H.O.P.E RECONNECT — Wat Damnak & Caring for Cambodia
LIFE & HOPE ASSOCIATION · CARING FOR CAMBODIA · Roads & Villages · 2007
Two schools. One morning. Ten minutes apart by tuk-tuk. And the roads in between.
At Wat Damnak — once a royal palace under King Sisowath, now one of Siem Reap's most important pagodas — young women were learning to sew at the Life & Hope Association. Founded in 2005 by the monks of Wat Damnak under Venerable Lorm Loeurm, LHA was still in its early years when I visited. Scarves and bags embroidered "Good Luck LHA" were stacked on tables. The students were among the very first cohorts — sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old. Today, LHA runs five programs across Siem Reap province — including the sewing school, a girls' education program, a children's development village, and community work — touching the lives of hundreds of families.
Down the road, at a primary school supported by Caring for Cambodia, children in white shirts with the CFC logo ran toward the camera. Dozens of them. Bare feet on red earth. Founded in 2003 by Jamie and Bill Amelio, CFC was building back what the Khmer Rouge had taken from a generation of Cambodian parents — teachers, classrooms, meals, a reason to stay in school. Today, CFC operates 21 schools across Siem Reap province, serving 7,000 students from preschool through 12th grade.
Between the two schools, and afterwards, the road kept going. Village paths. Market stalls. Children running out of houses. Mothers waving from doorways. Grandmothers on temple steps. Tuk-tuk drivers stopping to share tea. Faces I will never forget — and faces I now hope to find again.
The children in these photographs were between five and eighteen years old. Today they are young adults in their mid-twenties to late thirties. Some may be teachers now. Some may have children of their own attending CFC schools.
A note on these photographs. Many of these images are still in colour — and that is intentional. Sometimes a face is hard to recognise after twenty years. But the colour of a school uniform, the pattern on a dress, a familiar toy in someone's hand, a corner of a market — these can trigger a memory that a face alone cannot. And the adults in these photographs matter just as much as the children. A grandmother. A neighbour. A teacher. A market vendor. They may recognise themselves first, then help us find the children who once stood beside them.
If you recognise anyone — a face, a uniform, a shop, a corner of a road — please fill out the form below. Every identification matters.
© Ludovic Cazeba / CAZEBA 2007 — All Rights Reserved
Do You Recognize These Children?
You scrolled through the photographs. Did you recognize someone? Fill out the form — it takes two minutes. Every name helps us reconnect.
