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DEDICATION: Gary Hewett at his
Bayswater office of Awareness Cambodia, which is improving the lives of
hundreds of orphaned children in the South-East Asian nation.
Source: PerthNow
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Katie Robertson From: PerthNow January
21, 2013
IT was the sight of a Cambodian woman breastfeeding
her child in the middle of a rubbish tip that changed Gary Hewett's life.
As the stench of decay and the image of children
rummaging through ``two feet of sludge'' haunted his memory, he realised he had
to do something.
It was 1995, he had been travelling up the Mekong
River on a volunteer medical trip, and he returned home to Perth with the
unsettling feeling that he needed to help.
In the mid-1990s Cambodia was a country in ruins after
the Vietnam War, the genocide during the Pol Pot regime, and the HIV/AIDS
epidemic.
"It was chaotic,'' Dr Hewett said. ``The
difference between what I had grown up with and what I was seeing was just unbelievable.''
Fast-forward almost two decades, and his
not-for-profit organisation Awareness Cambodia is improving the lives of
hundreds of orphaned children in the South-East Asian nation.
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ON THE ROAD: Gary Hewett with Cambodian children orphaned as a result of AIDS.
Source: PerthNow
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The charity now has four medical centres in Kampong
Speu province and its Sunshine House, opened in 2000, has provided shelter,
counselling, medical care and schooling for children orphaned by AIDS. Year 10
students from Perth College have been making an annual visit to the orphanage
for the past decade, and West Coast Eagles footballers head to Cambodia every
two years to volunteer their time.
Explaining the genesis of Sunshine House, Dr Hewett
said: ``One of our workers was approached by a woman who was selling her baby
for $20. Her husband had died of AIDS and she was in the final stages of AIDS,
so she reasoned that if a Westerner bought her child the child would be looked
after when she died.''
The children are supported through the program to
finish high school, and can then move to a charity house in the capital, Phnom
Penh, to undertake university or vocational studies.
"The first of those kids who arrived in 2000 is
now 22 and graduated last year as an accountant,'' Dr Hewett said.
"Both my children had the opportunity to go to
university. I feel that kids up there deserve the same opportunities. They're
now coming out with university degrees and a whole attitude about wanting to
help their country.''
He sold his dentistry practice to focus on his
humanitarian work and spends about six months of each year in Cambodia.
Awareness Cambodia opened its first free health centre
in 2006 to help with a gap in medical care in Kampong Speu province. At the
time, the existing health centres had no electricity or running water. There
were about 800,000 people in the province, serviced by 22 health centres with
just three Cambodian doctors.
"That's the equivalent of Perth being serviced by
six doctors,'' Dr Hewett said.
The charity has now expanded to four health clinics,
staffed by experienced local doctors and volunteer medical teams from overseas.
"Our philosophy is we are there to build a generation,''
Dr Hewett said. ``All of our projects are geared towards rebuilding children in
Cambodia.''
www.awarecam. org.au or phone 9370 1457.
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