Area students discover Cambodia

By JACK PALMER

palmer@crescent-news.com

Two young alumnae of Defiance College on Thursday shared their experiences in Cambodia with a group of area high school students and Rotarians.

"Despite their poverty, the people of Cambodia were so gracious. I never felt threatened at all," said Renee Chaffee, a 2007 DC graduate. "They just wanted to tell their stories."

"They have the same emotions as we do," added Jennifer Creighton of Evansport, who graduated last weekend. "They still love and care for each other. They were some of the nicest people I've ever met."

Their poignant remarks were made as co-keynote speakers at the grand banquet for the 23rd annual World Community Workshop, which runs through Saturday at Defiance College.

The workshop is sponsored by Defiance Rotary Club, Rotary District 6600 and the McMaster School for Advancing Humanity. It provides young people with an opportunity to learn about history, customs and economic and political issues of a selected area of the world.

Chaffee and Creighton reflected on their experiences in Cambodia as part of the McMaster School for Advancing Humanity program. Chaffee worked at the Cambodian Women's Crisis Center, where she addressed domestic violence as it relates to women and children to assess whether they were receiving adequate services.

"I interviewed women one-on-one," said Chaffee, who will receive her master's of social work degree next week from Case Western Reserve University. "That was the part of my life when I knew I wanted to work with women and children who had been victimized."

Chaffee also discussed "the Killing Fields," a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the totalitarian communist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79. These locations were the subject of a 1984 movie of the same name.

"It was very surreal being there," she said. "It's scary to know this happened in my lifetime."

Creighton's project involved the natural forms of birth control, since Cambodia's past unrest has made the use of and methods of obtaining medicinal forms of birth control difficult.

Her research took her to CycleBeads, developed by the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University.

"I wrote training materials about how to use the beads," said Creighton. "They have a 95 percent effectiveness with correct use and 88 percent effectiveness with typical use."

She said she observed a wide disparity of wealth and poverty in Cambodia, often right next to each other.

"On the streets you would see people pulling carts and others driving Land Rovers. The middle class were the people that had huts with shutters."

The workshop resumes today, when students will break into small groups and develop a presentation covering a certain aspect of Cambodian history, customs, economics and politics.

All presentations will be held Saturday morning.

"Rotary is in many countries and our mission is world peace and understanding," Rotary 6600 district governor David Daugherty told the students.

"I'm glad you are here. Make the most of it."