Written by Lisa Cummings, Photography by Claudia Quigua
Just four kilometres outside the famous Angkor Wat temple in Siem Weap, Cambodiam, lies villagers who are hard at work to provide for their families. While there is very little money in this region, there is a lot of empathy. Grace House Community Centre is a registered Cambodian NGO that serves three villages through supporting families by providing them with healthcare sanitation, clean water, dry homes, safe electricity, and micro homes.
Grace House understands that the people in these villages are hard-workers who just need resources to reach their greatest potential, therefore the resources, Grace House will provide. At Grace House, English is taught to over 270 students each and every day. The organization also provides bag of rice to each family that is nutritionally deficit and lunch to children who do not consume a substantial meal every day. But, more than that the organization aims to teach the locals how to be successful using the given resources. Grace House aims to provide water filters to the families that retrieve water from a water pump, help to repair the palm leaves homes of many of the children. Alongside helping families repair their homes, a domestic electrician course is run to educate locals on the dangers of using electricity incorrectly. Within the course the students, learn how to properly install and maintain the wiring in the village homes.
Grace House has allowed the villagers to thrive, and photographer Claudia Quigua has documented just that.
Her photos highlight the dignity of the people and the will to keep going and bettering themselves and their families through proper use of the resources allocated to them.
About the Photographer: When in Cambodia, Claudia Quigua aimed to give a voice to those who did not have one. She says she enjoys working with PWB because her main focus when selecting an organization to work for is selecting one that is working towards positive and social change through the power of images. Her photos are designed to cultivate empathy across cultures and to share the stories of those that need to be shared.
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