The eighth lecturer of the Global Career Lecture Series was Sem Savantha, the founder of the NGO “Angkor Association for the Disabled (AAD),” which supports Cambodian landmine victims. He talked about his own experience, from his loss of his both legs, through to the founding of the NGO, continuing up to the present.
At the beginning, 25 12th graders (third grade high school students) greeted Mr. Savantha in Khmer. Then, in order to better understand about landmines, they experienced a simulation of landmine removal in a simulated minefield that was set up in a corner of the classroom.
With a metal detector, they tried finding a full-scale mock landmine buried there and then to remove it without setting it off. It was more difficult than they had supposed, and each student could better understand how dangerous and difficult it is to remove landmines.
A staff member from Peace Boat, an international NGO, also explained about landmines because Mr. Savantha’s NGO has been working with Peace Boat.
After the students had a basic understanding of landmines, Mr. Savantha started his story.
He was sent to the front as a soldier in the Cambodian Civil War, and had his both legs blown off by a landmine. He talked about the pain and grief he felt, and when he said that he was desperate enough to point a gun at himself the students were stunned by his calm explanation of such a terrible story.
He talked, at times passionately, about his suffering having continued after coming back from the front, and about the his process of overcoming it. He said, “after I was injured, I suffered frombad medical treatment, and I had to ‘beg in the street’ to survive because I couldn’t work. And in order to get out of the situation, I worked hard at learning English by myself and running a tiny shop.”
Through that experience, he established the NGO, and has been working with the belief: “one can only do small things, but by gathering many small actions together, we can influence governments.”
He emphasized that along with his physical injury, mental damage caused by unemployment or discrimination is also a serious problem. “My dream is that disabled people can live and feel happiness the same as healthy people,” said Mr. Savantha with a big and kind smile, which showed his warm personality. Now, 11 years after the NGO was established, it delivers a lot of results in the improvement of victims’ lives.
By listening to Mr. Savantha’s story directly, the students intuitively received a silent truth through their heart from his human energy, the strength of his belief and his presence.
After the speech each group of the students talked about and decided what they wanted to hear from Mr. Savantha, and asked him. His reply to the question “what do you do to get rid of disabled peoples’ anxiety?” was “I motivate them to believe that they can live a respectable life by studying. I told them, it’s ok. You can do it.’” All of the students responded very positively after hearing his words.
Finally, all the students took commemorative photos with Mr. Savantha, and hoped for his further success.
