This story of change pulls out the key findings and recommendations from EMERGE case study 3, which focuses on the work of KMG to eliminate female genital mutilation-cutting in Ethiopia.
Briefing
‘One hand can’t clap by itself’: Engagement of Boys and Men in KMG’s Intervention to Eliminate FGM-C in Kembatta Zone, Ethiopia
Cambodia, April 2014. Six year old Chamroeun helps his mum, Sareth, collect rubbish to sell, every day in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.
Sareth comes home at lunchtime, pulls a bundle of banknotes from her top pocket and starts counting. They add up to the equivalent of around 60 pence. Shes been out all morning collecting old cans and plastic bottles from the streets to sell in order to buy food for her family.
In October last year, Sareths six month old only daughter died after becoming sick with diarrhoea. I breastfed her in the morning, around 6 or 7 oclock, she says as tears fill her eyes, and then I went out to collect rubbish. At the time there was flooding and sewage up to here, she recalls, pointing to a waist height wooden slab, a makeshift bed where her daughter lay when she was sick. She holds her hands tightly together. We took her to the hospital but they couldnt help and she died. I feel so sad about it.
Sareth, 42, lives with her husband and three sons in an urban poor community just a stones throw from the main streets of Phnom Penh. They rent their home for £30 a month; a one room corrugated shelter, running alongside the polluted river. The overcrowded area, strewn with rubbish and defecation, is home to more than 2,700 people and its one of approximately 500 urban poor communities in the capital of Cambodia. Theres little space for children to play, and limited access to safe water, sanitation and healthcare.
Sareths husband comes out of their home clutching a photo of his baby daughter and its clear she is still at the front of all their minds. I tried to protect her from diseases but it was hard, Sareth continues. I dont understand how other children were fine, but not mine. Now I know the dangers of diarrhoea but I worry about it.
Around 50 children under the age of five die every day in Cambodia from diseases that can be easily prevented and treated, such as diarrh
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