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Public Management Program

 

Thailand & Cambodia Service Learning Trip, Winter 2006-2007

Eighteen GSB students traveled to Thailand and Cambodia to learn about and participate in service activities dealing with issues of HIV/AIDS, the sex trade, and sex trafficking. Students visited with several organizations and social entrepreneurs to better understand the problems and the solutions that are being implemented from the ground up.

Students teaching ABC's to children in orphanage

A Holistic Perspective

To gain a holistic perspective, students visited the Red Light districts of Bangkok, Pattaya, and Phnom Pehn and saw, firsthand, the demand that fuels the sex industry. Students spoke with the women that choose and those that are forced to work in this industry. In Pattaya's red light district, students, staff, and faculty alike, handed out condoms and HIV/AIDS pamphlets provided by the Population and Community Development Association (PDA). Beforehand, founder Mechai Viravaidya, presented his approach to educating the masses on safe sex using fun and humor as the vehicle at one of the for-profit arms of PDA, the Birds and Bees Beach Resort. In Thailand, he is known as the "Condom King."

In Cambodia, and just outside of Pattaya, Thailand, students spent time at local orphanages interacting with children abandoned or orphaned by parents with full-blown AIDS. While there, they danced with the children, painted a mural at the Thai orphanage, and even took the kids to the zoo. In Siem Reap, Cambodia, students met with women at the Cambodian Women's Crisis Center (CWCC) to learn more about Khmer societal norms and the prominence of spousal abuse.

Clients of the CWCC shared their experiences of abuse and explained how, with the help of the organization, they were able to escape their dangerous marriages. In Phnom Pehn, former Minister of Women's and Veterans Affairs for the Cambodian People's Party and current Secretary General for the opposition, the Sam Rainsy Party, presented to the group a snapshot of the current Khmer social, economic, and political state of Cambodia. Many of the students were surprised to learn of the chronic poverty and corruption of the State. To illustrate this, Billy Barnaart, founder of Jeannine's Children Association took the students to a village run by Hope for People with HIV/AIDS Organization. The village includes only women and their families who have been widowed by their HIV+ husbands.