Local artists visiting Cambodia, restoring hope to victims

2010-04-08T03:45:15Z

When Shane Grammer's old church acquaintance Clayton Butler asked him to paint a mural in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, he didn't think twice. Grammer, a 38-year-old artist currently residing in Roseville, completed similar murals in Peru, Mexico and Brazil, sometimes teaming with urban kids on the pieces.

"I'm ecstatic; I love that," Grammer said. "I've offered stuff like that before, and people are just busy or don't do it. So when I'm asked to do it, I'm like, 'Yeah, I'm there tomorrow. Where do I sign up?' "

On April 12, he will be leading a team of six to Cambodia to help Agape International Missions, where Butler works, to help end child sexual slavery and help restore hope to its victims. The team's goal is to "bring hope and joy" through art to the young girls in Phnom Penh's red light district, Svay Pak. They will paint a mural on a new building planned to be a new community center for the girls.

Grammer discovered his passion for art as a young teenager after he was assigned a project in driver education. He had a choice of writing a 10-page paper or creating a model. After choosing to do the model, he found that he enjoyed the two-week-long project so much, he would spend hours every day perfecting his assignment.

Watching the 1983 documentary "Style Wars" on graffiti and hip-hop culture sealed the deal and introduced Grammer to urban art. He's made a living as an artist for the last 15 years and currently runs a company, SG Studios, that makes themed environments for theme parks, casinos, and even churches. On the side, he creates fine art, and painted a graffiti mural at the B Street Skate Park.

When he told his sister-in-law, artist Becky Watson, about the opportunity to paint a mural in Cambodia, she replied to him, "I'm coming with you. You need to find a way, because I have to go."

Watson said she'd done art with youth before in Africa and Nicaragua, but this would be her first time creating a mural with kids. She also invited friends from different fields - a writer, a videographer, a photographer and a musician.

She wants the group to help the girls - some recovering victims of sexual abuse, some still working in brothels - "to tap into their creative process. I think if we can unwind them and give (them) a paintbrush in hand (to) experience it, they will remember it."

But while the two are "like a literal brother and sister," said Watson, they have different ways of mentally preparing for their trip.

"I've broken down and cried once," Grammer said. "That was last Saturday night at a church. They gave me about five minutes to speak and tell them about what I was doing, and they ended up giving me about $2,000."

Since then, Grammer, a self-proclaimed "emotional guy," said he's been so busy with work and family, he's been able to file away his emotions.

Watson, on the other hand, is planning the group's itinerary.

"I think about it every day, and I think about the kids we're going to see, so I keep my mind on it and I'm focusing on it 100 percent of the time," she said. "I just don't want to forget something I want to impart on the kids."

The group, called "Heart for the Kids," will hold a final fundraiser for the trip Thursday night at the Roseville Tower Theatre, 421 Vernon St. The 7 p.m. event will feature art, music and a live auction. Admission is a $10 donation at the door. All proceeds from the event will cover the group's expenses for the trip, with the remaining money raised being donated to Agape International Missions, a Rocklin-based nonprofit. See the above flier for more details.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Mu Sochua visits Sacramento

2009-09-18T05:02:02Z

Mu Sochua had a request of her audience: "I ask you to please monitor [my] case, because it's very very likely that I will go to jail," the native Cambodian said in a speech in Sacramento.

The social worker and women's rights and democracy activist was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee in 2005.

About 40 people gathered Monday at noon in a conference room at the U.C. Center in Sacramento to hear Sochua speak. In the speech, presented by the World Affaris Council, she spoke about ending the sex trafficking of women and children, opposing land grabs and reforming the corrupt Cambodian court system.

Sochua came to Northern California in 1973. She earned a degree in psychology from San Francisco State and a master's in social work from the University of California at Berkeley in 1981. Before she could return to Cambodia, Sochua learned that her parents had been killed by the Khmer Rouge, the regime responsible for the deaths of more than a million Cambodians.

Sochua returned to Cambodia after 18 years of exile to help the government rebuild after the Khmer Rouge lost power. She is an outspoken member of Parliament, and spoke about her recent defamation lawsuit against Prime Minister Hun Sen of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).

"He said that I go around, grab men and take off my shirt," Sochua said. It's an insult that usually would not be challenged by a woman in a society rife with gender inequality, she explained, but added "that cannot be tolerated. The issue here is dignity."

"That situation was reverse, actually," Sochua said. "An official in the military who was campaigning for the ruling party assaulted me at the marketplace and my shirt came undone."

But before the prime minister could be brought to trial, he countersued Sochua's lawyer. "The Cambodian Bar Association put so much pressure on my lawyer that he would have been disbarred," Sochua said. "Then he left me without defense, apologized to the prime minister and joined the prime minister's party."

So Sochua defended herself in court.

In what she called a show trial in which no investigation was conducted, Sochua was found guilty of "speaking out," "speaking on behalf of women," "spreading disinformation" and "suing [the prime minister]," she said. After not paying a $4,000 fine and being stripped of her legislative immunity, Sochua, a member of Sam Rainsy, the leading opposition party, could face life imprisonment when she returns to Cambodia.

"That's why I'm going from place to place, talking to people like you," she said. In a recent meeting with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Sochua urged the United States to send a high level delegation to assess civil rights issues in Cambodia.

"If I were imprisoned, the situation would bring more attention to donors and the world community," Sochua said. "That is the symbol for struggle for justice, it will speak loud[est]."

Hers is not a poor country, Sochua said, citing Cambodia's natural resources and more than $1 billion of foreign aid per year. She pointed out that $53 million of that money comes from the United States. "It's just badly managed, losing about $500 million a year to corruption and a lack of political will."

Moderator Robert Cassinelli, on the board of the World Affairs Council, spoke of the importance of Sochua's speech. "I would like to thank Mu Sochua for illuminating something which is a [part of the] human condition: human rights and gender issues," he said.

A young Cambodian American asked what Cambodians in the United States can do to help reform the Cambodian justice system.

"I hope that you will take some action, because you can," Sochua said. "I would like you to go and write a letter to your legislators and ask your government, 'What are you doing in Cambodia?' "

Audience member Samedi Thach called for action. "I hope everybody listens to her and writes the letter she asks for and keeps tabs on her to make sure that she doesn't disappear and what she's fighting for doesn't go away.

"Instead of staying here and living the American Dream, like a lot of Cambodians, she's actually trying to make changes in Cambodia," added Thach, a 24-year-old Cambodian American living in Sacramento. "Knowing that she's going to go back to face 20-to-life, or assassination, it makes her message more powerful: She's willing to go back and be a martyr for the cause that she believes in."

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Local artists visiting Cambodia, restoring hope to victims

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Mu Sochua visits Sacramento