{"id":895,"date":"2011-06-29T14:25:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T21:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/?p=895"},"modified":"2014-05-14T15:29:32","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T22:29:32","slug":"youth-star-volunteer-helps-bring-positive-change-to-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philborges.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/29\/youth-star-volunteer-helps-bring-positive-change-to-community\/","title":{"rendered":"How One Volunteer Reduces Domestic Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

While in Cambodia, Danielle along with Ashlee Larsen, a Brigham Young graduate student, accompanied Stirring the Fire founder,\u00a0Phil Borges<\/a> as he documented the work of Youth Star<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Underway with Youth Star<\/a>, our first stop was at a community of 10 villages about 2 hours away from Phnom Penhcalled Cheungdeung. We were warmly welcomed and hosted by the Community Chief, Mr. Seng Marm. Chief Marm had heard about Youth Star from another volunteer in another village. As a leader committed to supporting his community, his interest was piqued. Just as the volunteers are thoughtfully selected, the communities interested in hosting a volunteer go through their own application process to make sure they are a good match. Chief Marm\u2019s application resulted in volunteer Theara Chhay (pronounced \u201cTierra\u201d) coming to his community several months later.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Villager coming home for the evening.<\/p><\/div>\n

Theara is a recent university graduate who took on the challenge of living and working in a rural community for a year. In Cheungdeung, one of Theara\u2019s projects was creating a youth club. This club became a vital place for frank discussions and positive change. Theara led the youth in topics around domestic violence<\/a> (DV) and healthy relationships as well as the importance of staying in school, especially for young girls. He identified youth with natural leadership tendencies and worked with them to help them become youth club leaders and teachers of younger members.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Theara conversing with a villager.<\/p><\/div>\n

One of these youth club members is 18 year old Taing Im (pronounced \u201cTangim\u201d). She is the oldest child of four and the key person in abetting the domestic violence at home. Through the youth club curriculum she learned about domestic violence. As a child growing up witnessing DV she was suffering as many children do: her grades were slipping, she was becoming listless and unmotivated. But through the youth club and its activities that focused on DV, she found new resolve to broach the topic and show her parents how much it was affecting her.<\/p>\n

Theara was also getting to know her and her family situation better at this time. He started doing home visits and talking with her parents. Her mother, Phun, had been married 18 years. The abuse was emotional and verbal with the husband, Ron, yelling and threatening a lot especially when he drank. He would also beat her and leave her bruised and battered, eliminating any doubts the neighbors or other community members might have had about what was happening. The pain of it all would crest for Phun, motivating her to go to her neighbors just to talk to someone about it even though it filled her with shame. Her neighbors\u2019 explained to her that it was because she had bad karma that the DV was happening and encouraged her to try and make it work despite the escalating violence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Phun and her youngest daughter.<\/p><\/div>\n

Like so many places around the world, domestic violence is considered to be a private family matter even in the face of this glaring statistic: globally one in three women is abused in her lifetime. Not only is the victim traumatized, but the children witnessing the violence are too. As this pattern of power and control – the core of domestic violence – is a learned behavior the inter-generational cycle of violence is then perpetuated unless intervention, or early prevention, occur.<\/p>\n

Taing Im became involved with the youth club that introduced and talked about DV and established a trust relationship with a safe person: Theara. Theara also introduced other successful approaches to this touchy subject including a public forum with a speaker focusing on DV; a hugely popular drama put on by the kids about domestic violence and finally a community contract drawn up by the community as a promise not to commit domestic violence from that point forward.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Village kids from the youth group.<\/p><\/div>\n

What worked for Taing Im\u2019s family to help reduce the violence from her father was the following: she herself got educated about it, she participated in the DV drama that her parents saw and were profoundly impacted by, Theara made enough home visits and got to know them well enough to talk with both parents about it and encourage both to change because of how it was impacting the kids and, they made the promise to stop the violence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Taing Im after our interview.<\/p><\/div>\n

As someone who works with DV survivors every day I had to ask myself how I could bring back or integrate these successful solutions to my geographic\/cultural area. The essential piece that I think we, in the US or Seattle, lack is the sense of accountability from the perpetrator. In a small village such as Cheungdeung one\u2019s life and activities are public knowledge and when the community stands up together to say no to DV, then everyone is holding each other accountable.\u00a0 With our ease of anonymity in the Seattle area there are many avenues to avoid accountability and sources condoning violence against women, such as the availability of pornography, video games,\u00a0prostitution and\u00a0trafficking.\u00a0 Standing together as a united front\u00a0to say no to\u00a0DV here has yet to happen.<\/p>\n

I am grateful that I was able to encounter a family that has made positive changes and meet a young woman with so much strength and integrity that she helped end her family\u2019s cycle of violence. She has inspired me that positive change is possible and with that in mind I will integrate this spirit into my work.<\/p>\n

Next you’ll meet Samphors, the only female Youth Star Volunteer that we came across. . .<\/p>\n

Youth Leadership for Violence-Free Communities<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Empowering and engaging youth as actors for change is a fundamental but underemployed approach for ending violence against women and girls. Youth Star Cambodia<\/a> <\/em>is an NGO that provides Cambodian university graduates an opportunity to gain experience and develop their civic leadership skills by working as volunteer interns in underserved rural areas. With support from the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women<\/a>, Youth Star Cambodia enlisted 20 university graduates for a year-long volunteer service in an education and youth-led mobilization programme to address domestic violence.<\/p>\n

Working with youth and other community members in districts across rural Cambodia, the volunteers created space for dialogue and education on values, sexual rights and gender relationships and sparked community action to prevent gender-based violence. While the youth volunteers themselves gained a range of skills and experience in mobilizing youth for action and change, the youth credited the programme with improved relationships, decreased violence, a sense of value and place in their communities, and increased school attendance.<\/p>\n

The UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women<\/a>, managed by UN Women<\/a>, is a leading source of support for local and national efforts to end violence against women and girls. Join the UN Trust Fund in this vital work\u2014for more information on how you can support the UN trust Fund click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While in Cambodia, Danielle along with Ashlee Larsen, a Brigham Young graduate student, accompanied Stirring the Fire founder,\u00a0Phil Borges as he documented the work of Youth Star. Underway with Youth Star, our first stop was at a community of 10 villages about 2 hours away from Phnom Penhcalled Cheungdeung. We were warmly welcomed and hosted… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133,22],"tags":[259,266,122,267,268,263],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-documentary-training","category-stirring-the-fire","tag-cambodia","tag-domestic-violence","tag-violence-against-women","tag-volunteerism","tag-youth-club","tag-youth-star"],"yoast_head":"\nHow One Volunteer Reduces Domestic Violence - Phil Borges<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.philborges.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/29\/youth-star-volunteer-helps-bring-positive-change-to-community\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How One Volunteer Reduces Domestic Violence - Phil Borges\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While in Cambodia, Danielle along with Ashlee Larsen, a Brigham Young graduate student, accompanied Stirring the Fire founder,\u00a0Phil Borges as he documented the work of Youth Star. 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