Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 05, 2008, Winnipeg, Manitoba C m y k Page 1 perspective editor Buzz Currie 697 7577 Buzz. Currie free press. My. Ca i Winnipeg repress. Com sunday october 5, 2008 b 1 Send news tips and photos to tips free press. My. Ca for breaking news go to Winnipeg repress. Com s Iem reap Cambodia David Shoemaker a nurse from Winnipeg stumbled upon siem reap during a Volunteer trip to Southeast Asia in january 2000 and decided to return to continue his efforts. Hers still there. Siem reap site of the architectural wonder of the world angkor wat shows cambodians tentative Steps toward economic growth. When i first saw it in 2004, siem reap seemed to be another Dusty town with a great attraction slowly emerging in the global tourism Market. When i revisited it a year ago billboards were promoting new shopping malls and cellphones and hotels were competing with Aid groups for real estate. It has helped that a decade has passed since pol pot died quietly in the Jungles of Northern Cambodia. Brother no. 1 and his Radical form of agrarian communism enforced by the dreaded Khmer Rouge brought the country to its Knees. No one is doing More than Shoemaker to get it Back on its feet. What has kept me Here for so Long quite simply it is the people the doctors nurses housekeepers and the rest of the staff at acc angkor Hospital for children Shoemaker said. I have never experienced a country where the people want so desperately to learn and improve. Sheila Anzarut the wife of a neurologist from Vancouver who has volunteered Here since 2007, says of Shoemaker David is without a doubt the face of angkor Hospital for children for both the staff the volunteers and for the Many visitors and donors who come into Contact with him. He is the person who instills us with so much passion for helping. And help is so badly needed. For every 1,000 babies born in Cambodia 22 or More die in their first month and 66 before their first birthday. Another 17 die before their fifth birthday. Poverty is a Large part of the problem More than a third of 14 million cambodians earn less than 60 cents a Day. Walking with Shoemaker through angkor childrens Hospital is a stirring experience. Everyone we pass along the Way has a smile or a respectful nod for him. Every morning he tells me the emergency room is filled with crowds of children and tired parents. We encounter a Canadian Volunteer play therapist Liz Harrop Archibald surrounded by smiling children cutting out paper crowns and making fish mobiles for them. Their smiles Are the Reward i suspect that keeps humanitarians like Shoemaker Harrop Archibald Able to carry on. Shoemaker tells me that his first year Here there were about 10,000 visits by families to the Hospital about 25 or 30 a Day. By 2007, that number had increased to Over 100,000 visits an average of 350 400 children each Day. The increase in the number of tourists since i was first Here reported on various websites is staggering. From approximately 500 in 1985, 600,000 in 2005, and with a predicted 3 million tourists coming by the year 2010, More than half of them visit siem reap. It is hard to believe that the tourism Boom its estimated to bring $ 600 million to Cambodia in 2010 is actually hurting the survival Odds of its children. Beyond the five Star hotels and fancy restaurants however tourist dollars have not filtered Down to the people who need it most. Continued please see Cambodia b2 Winnipeg nurse helps restore a shattered nation 0 100mi 0 200km phenom penh siem reap Gulf of Thailand c a m b o d i a Vietnam Thailand Laos 0 100 i 0 100 pm David Shoemaker in the crowded waiting room of angkor childrens Hospital in siem reap Cambodia. Cambodia Asia Australia Story and photos by Rick Friedlander an Angel in Cambodia a 01_ oct 05 08_ Smyk. Ind b1 1 0/ 4/ 08 9 39 17 pm ;