Hand Up, Not Hand Out
Hand Up, Not Hand Out
We have finished House #96 and #97! We are on track to finish our 100th home before 2024! So exciting! We even have House #100 funded thanks to our sponsor’s generous support. If you were one that offered a helping hand, thank you!!
We may have finished two new homes recently but it was #96 that really tugged at our heartstrings. Let us tell you a little about the family now living in the taller, more oddly shaped house that is #96.
During COVID times, a young woman (we will call her Pech here) came to us for food assistance. (You might remember when we had to pivot our operations to help families through those dark days. So many of you donated, enabling families like Pech’s to have some food to eat.)
When the worst of the COVID days were past, Pech came to us for help with baby formula and a bike, and we slowly began to learn more about her family and living arrangements.
Pech and her children had lived with her mum, but for various reasons, this went south, and she had to move in with some Aunties. She was with them for about five years but knew she needed to move her family into better conditions if she could find a way.
A distant relative had a very small piece of land that was so small and oddly shaped that she had decided she could not use it, but if Pech could use it to build a house, she would deed it to her. She returned to us to see if we could build a house for her. After completing our due diligence, we confirmed that she met the Heartprint home criteria.
Of course, we could not build a house on the land just because her relative said she could. Pech needed the title, showing she was the owner. So we sent her to get the official paperwork.
Dealing with official bureaucracy can be frustrating in any country and Cambodia is no exception. A misspelled name or a different phone number can cause a problem. She was back and forth four or five times before everything was correct, but she was determined to make it happen. Finally, she owned the land! Her road to ownership was a long and winding one, but she made it.
Her land was so small and oddly shaped that we had to build a house that went up instead of out - but Pech and her family are happily ensconced and feel even better knowing how much work Pech invested in making this a reality. Finally, even her estranged mother is back in her life and happy for her. We have found that a new home often brings families together in ways that were impossible when they felt under huge financial pressure to help with living arrangements for multiple people.
There is a lot of pride in helping to pay for what you receive. Even if it’s not monetary, as in Pech’s case of giving her time and “sweat” equity. To that end, as you know, we started a savings scheme for the kids in our Community Centre some time back. They receive tokens for various accomplishments and can use them to purchase items when we open our Heartprint Store to them. Many of them have learned to save for larger items - or just for a rainy day - rather than always spending what they have in the “bank.”
Our Community Centre kids had been asking us to provide water bottles and we could obtain a good quantity through a donation. However, rather than handing them out for free, Pheap asked how many would like to pay for their bottle with their earned tokens. Almost all of them wanted to buy their own. The pride on their faces nearly matched the pride on Pech’s when she was able to move her family of five children into their new home.
Hand up, not hand out.
A hand-up at Heartprint also includes the physical body, not just the physical home or a water bottle. That’s why we recently had a health check in our Community Centre from a group of volunteer doctors and nurses. They checked hearts and respiratory systems, BMI (too many low due to malnutrition), and provided medicine and direction to some who were discovered to need extra help, like the four-year-old who brought herself to the makeshift clinic with severe bronchitis.
No one thing is separate from the others. Everything is so interconnected. Only when you are here and have the time and the experienced team to follow the connecting strings can you fully understand the depth of all the needs. We are making a real dent with your commitment and the commitment of so many volunteers.
Thank you.
