photo: Nura Kureshi
Lim Eng was working in the forest when she stepped on a landmine. She was just twenty-four years old.
"I didn’t feel the mine, but the person I was with, she yelled, “Lim Eng, you stepped on mine!” I could not feel my leg.
"After that, more people came to help me. It was about 10 kilometers from where I stepped on the mine and where my house was. They didn’t have anything to put me on, so they just carried me. When we got to my house and they found something to carry me with, it was another 20 kilometers to the hospital in Kampot."
After having an amputation and staying in hospital for two months, Lim Eng lost hope for the future. "I stayed at home alone. I didn’t want to eat anything, but my brothers and sisters brought me food. I just stayed at home and didn’t go anywhere and I didn’t want to leave and let others see me. I remember thinking it would be better if I died."
“They think nothing of us at all.”
Lim Eng became a Cambodia Trust client and began attending our rehabilitation centre in Phnom Penh, where she is fitted with a new prosthetic limb every 1-2 years as her old limb wears out. In 1993, Lim Eng was recruited by the Cambodia Trust as a community worker. The Trust has always recognised that it is important to have a staff which includes women and people with disabilities, as they provide positive role models in the community. Women and girls with disabilities face double discrimination and they can be too embarrassed and frightened to seek treatment from male staff. The majority of our community workers are women with disabilities.
Photo by Glen Howey: Lim Eng visiting a client at home
"I know how difficult it is to be disabled as a woman. I understood that. Normally, according to traditional Cambodian customs, there is nothing more important for a woman than a man. When you have a disability, the woman is not good for anything and should just stay at home. There isn’t anything else for people with disabled legs. If they know that you are disabled, you might as well do nothing and just stay at home. It’s pointless to go outside, it’s pointless to have a husband, and it’s pointless to have children or womanly duties.
"They think nothing of us at all. I knew the embarrassed feeling that other women had. They wanted to wear a prosthetic leg like me, but they were extremely embarrassed, and didn’t know the method to get one besides, since they were in the countryside and far away from places where they could make prosthetics.
"So I went to work by going from village to village spreading information, meeting the chiefs of the districts to discuss the Cambodia Trust and spread information that our organization would welcome women with disabilities. I wanted to show myself as an example: I can wear this leg and I can work. I would show myself to them so they could see."
"I survived..."
"Once, I met with a family that had a child that lost both legs. The child went to get some water and stepped on a mine. The family didn’t even want me to see their child the first time I went there. I told them that I also stepped on a mine when I was working in the forest and now I wear a prosthetic leg. But they were still afraid that when the child went outside with the artificial leg, he would lose his confidence, would see everyone who had arms and legs and become discouraged. I told them that I thought the same exact way before, and wanted to kill myself. But I survived...And my friends really helped me when I was first using my prosthetic leg."
Photo: Lim Eng with a client who has received a small grant to buy a sewing machine, enabling her to set up a small business at home.
Lim Eng now provides support to hundreds of people each year, through the Cambodia Trust's Community-based Rehabilitation programme. She makes visits to clients in their homes, identifying men, women and children who would benefit from having artificial limbs, braces or wheelchairs. Once they've received physical rehabilitation at the Cambodia Trust's rehabilitation centres, Lim Eng provides further support to help clients back into school, training or employment.
“I gather people … to help each other”
"Now I am proud of myself because I learned to ride my bicycle all by myself and now I can ride a moto by myself. I help women with shyness issues until they are no longer shy, until the point where some women come on their own to the Cambodia Trust clinics. I gather people to be in their own (self-help) groups, and I gather disabled people that have similar jobs to help each other. There are many other things I am proud of."
You can help women like Lim Eng to regain their mobility, dignity and self-sufficiency
A donation of just £100 will provide a disabled person with an artificial limb or brace
£30 will provide a bicycle for a child with disabilities, to enable them to get to school
£25 will provide a small business grant to help an adult to set up a small business such as a grocery stall, motorbike repair shop or sewing business.
Please donate today and make a lasting difference to someone`s life.
