Profiles in Caring

"Profiles in Caring" recently did an episode about the Heart Touch Project and I was asked to talk a little bit about our Cambodia trip. If you feel like checking it out, and seeing some of the other populations that us Heart Touch volunteers serve, here is a link to the episode (it seems to be taking an extremely long time to load, so you might want to let it do it's thing for a while before hitting "play")

Profiles in Caring: The Heart Touch Project

Heart Touch Video

Here is a video from our trip. There might be some tweaking done to it before it's "finished," but I love it the way it is. :)

Cambodia in Photos

NHCC headquarters: this is the chart of all the HIV+ children the organization takes care of. 127 (and counting) at the orphanage and over 800 throughout Cambodia. They feel it is important for children to be raised by their families if they have them, so they pay the children's expenses and provide medicine so that can happen.


THANK YOU, Bill Clinton (holding Basil), for providing these children with the medication they need to survive.


Basil before medication, nutrition and love.


Basil now: getting a ride from his "sister."


This little boy was always attached to his sister's side. Beautiful.








Shawnee: Heart Touch founder and inspirational woman holding one of the kids.


The first day. Some kids sat on the sidelines and watched, but by the end of the trip, they were requesting massages more than the others!


Group massaging


Love is joy.




Terry and Shre-paul.


Monique and her favorite girl.


Waiting to be picked up and held. He didn't have to wait long!


Lunchtime at the orphanage.





So much joy and love





We call him Mr. Serious, but we did get to see him having fun before we left. He received a lot of love, attention and massages from all of us.





This cutie is blind in one eye, but they got him in time to save his right eye.


To give is to receive!


Patrick's loving hands




Papa John with some of the kids.


An infant massage lesson at Happy Home: where the quilters' children attend daycare and where extremely sick babies stay while they get well enough to be transitioned to the orphanage.


Happy Home


Baby Christopher gets a bath.






One of the quilts made by the quilters.


A quilter holds her quilt. We brought them quilting books so they can make more than dogs, donkeys and elephants.


A warm goodbye from the quilters.


At the hospital.


The TB ward.


Monique massaging someone at the second hospital we went to. This hospital did not have any mattresses on the beds.


The pediatric ward at the hospital.


Working at the hospital


Terry massages a man in the TB ward.


At the hospital, after a looooooong day.


Physically, mentally and emotionally drained.


Our last day with our driver, Leap.


The Heart Touch crew

I am eternally grateful to the people who donated to help make this trip possible. Not only was the experience amazing and life-changing for me personally, but it brought a lot of joy to many different people. It also helped us to see where we are needed and what we can do in the future to create sustainability with our project and to expand it. We are not done yet!

Saying Goodbye

The taxi to take us to the airport will arrive in 40 minutes. We have said many emotional goodbyes to everyone: from the kids to our tuk tuk drivers. Our last day at the orphanage included planting 8 trees (one for each volunteer on the trip) and then we had a little ceremony with the kids where we gave each one a bracelet to wear. I will always treasure mine.

Us with one of the Heart Touch trees.

This has been an amazing experience and I am looking forward to doing it again someday--whether that will be back here or somewhere else. And I will be keeping in touch with John & Kathy, especially since they are going to offer the opportunity to sponsor children very soon (a full sponsorship will be around $160/month, or you can sponsor part of the child's costs for $40/month). Besides, we still need to complete the sustainable massage project, so this is just the beginning of our relationship with them.

You can never hold just one kid here. It's simply not possible! And why would you want to?

I will post lots of photos when i get home. And that is all I can write for now, or I will be a sobbing mess on the airplane.

My most favorite boys.

The Power of Touch

Sokhal: my favorite little guy at Happy Home

We were finally able to make a trip to see the quilters a few days ago (Kathy and John hire women who are HIV+ to make quilts that they sell). This idea came about when they started a daycare for HIV+ widows to drop off their children while they went to work. Well, when a woman dropped off her baby and came back two months later, they realized that they needed to make some changes. There is a stigma to hiring these women, making it difficult for them to find jobs, so Kathy and John created a place for them to work! And they provide the daycare for their children while they are at work.


A happy quilter

We picked up some quilts to take home with us to sell and also massaged all of the women. The first woman I worked on started tearing up and crying as I massaged her. And when I was done, she gave me 5 of the tightest hugs I've ever received and 3 kisses on the cheek. All of the women were so appreciative of the work we did with them. I think we were all tearing up before we left.


