When Scott
Neeson told me in an email that CCF had provided a new life for Ka and Chuan
back in their homeland I had no reason to disbelieve him. I was a little
confused, however, as another source told me that Ka and Chuan were still
working at the dump. I would discover a few months later that this was so.
 |
| It is photos such as this that Scott Neeson refused to allow me to give to the family |
25th Sept 2011
EMAIL TO SCOTT NEESON
Scott
Some questions/observations:
A man gives some photos of
herself, her sister and her parents to an 11 year old girl in the crowded
courtyard of the CCF. Please explain to me what the risk to her safety is
inherent in this scenario?
Fair enough that you have a
duty of care to Sokheng but CCF could have availed itself of the opportunity to
ask her parents if a visit from me would be appropriate or not.
I was told that Patrick was
in Bangkok so, given that I was not going to Bangkok, the 'selfless' option of
giving them to him was not available. And why, as a friend of the family,
should I give the photos to Patrick when I could give them to the family? This
family is not your personal plaything. The days of colonialism are well and
truly over - except when it comes to some NGOs in third world countries who
adopt paternalistic positions of the kind adopted here.
You write "You are
welcome to contact her parents and we took no action to prevent you doing
this." but this was not Patrick's position at all. And, in any event, I
don't know where they live now. As it is not possible to go into the new dump I
can't contact them there (if, indeed they live there) and I have no idea where
they live. I am sure, with the photos and a bit of leg work I will be able to
track them down if they still live in or close to the dump. However, good
manners and common decency could have been applied by CCF to assist me in this
in contacting the rest of the family. These have been sadly lacking from
the outset in my communication with both Patrick and yourself.
You write,"Having
Sokheng remain on the garbage dump with her family may have fulfilled your
vision of a life-lesson on the human condition." Scott, there is a lack of
logic in this sentence, indeed in the whole paragraph of which it is a part,
that I find puzzling. You have clearly not read what I wrote carefully or you
have projected onto it what you wish to project for your own reasons. The
suggestion/implication that I would want the family to continue to live in the
rubbish tip is nonsense and not worthy of further comment. I spent enough time
in the dump, in the family 'home' NOT to be blissfully unaware as you suggest.
And, as someone who has been supporting an entire very poor family for 16 years
to the best of my ability (along with helping many others) I have a pretty good
idea of what extreme poverty and all that goes with it looks like and how it is
experienced - insofar as this is possible for privileged people such as
ourselves who can go back to our hotel rooms after a day at the dump, have a
hot shower and then go out and eat a decent meal in a restaurant.
If you have given the
parents of Sokayn and Sokourn (my phonetic spelling) the wherewithal to stop
working in the dump and to be self-supporting in their province, CCF is to be
congratulated on having done this for them and, presumably, for the parents of
other children being taken care of by CCF. If they are no longer working at the
dump and are back in their province then there is virtually no way of my
finding them. As it happens, my present for them was intended to help them get
out of the dump and to help them establish their lives on a more secure footing
back in their province but, since CCF seems to have achieved that goal, there
is no shortage of other extremely poor people who are in need of financial
assistance.
As for my being a 'voyuer',
Scott, on what do you base this judgment? What do you know of me or my films?
What do you know of the approach I have taken to my filming in Cambodia? What do
you know of the people I have helped whilst in Cambodia over the past 16 years?
Nothing. And yet, on the basis of nothing but your own preconceptions, you pass
judgment!
As for the coda I referred
to earlier (and I admit to my own naivete here) I had presumed that it would be
to sing the praises of CCF and the work that it does in helping families such
as Sokayn's make new lives for themselves. At this point I have no real idea
what CCF actually does. Yes, I have looked at your website and it all looks
terrific in theory - but then so too do the websites of all NGOs - some of whom
do not do as well in practice as their theory suggests. As you will be aware,
some NGOs keen to rescue kids have no desire to rescue their parents; some NGOs
keen to rescue kids have a religious agenda; some NGOs that rescue kids keep
them till they are 17 and then return them to the lives they were rescued from
without the skills necessary for them to survive in the 'real' world of
Cambodia.
Apart from thanking Ka and
Chourn for allowing me to film them, apart from giving them my thank-you gift,
I also wanted to hear from them how their lives and those of their children had
been transformed by CCF. You have blocked off this possibility so all that I am
left with is that my contact with the family has been blocked by CCF.
If you wish to clarify
precisely what CCF has done for the family I will include this information in
my film - whilst making it clear at the same time that CCF would not allow me
to glean this information from the family itself but only, as it were, from the
CCF publicity department. The audience can make what it will of the factual
information at its disposal.
best wishes
James
 |
| Ka, at the end of a day's work |
I never did
receive a response from Scott Neeson to this email.
26th Sept 2011
EMAIL TO PATRICK MC KINLAY
Dear Patrick
There has been some
communication between myself and Scott this past 48 hours that you will, no
doubt, be aware. Here's what Scott has to say about contacting Sokayn's
parents: "You are welcome to contact her parents and we took no action to
prevent you doing this." This contradicts somewhat what you have
written here. But even if you and Scott were working from the same page the
question remains: Why prevent me from contacting Ka and Chuan? Or, if you want
to be very cautious, ask them if they wish me to know how to contact them.
As it happens it seems, from
what Scott has written, that they are now living back in their province and no
longer working in the dump. Why didn't you simply tell me this and save
yourself, myself and Scott the time and energy that has gone into these emails?
