Leigh Ramsay
Citipointe church
322 Wecker Rd
Carindale QLD
4152
27th
July 2012
Dear Leigh
Following on from my
letters of 22nd, 24th and 26th July.
I have heard nothing from
Citipointe regarding the meeting that you suggested I have with a
representative of the church to discuss my letters of 22nd and 24th
July. It is now Friday afternoon, Sydney time, and no time for a meeting has
been arranged. C has just informed me that two representatives of Citipointe
will visit her down by the river today to talk with her about R and SM. It is
difficult not to draw the conclusion that Citipointe has decided not to meet
with me but to talk only with C.
As you have known for the
past four years, I wear two hats in relation to C. On the one hand I am a
filmmaker documenting her life, as I have been doing for 16 years now. The most
significant sequence of events in C’s life this past four years has been the
removal of R and SM from her care. How this came about is a matter of record,
as are C’s various attempts, with my assistance, to have her daughters
returned to her care. As a documentary filmmaker it is not my job, in theory at
least, to interfere with what takes place in front of my camera. My job is
simply to record what takes place and allow members of the audience to make up their
own minds regarding what they see and hear onscreen.
I am not simply a
documentary filmmaker, however. I am also C’s friend, someone whom she calls
‘Papa’ and someone who has tried in a variety of ways over the years to help C
and her family as best I could given the constraints of my own financial
circumstances. It is in wearing this hat that I have sought to find a way
whereby C has appropriate access to her daughters whilst at the same time
Citipointe continues to make a major contribution to feeding, schooling and
providing medical and dental care to R and SM. In the wearing of my second hat
I have clearly failed. C’s access to her daughters is now close to zero, which
has led to C threatening to ‘kidnap’ her own daughters and to Citipointe using this
threat as a reason not to provide her with appropriate access to R and SM. This
in turn has led C and CH (R and SM’s step-father) to obtain from their Village
Chief a formal letter of request to Citipointe that R and SM be returned to her
care.
I find it impossible to
think of a reason why Citipointe should not accede to this request of C and
CH’s unless Citipointe believes that it can argue that R and SM are in some way
at risk if they are returned to their mother’s care. I have asked Citipointe
repeatedly over the years if the church has any evidence at all that C poses a
risk to her daughters. Citipointe has refused to answer the question. It is
clear from correspondence that occurred 3-4 years ago, however, that there has
never been any suggestion that R and SM were being rescued from anything other
than extreme poverty. It is also clear from the events of the past 4 years that
whilst the church was prepared to help R and SM it had no intention of
providing any assistance at all to the rest of the family. I find it difficult,
wearing both my filmmaker’s and ‘Papa’ hats, to reconcile this fact with what I
understand to be the essence of Christianity. Surely Citipointe’s role should
have been, at the outset, to help the entire family and not just selected
members of it; to work as fast as possible towards the re-integration of R and
SM into their family as Citipointe claims on its website is its goal. I see no
evidence that Citipointe has done anything to facilitate such re-integration. I
see no evidence that Citipointe has cared one way or another about the welfare
of the rest of C’s family. There have been times this past 4 years when the
rest of the family was living on the street or in a hovel with no food to eat.
And I mean no food at all. On my arrival in Phnom Penh a little over a week ago
I noticed, very quickly, that C had a tumour growing on her wrist. I mentioned
this and showed the tumour to the representative of the church I met last
Saturday and asked her why the church did not pay the $60 required to have it
removed. Her answer to this and other questions was, “We can’t help everybody.”
This is fair enough but in accordance with Christianity as I understand it you
do not help two children from one family and let the rest of the family go without
food or medical attention. I have paid to have the tumour removed. This has not
only removed the threat the tumour may have played in C’s health but it has
also brought her some peace of mind. Your representatives, when they meet her
today, will be able to confirm from the large stitched wound on her wrist that
this operation occurred.
That you have decided to
cut me out of any discussion about the future of R and SM whilst I am in Phnom
Penh speaks for itself. However, I think you will find that the church
representatives who meet with C today will not find her amenable to being made
promises that she knows from experience will not be kept or from placing her
thumb print on any document that she can neither read nor write. She will,
however, present your representatives with a signed document, witnessed by her
Village Chief. How Citipointe church deals with, responds to, this document is
the church’s own business. Wearing my filmmaker’s hat I will record
Citipointe’s response and allow the audience to make up its own mind as to the
appropriateness or otherwise of it. Wearing my ‘Papa’ hat I remain hopeful that
Citipointe will enter into a new ‘contract’ with C that acknowledges her right,
as the mother to R and SM, to have regular contact with her daughters and to be
able to go with the rest of the family to visit relatives in the provinces. It
is not appropriate that R and SM be cut off from their extended family, their
community or their Buddhist faith.
There has been a religious
festival in Cambodia this past few days. I accompanied C and the rest of her
family to a Wat to pray, to light candles and incense, to be blessed by monks
and to celebrate. R and SM were not with the family to share this important
event in the Cambodian religious calendar – an event that is also important in
terms of family and community. Why were R and SM not allowed to accompany the
rest of their family to the Wat? And why was it, when R and SM were allowed to
spend weekends with their family that Citipointe insisted that they be picked
up on Sunday morning in time for church? These girls are part of a Buddhist
family. What right does Citipointe have to be forcing these girls to adopt a
different faith to that of the rest of their family?
best wishes
James Ricketson
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