Ex-newsman raises cash to help poor Cambodians

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Staff Writer

Bernard Krisher embraces the adage "it takes a village to raise a child" and goes one step further.

Krisher

Two Hawai'i couples and a Honolulu-based community group have subscribed to Krisher's view, contributing thousands of dollars toward the development of schools in poverty- and war-ravaged Cambodia.

They join scores of organizations and individuals from the United States, Japan and elsewhere who have each contributed thousands that have been used in conjunction with money from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to build approximately 265 schools scattered across Cambodia.

"It's not often in life that something turns out to be everything that it is said to be," said Honolulu attorney Gerald Clay, who went to Cambodia to see for himself what Krisher had done before contributing his own money to the program.

Krisher is in town this week to touch bases with Clay and other local contacts — and to try to find more converts willing to help raise the minimum of $13,000 needed to build a new school.

Clay said he and his wife first learned about Krisher's efforts in a magazine. When they arrived in Cambodia, Krisher showed them fully functioning schools — many of them with computers and Internet capability — in areas so remote they had no sewer systems, running water or other amenities.

"The first day we went to three or four schools, and every school we come to, there's a building, there are teachers, there are kids," Clay said.

Before returning to Hawai'i, Clay said, he and his wife agreed to make the commitment to the program. The couple is now scheduled to return to Cambodia in December to dedicate the Mr. and Mrs. Sak Nhep School in honor of his wife's parents. The school is in Ratanakiri, in the northeastern part of Cambodia near Laos and Vietnam.

"More than any other charitable endeavor, this one just feels right," Clay said.

Andrew Roach said it was more than just his granddaughter's heritage or long-time friend Krisher's powers of persuasion that convinced him and his wife to pitch in.

"This helps to restore some intellectual capital in Cambodia," Roach said, making reference to the Khmer Rouge regime during which an estimated 2 million Cambodians, including anyone deemed an intellectual, were executed, tortured or starved to death.

"There is a crying need for an educated populace," Roach said.

Not everyone subscribes to Krisher's theory. Some involved in humanitarian relief efforts question the logic of introducing high technology into cultures still in dire need of more basic necessities such as food and water. Among the critics is Microsoft founder Bill Gates, widely regarded as the top philanthropist in the United States.

Krisher, in response, said he's not in a competition with those providing other goods and services, and that he feels both approaches are necessary.

"My main objective is to teach people how to fish, not give them fish," Krisher said. "Otherwise, we vaccinate them, we give them a carton of rice every day and they'll have enough to eat. But they won't have a chance to learn."

Krisher, 73, a former Asia bureau chief for Newsweek and a Holocaust survivor, said his project is about giving choices to people who otherwise wouldn't have them. "They want to be teachers," he said. "They have hope."

Yesterday, Krisher was introduced at a gathering of the Rotary Club of Honolulu, which contributed toward a school in Ratanakiri along with three sister Rotary chapters in Tokyo, Taipei and Pusan, South Korea.

Krisher urged the Honolulu group to contribute more money to pay for more amenities at "your school," despite its recent decision to send an additional $3,000 to set up computers and Internet access there.

"He's relentless," said Michael James Leineweber, the Honolulu Rotarian who first heard Krisher's pitch while attending a Rotary session in Tokyo.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8026.