Phymean hands out the eggs

In the UK there’s an old saying,”an Apple a day keeps the Doctor away”, this has been adopted here in Cambodia for the children of the PIO school, but using eggs and a daily multivitamin suppliment tablet.

Vitamin Content of Eggs: Eggs are rich in vitamin B, especially vitamin b12, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E and vitamin K. It should be noted that very few food items that contain vitamin D, egg being one of them.

Health Benefits of Eggs: The nutritional value of eggs makes it good for immunity, strong vision, treatment of macular degeneration, cataract treatment, skin care, nervous system, strong bones, and blood formation. Recent research has also shown that consuming eggs does not lead to increase in serum cholesterol levels.

The Kids Love Them

Partially sited Lady at Stung Meanchey, Cambodia

Only after having taken this image did I start to think about how many blind people I have seen in Cambodia, especially elderly people. It’s estimated that over 120,000 people are blind in Cambodia, half of those from cataracts.Cataracts mainly affect the elderly, causing eventual blindness due to clouding of the clear lens that enables the eye to focus, it is a long term degenerative process but it can be treated.

“In a normal eye, light passes through the transparent lens to the retina,” he said. “The lens must be clear for the retina to receive a sharp image. If the lens is cloudy from a cataract, the image you see will be blurred.” Dr.Nuch Sarita

Sadly also, there are lot of people coming in their mid-20s who are blind from vitamin A deficiency, who could be refered to as being Pol Pot’s children, because they had a diet of rice gruel, totally deficient in fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, and their eyes were destroyed.

“The only effective treatment for cataracts is surgery, which is recommended when cataracts begin to affect the quality of life or interfere with the ability to perform normal daily activities,” he said. “Cataract surgery is successful in about 95 percent of all cases, with improved vision.” Dr. Nuch Sarita

. ”there is a patient subsidy system in place to ensure the poorest of the poor have access to quality eye care services. Over time, as trust in the public eye health system grows, more people will use the services and enable a tiered pricing system, whereby wealthier paying patients subsidise the treatment of poorer patients”.FHF Foundation

Phnymean Noun,Exec Director PIO with Dr.Robert P Renner

All is not lost when people such as these give their time and resources so readily to help children that are most at need. Two agencies. and individuals, that fit together admirably to try to meet some of the needs of children of less than fortunate circumstance are People Improvement Organization (PIO) and Kids International Dental Services.(KIDS)

A Dental Volunteer with (KIDS)

Dr.Bob (Dr. Robert P. Renner),is a retired Prosthodontist, a professor Emeritus at The University of New York at Stony Brook and he leads a team of volunteer dental professionals and people from all walks of life that want to assist in providing the services. It certainly an international team and during my short visit as a witness to their work I met members from Japan, the USA and the Netherlands.

Dr Renner explains the reasons for the existence of his team are to ”provide pro-bono dental care to impoverished children in developing countries. There are children in the world who will never have dental care that we take for granted unless we provide it. Most of these children have never seen a tooth brush”. We have treated the children at (PIO) over the last few years and will continue to do so as long as our services are required. We have recently started visits to the Philipines also. This is dentistry at it most basic, conducted in ”Mash” like circustances with very few home comforts but the kids get the treatment they so badly need and the young professional on the team benefit also by gaining experience and confidence.

” We provide dental care to children in orphanages where they come after being abandoned by parents, family members. They are forgotten children of sex slavery, dead parents of AIDS, gang violence, street accidents. We have seen and treated over 1000 children during our stay in Cambodia”.

Volunteers on the KIDS team

The People Improvement Agency (PIO) set up by Phymean Noun, to help educate children on the dump site at Stung Meanchey,Phnom Penh, in Cambodia is just one of the places that gives us a platform to do our work, the children attending the PIO school and the Orphanage it runs close by get dental treatment and free toothbrush.

” Most days we treat between 100 to 200 children. On the bright side, the cost of providing basic care to these children is less than $3 per child for treatment that would cost over $30 per child if performed at the health unit. So far we are personally committed to providing regular care to these children. We try to encourage young local dentists to partner with us and understand our American spirit of volunteerism. For a dental program in a developing country to be successful one must partner with a local agency and involve the local dentists/government”.

” Educating the children themselves and helping them learn the importance of daily dental care will in the long term reduce the number of dental problems in the future and will hopefully be passed on to the next generation”.

Kids waiting patiently to see the Dentist

” Obviously our services cost money and we are always grateful for donations and support. Anyone able or wishing to donate something, no matter how small can do so here (DONATIONS) or if you would like to offer your service as a volunteer why not visit out site at KIDS ”.

Little girl talks to the Dentist