Haiti's Children "Change the world, Be a voice and Save a child"

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Nancy Rivard, founder of Airline Ambassadors International(AAI), presented a volunteer opportunity that would educate and train me about safe houses, orphanages and tent camps in relation to the issue of human trafficking in Haiti. The CNN Freedom Project came with us to document our journey.

We visited the DCPG Police Station in Port au Prince where I witnessed children being held behind bars for their own protection against exploitation. I was able to see the safehouse being built behind the jail by AAI to give children a safe place to lay their head down at night. My heart was filled with joy to know that change has begun but more safehouses are needed. One safehouse can change the lives of many children and this is just the beginning.

I had the privilege to meet Yves Prophete in charge of All Gods Children Orphanage and see the great work of love being given to the children there. My heart was touched when I met a trafficked boy who had arrived 4 months prior to our visit. He was once filled with fear and now he smiles and laughs with other children. His smile filled my heart with joy. However, my heart dropped as I walked through Delmas 31 Tent Camp. Many children are unable to attend school and families are destitute. However, AAI delivered 60 school kits from kids in Pennsylvania to help continue the education of children there.

Delphia Roberts, USAir Flight Attendant

This humanitarian experience has changed my life.  I thank Nancy Rivard for giving me an opportunity to make a difference in this world.  I will continue to advocate, educate and train others to help combat human trafficking. " Change the world, Be the voice and Save a child".


USAIR Flight Attendant,  Delphia Roberts

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South Africa Aid Escort

Wanted to let you know we arrived safely in Johannesburg last night. Amy (my niece) and I arrived to see Silviya, Gilbert, Sharon & Grant, and all the children from Sinethemba waiting anxiously for us at the airport. It was an incredible welcome and filled our hearts with so much joy! The bags carrying the items I collected for Sinethemba and Mpumelelo arrived safely.

Today we started out by going to the wholesale market. I was able to purchase diapers, baby formula, rice, beans, cooking oil, sugar, fish in tomato paste, and toilet paper for Maria and the children at Mpumelelo. It was utterly amazing to hear the excitement for all the crayons, construction paper, pens, flash cards, and posters we brought from America. All in all, I was told over and over again, the items I brought were "exactly what we needed". Maria kept asking "how did you know that I needed 'that'?" With almost 200 children under her care, I only wished we could have provided more.

Amy and I jumped into action by asking what we could do to bring a little joy and sunshine to the center. Maria did not skip a beat by asking us to paint one of the walls in a classroom. We painted the walls light pink and yellow to make the place look a little lighter and "airy". My hope is they will be able to put up some posters to brighten up the other walls. If I had the resources, I would get them carpet for the flooring, as the concrete is very hard and the carpet that is there is extremely dirty and worn.

The children are so very blessed to have someone like Maria and the other workers looking after them. Truly an amazing woman...and an amazing day!

We will find our way back to Sinethemba ... although I think I am still full from the dinner they made us last night. I will be buying groceries to make homemade pizza, with all of the kids, for a special surprise birthday for Amy (she is turning 19) . What an amazing AAI experience! Thank you!!

Robin Schmidt
Airline Ambassadors member and volunteer

Back to Cambodia! 2009...

Our plane lands in Phnom Penh in 3 hours ... how many times have I made this journey over the past 19 years? In all its forms: by air, by land, even by sea... going back to the vortex, back to the "Heart of Darkness" where so many have struggled and died in a vast karmic swirling over millennia of human history along the banks of the mighty Mekong River. Where cultures have met and clashed and mingled, where "elephants have fought and trampled the grass" of the common people over untold generations.

This trip coincides with the annual Water Festival and Boat Races which I helped re-start in 1990, after a 17-year hiatus due to the war in Southeast Asia.

I’m accompanied by Dawn Mardya Millay (photo) who was born in Cambodia with a cleft face which required numerous surgeries. Raised in Maine by a single mom in a household of adopted siblings, several of them blind or with even more serious challenges, she is now a graduate of the prestigious New England School of Photography, a world-class photographer who has already journeyed to Greece and Guatemala, documenting masterfully with compelling visuals (for a treat, visit www.mmillayphotography.com).

"Mardy" was one of the first 10 children to be adopted from Cambodia in early 1990. When I arrived in January 1990, the Viet Namese had just exited the country after a 10-year occupation (having liberated it from the Khmer-Rouge rein of horror 1975-1979 when up to 3 million of Cambodia's 8 million people perished through execution, forced labor, starvation and disease).

Meeting me at the airport today will be one of my all-time best friends, "Lady By", Mme. Eng By Pheng. She was one of half a million Khmer refugees who in 1979 massed at the Thai-Cambodian border seeking food and medicine, and to be reunited with family after the horror of the Khmer Rouge years. Of these, Thai soldiers forced 30,000 at gunpoint over remote jungle cliffs back into Cambodia. "Lady By", with a baby on her back and another in her belly, was one of the survivors. We met in the Khao I-Dang Holding Center for Illegal Aliens, at the time the largest refugee camp (125,000 souls) in the world. Working together in pubic health in this huge camp we became fast friends forever. After raising her daughters in the USA and having a successful career in research, she has returned to Cambodia to make a life and to teach.

Lim Huy (Bou Ming Ty), a young man I met first in 1979 when he was an orphan starving on the border, will also join us. He grew up in Paris, became an optician, and married a lovely Khmer woman whose family he has set up in an auto-repair business in Cambodia.

We’re also joined by Christy and Harold, young retirees seeking to make a difference and coming to check things out in Cambodia in case it "captures" them as it has so many.

My godson Chris Grace and his friend, newly graduated from college, will be with us on their adventure through Asia.

I first came to Cambodia to help alleviate the misery, illness and trauma - and I stayed for the beauty, the joy and the HOPE... Now, all these years later, my refugee friends are returning, the adoptees are returning, and I can savor the sweet rewards that come of seeing people regain their lives and grow into people who now want to help with the work Airline Ambassadors International does so well.

So it looks as though I’ll hit the ground running - going straight to the river for a pass or two in the canoe as they paddle upstream past the two million spectators jamming the riverbanks between racing heats to reprise my favorite role, the "neak raum kandal tuk!" (“the person who dances in the middle of the boat"), clowning for the spectators who throw fruit and cheers to encourage the paddlers.

We're landing! Let's go! Welcome back to Cambodia!
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(Dr Daniel Susott, AAI Medical Director)