Cambodia Trust co-founder, Dr Peter Carey, was honoured with the 2008 Beacon Award for Leadership.
The award - described by Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the “Nobel Prize for charities” - was presented to Peter at a ceremony in London on November 18th 2008.
Peter (centre) receiving his award from Martyn Lewis CBE and Sarah Benioff, Deputy Director Participation, Office of the Third Sector
The film below was shown at the Beacon Awards ceremony to introduce the work Peter has done. It also features Audrey Harte, Cambodia Trust Project Officer, who many of our supporters will know!
The Beacon Fellowship's press release about Peter’s award:
Dr Peter Carey has been awarded the Beacon Prize for Leadership for his work in co-founding the Cambodia Trust and leading its expansion across Cambodia into Timor Leste, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, making a positive impact on the lives of over 30,000 landmine survivors and other disadvantaged disabled people.
Peter is just one of six recipients of the 2008 Beacon Prize and joins the ranks of previous Beacon winners such as Sir Bob Geldof, Jamie Oliver and environmentalist, Zac Goldsmith who have all been recognised for their charitable work through what has become known as the ‘Nobel Prize of the charity world’, first coined by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The Cambodia Trust has developed services and training programmes in four developing countries and rehabilitation centres have been established to help disabled people and train local staff. Peter helped to found the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (CSPO), where students from Cambodia and other developing countries are trained to internationally-recognised standards to prescribe and fit prosthetic limbs and braces.
Peter has a strong commitment to ensuring that his projects are sustainable and so has placed great emphasis on working in partnership with local government and NGOs. The aim is to build local capacity so that projects can eventually be handed over to local, trained management.
The results have been enormous: 122 students have graduated from CSPO, including enough Cambodians to staff all the rehabilitation centres in Cambodia. Around 30,500 devices are being fitted by CSPO graduates annually, enabling 1,000’s of landmine survivors and other disabled people to gain self-sufficiency. Over 80% of children receiving rehabilitation at the centres go on to start school once their mobility is improved; over 230 disabled children receive the support they need to attend school every year; around 150 disabled adults a year are assisted to start vocational training or on-the-job training, with 80% accessing work thereafter; 612 adults have received start-up support to establish small businesses; 9 former CSPO students have graduated with Bachelor’s degrees, enabling a phasing out of expatriate staff at CSPO as Cambodians qualify as lecturers and leaders.
CSPO has also trained prosthetist-orthotists from Afghanistan, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Timor Leste, Georgia, Indonesia, Iraq, Japan, Kiribati, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
Martyn Lewis, former Chairman of Beacon, who will be hosting Tuesday’s Prize Ceremony, said: “The impact of Peter’s work is truly outstanding, not only because of the sheer numbers of landmine victims and disabled people who have received assistance, but also because of the local capacity he has built through training up professionals and working closely with local people.”
Speaking just ahead of the ceremony, Peter said: “I am delighted to win a Beacon Prize and I sincerely hope that it will focus attention on what can be a forgotten problem – the physical disabilities that landmine survivors can be left with. A great deal can be done for them and lives can be rebuilt but this requires international support and resources.”
All six winners will be inaugurated as Beacon Fellows, a community of Beacon Prize winners who together champion charitable causes across the globe and nurture a wider culture of giving in the UK.
Cambodia Trust patron Archbishop Desmond Tutu pays tribute to Peter