Massaging the quilters! We had a great time with these wonderful ladies.

After that, we went to a different hospital than we usually go to. We started in the TB ward and then went to the AIDS ward to massage people. We only had about an hour and there were 30 people, so we only had about 15 minutes for each of them. Sometimes when we go in with all of our supplies, we're eyed with a bit of uncertainty (and who can blame them? they don't know us!). I first asked one man if he wanted a massage and he said no, so I went to the woman in the bed next to him. He watched as I worked on her and then he was ready to get one himself. I love that. We took a little longer than we had planned to, and it's my fault. I just couldn't stand the thought of anyone there not getting a massage (if they wanted one) when everyone else got theirs. I didn't make everyone wait for too long, though!


Here I am: Working on a man in the TB ward

After that we went back to Happy Home (the daycare/transition house) and brought the kids a bunch of toys. It was amazing to see how well-received this new stimulus was! We also gave the caregivers there a massage lesson, so they can continue the work after we leave.



Life is always good when there's a baby in your arms!

And so goes another long day in Cambodia!

Project Sustainable Massage

One of the homes at the orphanage

One of our goals when we came here was not just to provide compassionate touch for these kids while we are here, but to make sure they keep receiving it after we're gone. We planned on teaching their caregivers how to massage them, but quickly realized that their caregivers are just too busy cooking and taking care of the kids to do that. In fact, we've ended up massaging the caregivers while we're here. One great thing about the games we've taught is that they teach the kids massage so that they can actually massage each other. And what's even better is that we don't have to tell them to do it--they just naturally want to and start modeling our behavior, like in the photo below.


Future massage therapist at work!

Of course, being who we are, and knowing how much these kids LOVE getting their massages, that is just not enough for us. So now we are working on hiring a massage therapist for the orphanage. John & Kathy will find someone and we will train them in various modalities so they can work on the adults and the kids. We will also pay their salary and their living/food expenses at the orphanage (this works out to about $150/month). And we can continue training them when we return, and also implement this program in other orphanages around the world. When we approached John with the idea, he absolutely loved it, and actually went a step further in suggesting that we might turn it into a training for some of the kids too (AFTER they finish high school), so they can get jobs in town as massage therapists. Sounds good to us!


Naptime for the kids

It is so helpful to have these uplifting ideas and experiences while we're here because it can get extremely emotional. I actually had my tearful breakdown at the TB hospital yesterday and I was the last one of the group to have one. It can just be really heavy, hearing about children whose parents told them that they (the kid) gave their parents HIV, or kids whose parents died and when they were picked up at a relative's house by the orphanage, the relatives barely glanced their way as they left. Or the little girl who stopped taking her medication because she was told that nobody would ever love her, so she decided she would rather die. Then there are the kids who look years younger than they really are due to the fact that they failed to thrive in their early years (that's what happens when nobody touches a baby/child). And those are only a few of the stories. I just can't even think about them when I'm with the kids. I actually forget that they're HIV+ when I'm with them too. And that's definitely a good thing.


Penny and Patrick take a little break while the kids eat lunch.

Volunteering

Í have had a few people read this blog and ask me how they can get involved in a global outreach like this. So, instead of answering many different times, I figured I would put the answer here. And, unfortunately, I don't know how much help my answer will be!

There are soooo many orphanages in Cambodia. In fact, on our first night here, we ran into a group from Australia who was visiting another orphanage near ours. The man who runs it is also from Australia and invited us to come by anytime. Hopefully we'll make it there before the end of the trip. So...if you are looking for an orphanage to volunteer with, just start looking! But definitely do your research because sadly, a lot of people just want the money and donations that come with having an orphanage and end up starving or depriving the kids and keeping the money. John & Kathy are actually supposed to get 16 kids from one of those places in the next week or so. But keep in mind that not all volunteering involves working directly with the kids (if that is what you are looking for).

As for my specific trip, I am here with Heart Touch Project. Heart Touch does about one international trip a year (previous trips included India and Thailand). But to become a volunteer with Heart Touch, you have to live in the Los Angeles area and be a certified/licensed massage therapist. Once you go through their training, you have to commit to one year of working with hospice clients (it is very helpful to have this previous experience before coming on a trip like this). You also have to take the Children's Program Training, so that you are trained to work with children and infants who have special needs. And on top of that, you should probably become a Certified Infant Massage Instructor (which 3 of us on this trip are). THEN you can apply for an international trip with Heart Touch. Things could change in the future, but that's how it works right now!