Helping Cambodia rise

Posted: 4th November 2004

Sister Luise Ahrens with Dr. Neth Barom, vicerector of Royal U. P.Penh, survivor of the Khmer Rouge

Maryknoll team addresses the needs of the Cambodian people, from before the cradle to after the grave—by Bernice Kita, M.M

Nov 01, 2004 - Only two professors and 36 students were still alive and able to return to the Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia after the murderous Khmer Rouge's four-year reign of terror ended in 1979. The regime closed schools and universities, sending educators to farm communes or to prison and death. Of those with a high school education, only 15 percent survived. The once proud Royal University stood in ruins.

In 1991, after completing her term as president of the Maryknoll Sisters, Sister Luise Ahrens accepted the Cambodian government's invitation to help rebuild the nation's largest and poorest university. "Without books the students cannot learn," states Ahrens, who holds a Ph.D. in English literature. "The library is a priority."
Royal University of Phnom Penh Royal University of Phnom Penh Vice Rector Dr. Neth Barom, survivor of a Khmer Rouge work camp, appr
Her 12 years of tireless efforts have helped produce the country’s best library. Housed in a new building, the library holds 45,000 volumes, 65 percent of them in English. "The library is open eight and a half hours a day, six days a week. It is packed with students every day, all day," Ahrens says.

"Book reading has become very popular at the university," adds Sister Mary Little. "Students can't get enough of it." Little studied Khmer and joined the university staff in 2000, bringing her master's degree in languages and experience of teaching English in Tanzania, South Korea and China. She started an English language lending library with gratifying results. "There are kids taking out four books a week," she reports with delight.

Little and Bill Burns, who is on leave from Sogang University in South Korea, mentor young Cambodian teachers in English. They meet weekly with groups of teachers to review and plan classes and look ahead to curriculum changes.

Fifteen foreign volunteers and 15 Cambodians teach 1,600 students a year in the three-year English program, which receives funds from the government and benefactors of both the university and Maryknoll.

Vice Rector Dr. Neth Barom, one of seven faculty holding doctorate degrees, views the university's 6,000 students as Cambodia's hope, since only 1.2 percent of the country's 13 million people attain higher education. Neth definitely wants Maryknoll to continue its staff support. "We have a good program of English," he says. "It is the global language, especially for Asia."

Ahrens agrees. "The hope of Cambodia is a generation of young people who can read and speak English as tools for life, educated people who can demand that the government perform."

Education is also key for Sister Regina Pellicore, who, besides school-related projects, takes a learning program to the streets to reach those not in school. The mobile school is so popular that all it needs to do to gather students is drive to a spot. Once its staff of Cambodian teachers pulls out a tarp and spreads it on the ground, children appear and eagerly begin learning. "We are participating in rebuilding the foundation of the country, by keeping children in school—from the little ones through university students," says Pellicore, a teacher by profession. "We are bringing the Gospel to the poor."

Father James Noonan brings the Gospel to the poor in other ways. The former Superior General of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers began working in Cambodia in 1991 as chaplain to the foreign Catholic community, which consists mainly of volunteers working for relief agencies. That year the first cases of AIDS were reported officially, and soon the dreaded disease was on everyone's mind.

After a preliminary study, the group asked Noonan to start an AIDS home-care project. "I had absolutely no background," says Noonan, "but I knew you don't have to know how to do something; just find people who do. It was a learn-as-you-go project." Each need exposed another, and now Noonan coordinates a multiplicity of HIV/AIDS-related projects serving more than 1,700 people under the Seedling of Hope umbrella. He readily credits others for starting several of these projects, as well as organizations such as CAFOD, CRS and Caritas-Switzerland for their sponsorship. "A big part of the ministry is networking with every other group or agency to help change the system to be more serviceable to clients," he says. Yet Noonan remains a true pastor, visiting, counseling and consoling people living with HIV/AIDS and their families.

Article Source: Maryknoll website - by Bernice Kita, M.M