History
In 1995, Dr Gary Hewett OAM and Dr Neil Hewett, a medical doctor, volunteered their services for a 2 week medical mission along the Mekong River in Cambodia. During this trip Gary was moved by the tragedy and need in the nation, and hence founded Awareness Cambodia.
The original mission of Awareness Cambodia was to establish medical support teams to assist the nation's struggling health system. From 1996 onwards, short term teams would visit on a regular basis. However, in 1999, a team member reported on the numerous children orphaned as a result of AIDS. They explained that often the child was left to live on the streets because their extended family's feared contracting AIDS, and hence wouldn't care for them. At this time, 50% of the Khmer population were 25 years of age and under, making this a significant problem. This led to the establishment of Sunshine House.
Read more about this topic: Awareness Cambodia
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)