Author: Charles Dittmeier

Notable Quotes

 

 

“We should cease to imagine nuclear weapons as tools for us to manage, but rather as a curse we must banish.”

~Fr. Drew Christiansen, at the November, 2017 Vatican conference on nuclear weapons

Social Security in Cambodia

Several years ago, Cambodia started to develop a social security system for the welfare and protection of its citizens.  It was implemented just three or four years ago with the introduction of a scheme to care for workers injured on the job, what would be called workmen’s compensation in the United States.  This year a second phase is being rolled out, a healthcare plan; and a third phase, old age pensions will be introduced a few years from now.

Because the plan is relatively new and not well understood, an official from the National Social Security Fund came to Maryknoll today to speak to representatives of the Khmer employees of Maryknoll’s six projects.

The ministry actually called this meeting–a relatively rare instance of the government being proactive–but they were late for their own meeting so the Maryknoll staff from different projects used the time to get to know each other better and discuss some common issues.
When the ministry official did come, he spent 2+ hours explaining the program and answering questions from the staff who must now go back to their projects and repeat the explanation to the staff under them.

Website Troubles

I’m currently in southern Cambodia with all of our Deaf Development Programme staff from three provinces, for a staff “retreat,” a chance to talk about some of our values and policies and at the same time allow the staff to meet and enjoy each other.  I have a good Internet connection in the building I am in at the Catholic center, but for some reason my efforts to log into and change my website have been stymied since I arrived–until just now when I found I was able to start creating this new post.  I’ll see now if it goes through, and if it does then I can post some new pages.

Off to Sihanoukville

Tomorrow the whole staff from the Maryknoll Deaf Development Programme heads to the Catholic center in Sihanoukville on the southern coast of Cambodia for a four-day staff retreat or conference.  We’ll be there till our return on Friday.  I hope I’m in a building that has an Internet connection so I can post updates about the goings-on there.