If you want to give me a couple of sentences relating to the assistance that
CCF has given to the family you can rest assured that it will be included in my
documentary.
cheers
James
I received no
response from Patrick to this email.
17th October 2011
EMAIL TO SCOTT NEESON,
PATRICK MC KINLAY AND OTHERS AT CCF
Dear Scott, Patrick and
others at CCF
A major international
broadcaster is interested in buying my Cambodia film - a record of my last 16
years of experience in that country. I will be writing a book about these also.
As you are now all well
aware, one of the stories in my film has to do with the family I met and
befriended at the Phnom Penh rubbish tip. Whilst it may not occupy a lot of
screentime it is a story that will, I feel sure, touch the hearts of viewers
and have potentially millions of them wondering where Sokayn, Sokurn (my
spellings) are now. What became of them? The only information I will be able to
provide viewers, journalists and readers of my book with are what has been
conveyed to me in our email exchange of last month - in short, nothing. If this
is what the Cambodia Children's Fund wants, so be it, but please don't
complain, when the film is broadcast worldwide, that I have in some way
misrepresented CCF.
On my next trip to Cambodia
I will put some effort into finding Sokayn's parents but, if I fail in this, I
will place the money I intended to give to them, into a bank account to be
collected by Sokayn when she is 18 and is free to make decisions for herself as
to whom she may associate with, maintain contact with, and who she cannot. In
the event of my untimely demise I will make sure that it is clear, in my will,
that the money in this account is intended for Soakyn when she gets to be 18.
It will not be hard for her to find me through google or whatever its
equivalent may be in 7 years.
best wishes
 |
| Sokouern (green skirt) talks with dad, Chuan as Ka secures bag full of plastic bags. Sokayn, on the right, looks on |
17th Oct 2011
EMAIL FROM PATRICK MC KINLAY
Hello James,
I hope you will make it
clear in your documentary that you did not make contact with CCF in advance,
turned up announced and asked for contact with a girl in CCF's care
and also asked to be given contact information for her parents. If you think
being denied the immediate access you sought, to girl and information, is
unreasonable, then so be it - I suggest that child protection agencies are
likely to disagree with you. To my own knowledge it is illegal in
certain jurisdictions to provide such access and information unless objective
checks are carried out beforehand. I hope you will also mention that we
offered to pass on whatever it was that you wanted to leave, which would have
allowed us to check on your links with the girl and the family. You did
not respond to the offer and instead assumed the position that you were being
denied some right of contact. You are free to take whatever position you wish,
but CCF, even at the cost of some inconvenience to the impatient, will continue
to put child protection first and will not accept any avoidable risk purely to
mollify the demanding.
kind regards,
Patrick
17th Oct. 2011
EMAIL TO PATRICK MC KINLAY
Patrick
My documentary is not of the
kind that goes into such detail. Audiences don’t care ne way or another about
the minutae of what you describe. From an audience's point of view they will
meet a small family and share some intimate moments with them via film. They
will be curious (as I know from experience) to know what has become of the
small family. All I will be able to say is that CCF has denied me access to the
family and that I have no idea what has become of them - other than the fact
that Sokayn and Sokurn are now being cared for by CCF; that I have no
idea whether or not their parents are still working at the new tip. In my book,
of course, I can go into more detail. Not is a doco, however, in which this is
but one of many stories.
Cheers
James
 |
| Sokayn wants her mum and dad to buy her an egg - a luxury food item for a family as poor as this one |
17th Oct 2011
EMAIL FROM PATRICK MC KINLAY
James,
A request from a stranger
for immediate access and contact information does not strike me as minutia, but
as the heart of the matter. However, have it your own way, as you intend.
regards,
Patrick
 |
| Ka, Sokayn and Chuan eat eggs |
17th Oct 2011
EMAIL TO PATRICK MC KINLAY
Patrick
As is clear from this email
chain, you have a wonderful capacity to ignore the facts or to cherry pick them
to justify your rigidity. As you know, as I have written a few times now, my
visit was exactly the same as many others I have made at a time when these
protocols were not in place. You could quite easily, at the time, have
checked with Sokayn's parents whilst I was in Phnom Penh to ask if they minded
if I visited her and her sister, but you chose not to.
Fortunately the sequence of
events/conversations is on record so both CCF and I have a record of who wrote
what and when. Indeed, Scott has given me a wonderful new first line for my
book: "You are a voyeur."
I'll try one last time to
get a few of answers:
- Are Sokayn's and Sokourn's
mother and father still working in the Phnom Penh rubbish tip?
- Why have Sokayn and
Sokourn been separated such that they live in different CCF residences? My
footage speaks of the closeness of their relationship.
- Does CCF provide financial
assistance to the entire family or only to the two members of it that live in
CCF establishments?
These are the kinds of
questions than an audience will be interested in - not the rights and wrongs of
my turning up unannounced (as I had many times before, with no problem) to give
some photos to an 11 year old girl! Really Patrick! This is paternalism of the
worst kind.
If you don't want to answer
my questions, fine. You will certainly not be the only NGO in my film to refuse
to answer questions of the kind that audiences are interested in. I'll let the
audience know that the questions were asked. It will be up to individual
members to make up their own minds as to what such a refusal means.
cheers
James
 |
| Sokouern shares her egg with Sokayn |
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