Speak Out February 2018

Postcards from Cambodia

K iry lives in No Truck village. The family is classified as travelled six hours to bring him to hospital. Bopha has a profound hearing loss. She has not attended school. These are the people we met! So how did this journey begin? It took a year to plan, apply for grants and extend relationships with organisations promoting speech therapy in Cambodia. A successful Australian government New Colombo Plan grant for 10 students cemented the first of the two programs. Program One The hospital visits were facilitated by Speech Therapy Cambodia, one of the few providers of speech therapy capacity-building programs in Cambodia. Students learnt about the difficulties Cambodians experience in accessing health care, the lack of speech therapy services, cultural and linguistic constraints and Cambodian staff’s role in helping people with speech therapy needs. The students attended CHOICE Cambodia (a school one hour outside Phnom Penh), run by an NGO providing education and support to the village communities, classified as “extreme poor”. The villagers live in tin shacks along the river with no access to clean drinking water. We were lucky to join the truck driver and visit the villages on the “water run”. Classroom work was an opportunity for students to learn about Cambodian education and culture, barriers to service provision, socioeconomic class inequalities, the difficulties faced by the villagers and the disparity between Cambodian and Australian society. Contact with Cambodian University students was an opportunity for advocacy training. Personally, I loved teaching the students/ professionals participating in the first ever short speech therapy course at the University of Pannasastra. Overall, this program gave students the opportunity to learn about Cambodian traditions, cultures and languages, health care and service provision. “extreme poor” and cannot afford basic food, health care and education. Sokhem has swallowing problems. His family