Mr Su shows us around the Athi Smor San pagoda, explaining that SCC (Salvation Centre Cambodia) works with Buddhist monks to implement HIV prevention and care activities.
The aim is not only to educate the community, but also to make monks key agents on which people can rely, and trust talking with about problems related to HIV.
People come to the pagoda to learn and ask questions about HIV, and the monks can provide answers, advice, mental and spiritual support,
The monks also try to create a more compassionate attitude among the community members towards people living with HIV.
When asked what motivates him to do humanitarian work, Mr Su (who is the programme co-ordinator in Siem Reap) says: “Without my faith, I would not be able to do this work.”
He goes on to explain that he is the only one in his family who survived the Khmer Rouge regime.
The last words that his father spoke on his death bed were: “After this is all over, may you have no nightmares in your sleep”.
During the communist regime that followed the Khmer Rouge regime, Mr Su fled and worked as a nurse in a refugee camp in Thailand at the border with Cambodia.
There he witnessed his first HIV cases and felt compelled to provide support to people living with the virus.
He says: “HIV is an insidious enemy. When one enemy (the Communist era) left, another (HIV) stepped in.”
Posted by Marleen
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