The Mayor recently spent two weeks in Cambodia on a volunteer engineering trip organized through a church in Gig Harbor, Washington. He went along with an architect and a facilities manager, and the three of them prepared a master use plan for a 7.5 acre site in Cambodia near the Thai border. They also designed and drew up plans for traditional Cambodian-style housing at the site. The future plans for the site include a school, community center, and agriculture training facilities.
The group that they went to assist, Cambodian Hope Organization (CHO), is a local group with 34 employees that is dedicated to stopping child trafficking along the Thai-Cambodian border. The group already has economic development, education, and vocational training programs, and the housing the Mayor helped design will serve children who have been involved in trafficking and need a place to live so they can get out of the trafficking cycle and participate in the CHO vocational training programs.
The picture shows a group of boys, all formerly involved in trafficking, who are learning how to repair motorcycles. When they finish the program, they will be able to get microloans to start their own business, giving them hope and control over their future.
