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| Daughters of Cambodia - A Place that Lifted My Spirit |
Daughters of Cambodia - Of all the places I have visited during my stay in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, this was the place that I enjoyed visiting the most and it lifted my spirit.
Daughters of Cambodia is a place for young women rescued from the sex industry. The organization provides these abused women with love, support as well as training to help them gain employable skills so that they could start a new life for themselves.
Young women rescued are encouraged to develop their skills in the area of baking, sewing, spa services, cashier and retailing experiences.
The Daughters of Cambodia store is located in downtown Phnom Penh, right across from the palace.
It is a three story building with a main floor retail shop that sells clothing and costume jewellery items beautifully handmade by these women.
The jewelry items are modern and tastefully designed.
The shops also sells small and large fabric handbags dyed with natural colours such as berries.
I bought a well made fabric handbag at $28.00 and I know I will have a lot of mileage out of that sturdy handbag.
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| A Spa - Serves Female Customers Only |
At the back of the retail store is a Spa that provides massage and manicure and pedicure services to female customers only.
On the day of our visit, we saw two white women having their manicure and pedicure done while a third was waiting. The price was very reasonable: U.S. $ 5.00 for each service. What a bargain price indeed!
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| One of the women providing a manicure service to a customer. |
A male customer inquired at the counter about having his feet massaged but was politely informed that the Spa provides such services to female customers only.
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| 2nd Floor Video Room |
On the second floor is a video room for educational purposes. We were on a very tight schedule during that visit therefore we did not have time to sit down to view the video.
A cafe nestles on the third floor of the building with comfortable western style furniture.
There are two sets of patio furniture on a small but well shaded restaurant balcony for those who love the sun and heat.
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| Paintings Decorated the Wall of the Cafe |
Patrons, mostly tourists and expatriate could order a home made delicious lunch, western style food at around ( US$ 5.00 - 7.00) each plate or a coffee with delicate dessert pastry. at $2.00 each.
We all ordered a different lunch dish plus an ice cold smoothies made with fresh local fruits. Mine was a pineapple passion smoothies, delicious!
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| A Nice and Relaxing Environment to Enjoy a Coffee or Lunch |
The cafe is equipped with free wifi, where one could surf the net, work on whatever projects or choose just to relax.
There was a lady sitting at the back hunching over her computer with a coffee on the table. She was there before we arrived and still there when we left. She looked pretty relaxed.
Since I have been in Cambodia, I have seen how both the rich and the poor live. The disparity is glaring. In a society that has gone through so much violence and devastation, it is taking a little while to recover. In the meantime, the poor and powerless, especially, women and children are the ones who suffer the most.
Someday, I wonder how much can I do to help this ravaged country and its innocent people. Visiting Daughters of Cambodia has given me hope and inspired me to do what little I could to help the people of this country. There are many NGO's here doing their parts to lend assistance. Regardless how little we can do, I do hope that I would be able to persuade my husband, family and friends so that we will be able to do volunteer tours and lend our hands in the near future!
R.T. Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Nov. 23, 2012
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