Bittersweet experience for a young woman who believes in action

By LAWRENCE MONEY

The Age
Melbourne, Australia
June 23, 2010

Leigh Matthews with baby Nash. Photo: Jason South

IT SOUNDS strange but, at the age of only 29, it was way past time for Leigh Mathews to settle down, to put away the suitcase and taste a bit of everyday life. But you have to understand that this woman has crammed more into her past five years than most do in 20. Mathews was a backpacker who became a charity organisation supporting 8000 Cambodians, a welfare machine with 12 staff, numerous volunteers and an annual budget of $150,000.

Her Future Cambodia Fund supplied clean water, therapeutic programs, medical and dental help and much more to displaced villagers in Cambodia. She was named Victoria's Young Australian of the Year for 2009 in recognition of her efforts but now, it's all over. ''We just ran out of funds,'' she says. ''Made it through the global financial crisis but when we went to our usual donors they just didn't have any money. I tried everything, even the federal government, but they said no.''

Regretfully, she has disbanded the organisation, handing on remaining money and materials to other welfare organisations in that country.
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''We tried to make sure the people we worked with were made a part of other welfare programs. It was sad. That was five years of work for me.''

So now meet Leigh Mathews, suburban mum. Baby Nash arrived two months ago and the one-time globetrotter is bedded down in Fairfield, the only trace of her amazing Cambodian adventure being a recent trophy from Junior Chamber International as one of 10 ''outstanding young persons in the world''.

''It's nice to be at home and focus on something other than work,'' she says. Settled in with her partner, Mathews is enjoying the humdrum domesticity while studying at Deakin University for a master's in international relations. But there is regret. The struggling Cambodian people she helped are still struggling and, in fact, there are now thousands more, victims of a system of forcible relocation that clears residential areas for future development.

In the early 2000s, Mathews had stopped in Cambodia on the way home from backpacking abroad and, concerned at the starving and diseased street kids she saw, she decided to stay on and help. She organised a drop-in centre and ad hoc medical clinics, then formed her charity organisation, the Future Cambodia Fund.

The 8000 villagers who became the FCF's main focus had been removed from their home in Sambok Chab, Phnom Penh, one rainy night in June 2006 - herded into trucks by armed men and riot police and taken to rice paddies at Andong, 22 kilometres away. ''No housing, no food, no toilets, nothing,'' says Mathews. ''Their houses back in Phnom Penh were burnt and bulldozed.''

She says developers seize such land by exploiting the crude Cambodian property laws.

''There are a lot of factors that come into play when you deal with aid. For example, some of the big agencies have hundreds of different projects in Cambodia and helping relocated people may irritate the Cambodian government and that may then jeopardise those other projects.

''Internally displaced people generally suffer much more than refugees. Refugees cross a border and automatically have access to mandated support. Internally displaced people are the responsibility of no one but the government, but often the government is the reason why they have been displaced.

''There are many thousands of people in other sites now. A lot more evictions, often enforced by military and police.''

Late last year, Mathews visited the site where the Sambok Chab villagers once lived on prime riverside land. ''Green fences have gone up,'' she says, ''but the area is still empty.''