family went there only in the summer because during summer we did not have anything to do. People lived there were low-income earners and most of my neighbors back at home it was a slum community with many different kinds of people from rural areas who did not have any jobs, and had come to work in Phnom Penh city. The dump itself covered about 6 hectares (a hectare is 2 and 1/2 acres, approximately). It was flanked by private property on which rubbish pickers built makeshift huts and are charged extortionate rents by landowners. Roughly 2,000 people, about 600 of which were children, lived and worked there. At there, I got up at 5:30 in the morning to pick up recycling things such as plastic, Aluminum, empty can, left rice, cement bag…and among all of them aluminum was the most expensive.  I regularly got 2000 riels ( equivalent to U.S $ 0.5) a day as I was a small kid and my mother got 12000 riels ( U.S $ 3) a day.

I got so many problems in Steung Mean Chey. I faced with gangsters because they always took money from me by force and sometimes they beat me very hard so my blood came out. One more problem is sickness, when I stayed there I was always sick by polluted and bad environment. I did not have good food and hygiene drinking water, and I always worked without breakfast too. I thought that the place was in hell because it was so polluted, and there was always violence.

The special time for me when visitors came and shared foods or cakes to children or adults. CCH and other foreigners shared breads with meat and it was a great food for me, which I had never eaten before. I really loved those foods so I took some for my mother. When CCH did that I have noted that they would come back again with food for children and villagers there. In 28 th September 2002, CCH came to the landfill to select some children for staying at the orphanage. When CCH asked about my life, I told them honestly about my real life condition of my family. They were interested about my background. In 3 rd October 2002 they came to the landfill to take me to visit CCH.

CCH staffs explained me everything about the general activities and especially the focus on education such as Computer, English, Japanese, and other skills so my mother decided to bring me to CCH. My mother was very happy because it was my dream that I had told her long time ago. After I came to CCH, my mother left the hellish place to go back to my homeland and she said she would not come back here again because she already faced a lot of bad experiences.  

Life at CCH:

Since I came to CCH I never feel sad because all the teachers, staff and people in the organization were very kindness and helpful. They always tell me to try to study hard and want me to get higher education.  After a week I felt so sad because I missed my mother, brothers, sisters and countryside. When my teachers saw me like that they always keep looking after me and gave me some foods to stop crying. After a month my mother and brother came to visit me and asked me so many questions about orphanage situation.  So when I answered all the questions she felt very very happy because all the answers were about the CCH activities. She was joked at me that “Do you wanna go back?” than I said No immediately. It was so lovely that my family came to visit me and talked to me.

All the CCH activities and skills are very interesting such as Computer, Construction, Electronic, Mechanic, Music and more….. Among of those skills I interested Computer because it was nice and people used very very easy. Any way I heard that Computer is very useful in Cambodia and all-round the world too.

I decided to be a good businessman of Information Technologist. I interested in this dream because I think that the world is developing very fast and all jobs are using computers to control. I would like to study in this function because as an information technologist I could use my knowledge all over the world. For my career, I would like to use my information technology skills to support the work of civil society and NGOs in Asia.

My responsibility at CCH:

Management Team: is a group of young children join together to help the younger children such as take care, solve kids problem, communicate with foreigners, general meeting, and other activities. In this programme is helping the young people to learn more about the leadership and how to help each other. In the other hand, they could run CCH when they finish their education.

Computer Training: We made this project to support young children by teaching them to know more about computer. I have finished two classes which were about 30 students. It was very hard because most them did not know English well. However everyone has been completed and succeed of the course.

CCH Photojournalist: This is a very important project which training five children at CCH and CDCC to become a professional photojournalist and know how to work as well. This project was created by Mr.Elia and Ms.Halimah Vantuyl. Actually I was a leader of the project so mostly I explained and translated about using Cameras, Computer when they were not clear. Before this project we had finished another project called Smile Project. By the Smile project, we were taking a lot of photos along the roads, markets, countryside, pagoda, Garbage Dump and some activities at CCH.

Road Show: is the main project of CCH. In the case of the project is supporting to the abilities of the children and share the education to others children at the village or slums in Cambodia such as protection of the child trafficking, abuses, violence,… I was a member as an actor and also responsible for photograph.