Elia Van Tuyl found a second career at an enormous garbage dump outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He watched children scavenging, then saw 11 of them move to an orphanage to be housed and educated. He decided to make that orphanage his cause.
Van Tuyl, a former real estate appraiser, was in Phnom Penh in 2005 to document the efforts of a social philanthropist who funds projects in Southeast Asia. When he returned home, he made an 18-minute documentary about the Centre for Children’s Happiness. CCH was opened in 2002 by Mech Sokha, whose parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge. It houses 115 girls and boys. Many are orphans, but some have parents who are simply too poor to raise them. “These kids look so good and so happy, but this orphanage is the only thing between them and complete destitution,” Van Tuyl says.
“It’s not just shelter and a meal,” adds Halimah Van Tuyl, a fourth-grade teacher in Palo Alto who accompanied her husband on a monthlong trip back to CCH in 2006. The children get lessons, including instruction in English and traditional Cambodian dance.
One of the Van Tuyls’ goals is to help CCH stabilize its finances. When CCH takes in a child, it makes a commitment to support the child until age 18, at a cost of about $600 per year. The Van Tuyls started a fund-raising organization in the United States, Friends of CCH.
The Van Tuyls brought 200 books to the orphanage, and the children now want to start a mobile library so they can read to children still at the dump. “I find it very moving that these children that came from poverty are going back to poverty to help,” Elia says.
A looming challenge for the center is what will happen to children when they turn 18 and leave, with no family support. The hope is that some can go to college, while others learn skills such as motorcycle repair or sewing.
Elia’s film has been shown at the Woodstock Museum Free Film & Video Festival, received a juror award at the Berkeley Small Film Festival and has been shown on local-access cable stations. “CCH came to life for me when I went there,” he says. “I’m trying to make others feel that connection.”
