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An Introduction to the BagBag  A Report about Helping Hands Cambodia, Prasat Char Village, Human Trafficking, the 

Community Income Generating Initiative, and the  Bag  Bag 

It is with great excitement that I would like tointroduce the BagBag, a unique handicraft madein a remote Cambodian village from recycledplastic bags.

Helping Hands Cambodia (HH) is a Cambodianregistered NGO which operates under theumbrella of the Global Development Group(project J213), an Australian NGO whichmaintains certification through the InternationalOrganization for Standardization (AS/NZS ISO

9001:2000).

In March 2008, HH beganimplementing a CommunityIncome Generating (CIG)initiative to foster economic,social, and skill-buildingopportunities in the village of 

Prasat Char. HH launched theCIG initiative by inviting all thevillagers to attend regularlyscheduled group meetings inwhich they could obtain basic

math and business skills. Over the period of three months more than 20 villagerssuccessfully acquired the theoretical knowledgerequired to take the next step and to beginproducing locally made goods. We thencarefully considered all of the resources thatwere readily available in the village. Productdesign and development began by employing alandmine victim with crocheting skills, Gea, toteach her fellow CIG members how to createthis unique handicraft using locally obtainedplastic bags that were traditionally discarded or worse were burned as trash.

Helping Hands Cambodia HH strives to build the capacity of individuals,

families, and villages through 15 projects in thefollowing four program areas:

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Capacity Building Helping people help themselves

Holistic

Education 

 Education is power;

Prevention is the best 

medicine

Work/Study

for Goods 

Opportunities to earn

material goods that 

enable people to help

themselves

Community

Income

Generating 

Planting seeds of 

economic opportunity so

 people can make a

choice about how they

want to live their li e

 

Safety Net

 Specific relief 

situations when people

are initially unable to

help themselves

HH’s comprehensive approach to community development includes well-definedprojects, clear methods of implementation, and measurable outcomes. For thepast three years, HH has been working in Prasat Char and perfecting thesestrategies. In time, this approach may be replicated in neighboring villages.

Prasat Char Village, Duon Kev Commune, Siem Reap ProvincePrasat Char is made up of 190households with 1,450 people and

located 18km northwest from SiemReap. The villagers have minimaleducational opportunities. Thegovernment school has Grades 1 and 2,and its two teachers have very limitedtraining. As unskilled workers,employment opportunities are limitedto dangerous construction work thatrequires a two-hour bike ride each wayto booming Siem Reap and pays

$2/day for women and $2.50/day for men. 34% of Cambodians live on lessthan $1/day, the vast majority living inrural, isolated villages like Prasat Char.

Parents struggle to meet their families’nutritional, medical, and hygienic needs.45% of children in Cambodia areunderweight. One in five children dies before their fifth birthday and one in six

women dies during childbirth. Over two-third of the households in Prasat

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Char cannot harvest sufficient rice to feedthemselves and are required to purchase rice atsome point during the year. The UN Food andAgriculture Organization listed Cambodia as one of the top twenty countries, and only one of two Asian

countries (the other being N. Korea), which are theworst affected by the rising costs of rice. Thevillagers are the most vulnerable members of analready over-exploited populace, and live on themargins of society with little access to markets andfew opportunities to earn income.

Human Trafficking Hits Home 

In March 2008, UN’s SIREN called for an “urgentneed” for more legal employment opportunities for Cambodians. Due to a lack of employment opportunities and inadequate ruralfarming options for supporting their families, villagers often seek employmentelsewhere. As a result of illegal, irregular, and uninformed internal and cross- border migration, people are vulnerable to traffickers.

In April 2008, Prasat Char was visited by a so-called “ngo” promoting anopportunity for women between 16 and27 years old to pay US$80 to go toThailand to learn sewing. The so-called“ngo” was mainly interested in “the

pretty girls.” CIG members giggled asthey recalled how they proudly statedthat no one in this village was interested because they already had an incomegenerating opportunity within their ownvillage through HH. Fortunately, HH

had been communicating closely with the commune leader who encouraged anyvillagers who were considering this opportunity to join HH’s CIG group instead.

The Community Income Generating InitiativeHH created and implemented a curriculum through regularly scheduled meetings

in order to develop group members’ skills and confidence through:1.  math and numeracy

training2.  team-building activities3.  handicraft training4.   business-skills workshops

Cambodia’s tumultuous past hasdecimated core values: thecentrality of family, Buddhisttraditions, and respect for elders.By working collectively, groupmembers strengthen their 

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community roots and attachmentswhich allows them to cooperateand become more productive andless vulnerable.Through this cooperation, the

group created a daycare to ensurethat mothers who are usuallypreoccupied watching their children have the opportunity toearn money through handicraftproduction. This division of labor allows everyone to move forward.

Those with special talents can excel but they still must depend and reinvest in theentire group to succeed. Further, each group member has the freedom to choosetheir work schedule so it can fit the patterns of their daily life, especially duringthe farming season.

The BagBag Each BagBag is unique and is composed of a collection of recycled plastic bagsgathered throughout the village and neighboring communities. The project hastwo main objectives:

1.  to enable each artisan to gain sufficient income and independence so thatthey can make their own choices about how to live their lives

2.  to improve the overall health and environmental conditions in the village by recycling what was previously considered trash and preventing the burning of plastic which creates hazardous and noxious fumes.

Since the CIG initiative beganmany CIG members who are singlemothers are now able to regularlyfeed their children. Other CIGmembers are daughters from largefamilies who are able to earn extramoney to go to school and supporttheir brothers and sisters. One boyis saving his money because he ispassionate about studying medicinesome day.

Each bag plays a pivotal role ingiving someone the opportunity toearn an income. This seeminglysmall investment radically improvespoverty and hopelessness in thevillage and replaces it with hopeand dignity.

 For further information, please contact: Meaghan Messner 

meagsindevelopment@gmail.com