After leaving the dump, we head to a school called “For the Smile of a Child.” It was started by a French couple who came here, saw these kids working in the dump, and decided to do something about it. It is an amazing operation! We arrive as lunch is about to begin. The littlest ones eat first. They file in, wash their hands, and are given rice, fish stew and vegetables. The rice and fish are provided by WFP. Compared to the scene at the dump, this place seems like heaven. Things are clean, the children are washed and happy, and there is plenty of food for everyone.

The next stop is a local hospital where TB and HIV/AIDS patients are treated. The hospital is a worn-down building with dilapidated rooms, most of which do not have doors. It is the type of building that would have been abandoned and razed in the United States. We are greeted by a team of doctors who briefly explain their jobs in treating patients and distributing medicine and food.

We are then led to the top floor where people infected with both TB and HIV/AIDS are being treated. We visit with women lying on small metal beds, three to a room. They look at us through glassy eyes and speak a bit with the doctors. I have never seen anyone so emaciated in my life. They are skeletons covered in a thin layer of skin and wrapped in clothes. It made me feel so helpless to see these people on the verge of death. The doctor later tells us that out of the estimated 160,000 people in Cambodia who have HIV/AIDS (that is about 2.7% of the population) only 4,000 can get funding for treatment. The people we saw are the lucky ones, because with the combination of the medicines they receive from government funds and the food rations given by WFP, they have a chance at prolonging their life if nothing else.

Today has been a mixture of contradictions… from hope to despair, vitality and youth to the ill and dying. The vacillating emotions, situations, and experiences have left me shaken and exhausted.

The students here are educated, taught proper hygiene, and given a decent meal (maybe the only one they would have all day). They are allowed to rest after lunch (in case they don't get much sleep at home). When the students are old enough, they are taught a practical trade such as cooking, hairdressing, waiter skills, and more. The school astounded me with the number of kids it was rescuing from a future of picking trash.

The school is privately funded, except for the food aid provided by WFP. Food aid also plays a key role for the parents. Not only are their children given a meal in school but the parents are given a food ration as well, which then gives them incentive to send their kids to school instead of to the dump. Education, like food, is something I have been fortunate enough to take for granted. I have always gone to school, except when I could cunningly avoid it on certain days. For the children at “For the Smile of a Child” school is a chance not only for survival, but also for success. A very noble mission indeed…