25 Years On, Prosthetics NGO Changes Direction
In 1990, Pen Hoeurng was out in the field tending her cows and buffalo when the rattle of machine-gun fire erupted in the surrounding forest and she was struck by a bullet from an M-16. Ms. Hoeurng, now 48, does not know whether she was shot at deliberately or accidentally hit by fire from the Khmer Rouge guerrillas who still patrolled large areas of the countryside at the time. She lost her lower leg as a result of the wound, joining the thousands of amputees who have lost limbs as a result of Cambodia’s years of war—8,921 alone from land mines and unexploded ordnance since 1979—as well as those suffering from conditions such as polio, tuberculosis, cerebral palsy, and club foot. … Ms. Hoeurng is one of thousands of disabled people who have benefited from the work of the Cambodia Trust—recently renamed Exceed—a U.K.-based charity set up in 1989 to provide prosthetics services for landmine victims in Cambodia, with high-profile support from film producer David Puttnam and Roland Joffe, who directed “The Killing Fields.” Since 1993, she has been returning to the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (CSPO) in Phnom Penh’s Stung Meanchey district—where students learn how to prescribe, manufacture and fit artificial limbs and orthotic braces—whenever her prosthetic wears out through use and she requires a new one to be molded. But the organization has come a long way since it opened its first rehabilitation center at Calmette Hospital in 1991. As well as setting up the CSPO clinic and training school in 1994, it opened additional clinics in Preah Sihanouk and Kompong Chhnang provinces, establishing what is now a network of 16 rehabilitation centers spread across the country. … Selling 75 percent of the places in the school to overseas students enables the Cambodian operation to be 70 percent self-funded, with 12 to 14 students from as far away as Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea enrolling every year for the three-year internationally accredited training courses, living on campus in Phnom Penh. “It’s the only Cambodian institution where people come and pay to be educated; usually it’s the other way around,” [Exceed chief executive] Mr. [Carson] Harte said, adding that he sees his greatest achievement as the appointment of former student Sisary Kheng as the organization’s country director in Cambodia. …
Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/25-years-on-prosthetics-ngo-changes-direction-51761/
