“Sights and memories forever engraved in our hearts.
Drawings and games. Our reflections in their eyes, dark eyes full of innocence.
Their little hands in mine.
The love in what we do so that they can know tenderness in their despair.
For a week we become a big brother or a big sister.
A forest of hands held up to us, children who just want to be carried.
Once in your arms they ask for kisses, more than we are able to given them.
Often they get angry with each other, these kids raised through violence,
Having never known anything better in their whole lives than this vile dump.
They grab your fingers and won’t let go when you walk away;
Shouting “hello” and pressing themselves against the railings when you arrive;
Gently stroking your legs when you are sitting next to them;
Climbing on your back like little monkeys when you are standing up;
Dancing when the music plays;
They paint your face with flowers, sun, patterns when you give them a pen;
They come and settle down between your legs when you sit on the ground;
They tug you and lead you to their class when it’s time, arguing sometimes to monopolise you;
Clinging to your clothes and your arms in which they have found refuge when it’s time for you to leave.
They are smiling …
But there are still so many of them at the side of the road; child labourers, little stone breakers, rubbish collectors, orphans, sad and abandoned.
We need support, your support, to help them so that they can have the education they deserve, so that they have every opportunity to succeed in life.
It is your actions, your donations that brighten their days and bring them happiness.
Unfortunately, our trip is over; we are back at home. But the fight against poverty is a daily struggle that everybody should be involved in.
And the best way to do it is to support the smile machine that is PSE.”
This is the moving testimony of one of the 23 FIS students who went to Phnom Penh during the CNY holidays to visit the charity Pour un Sourire d’Enfant (PSE). These young sponsors of PSE, aged between 7 and 17, spent an unforgettable week with the 6,500 children rescued and educated by the charity. They brought along almost 1,000kg of donations (clothes, sport kits, shoes, baby equipment, wheelchairs, games, musical instruments, etc.) in addition to the HK$10,000 collected in FIS over previous months through initiatives such as bake sales, notebook sales or bottle collections. Moreover, to finance the showing of Xavier de Lauzanne’s film “Les Pépites” in December, they appealed to the generosity of FIS students and teachers and collected more than HK$2,000.
Watch the movie of the experience here