Take Back The Night

What is take back the night your wondering well it’s a big deal on college campus around the us. The objective is to spread awarness on violence against women and stop blaming the victim. Aka when a girl walks home if something bad should happen they often are told well you should not have been out so late etc we try to think about what the victim could have done differently instead of focusing on the perpetrator. Why this was one of my bigger under takings how to explain Cambodia number one blames women for everything and I kid you not when I brought up this to jentee and she read my flyer she was like well girl Cambodia no walk alone at night why would she do that the bad things would happen to her that would be a problem idea.  Well she speaks eng and is really smart so for her to think that right their shows what a hurdle I knew this whole project was going to be how could I tailor it to get Cambodians to come and understand why gender based violence is an issue in Cambodia and that men need to take an active role as well. Well how I went about it was the family aspect and offered prize money and free fruits. In the morning I was bugging it was dead the other volunteers who were helping me were not in yet and on top of it Peace Corps informed me they were gonna stop by to take pictures eek the pressure was on. What is a girl to do the only thing she can I hit the market pavement gathering as many people as I could it did not totally work it did start enough of a buzz and then what ended up happening was parents were sending their kids for a chance to win the 5 dollars. What I learned is that I wasted days walking far into the rice fields bc until I bothered them that day they did not come and massive time was wasted on the chams I guess I need to stick close by and move whatever im doing close to the people other wise it will be a no go. Having the kids was cool though bc they have less social barriers to break down and I was surprised how honest they were on the shirts. One thing me and my friend liz talked while planning this all was how much would they really put on the shirts bc in Cambodia they are brainwashed to what is proper etc but these kids put stuff about sex trafficking in Cambodia a lot of men drinking and beating their wives even some moms hitting kids. I am not a psychologist or whatever however their shirts symbology really fascinated me time and time again they drew the mom so small and she was always on her knees begging with the cultural way of palms together and most of the men had beer cans and either a stick of knife in hand. Their were two winners one was of a girl requesting gender equality it was the more unique and the other was of a man hiding behind a tree about to rape a little girl it really looked creepy and so much like this kid really saw this. Only down side to kids coming was they were not the target so the things I had planned where for more adults so that had to go out the window As I have said other volunteers came to help and seriously this event would not have been possible if it was just me once men where involved in including one Khmer man (thanks pon) just all the help with planning and implementing made all the difference. Peace corps showed up to see the tbtn and my new house as well as my health center my site is pretty awesome bc its small but still has a lot going on which is something I talked about with one of my bosses. Anyways they also got pictures of me in front of my breast cancer awareness poster I guess to keep on record no sure about that.  Kyle who was one of the people helping had a ton of information on hiv and aids and why cheating on your partner is a bad idea which added a great touch. Andy had his students in takeo draw pictures which we made into a big poster drawing more on lookers. Over all the daytime part went not as accepted but pretty good for the type of education I was doing. Well at night was the next hurdle because I was having speakers come and a candle lighting, issues one was that my director told me I could use the microphone however gave it to the village health volunteers next was would people come back for the announcement of the winner once again me and the 4 Americans all went to the market to gather people. This time even more people came to the speech part including MEN I know this does not seem like that big of a deal but for Cambodian culture this really is a miracle and everyone was actually reading the gadc stuff we had. Since the beginning of the week people have now been coming back up to me wanting copies and more information so while it was nerve racking and I never knew exactly if I was being understood or heard it all paid off to know that I helped educate my village in equality!!!! Till next time peace out from the other side of the world!