photography by Rod Andrewartha
Come on a journey. A photographic journey through an ancient land. A journey with its people and with its youth in particular.
This 128-page book contains my photography in Cambodia over the last seven years. Enjoy images from my travels to the mountains in the east, the wet lowlands of the centre, the cities and temples and the coastal regions of the south.
However this book is more than just my journeys. It also tells the journeys of students, graduates and staff of the Sala Baï Hotel School in Siem Reap. Each year this school trains, for free, over 100 students in hospitality. It’s exclusively devoted to training underprivileged youths and there’s a bias towards young women since they usually drop of of school earlier and are more vulnerable.
I teamed up with writer H Morgan-Harris to produce stories of the successes that come out of this school. Meet Hun Hoeurm, whose mother died when she was 5 years old, and whose father then abandoned his seven children. Learn about Sopheap, who didn’t go to school until she was ten years old, instead scratching out a living on a rubbish dump. And there’s Kimsan, who left school at grade seven to help her family find food to survive.
Hun just graduated from Sala Baï in July 2017 and was awarded Student of the Year. Sopheap worked at a prestigious 5-star hotel after graduation and more recently at a high-end Cambodian craft company. Kimsan was one of the first graduates 15 years ago and, following work in France, Dubai and Japan, is the Executive Chef for a chain of 12 restaurants in Siem Reap.
These are just three of Sala Baï’s success stories. There are over 1000 such success stories.
The school is funded by direct sponsors, from guests staying and dining at the school and by other fundraising events around the world.
This book, Cambodian Journeys, is one such fundraiser. All profits from sales are being donated to the school via its Australian fundraising group: Friends of Sala Bai Australia (FOSBA). Our goal is to raise $70,000. Such money will pay the entire year’s tuition for 20 students.
So I invite you to join our journey: buy a copy of Cambodian Journeys below, enjoy the photography along with the amazing, heart-tugging stories, and you will be helping the youth of Cambodia realise its amazing potential.
