Hong Kong Tsunami named Jackie

A week ago I left Siem Reap for Hong Kong with Aki Ra.

I’d been to Hong Kong a few times, but Aki Ra had never been there in his life. And this trip might just have changed his life.

A wonderful portrait photographer named Tony Hauser met Aki Ra a few years ago and did a series of portraits of some of the kids at the Museum’s Child Welfare Centre. The photos are amazing. Life-size, you look the kids in the eye as you meet them. Then you can read their story. It’s dramatic, touching, moving, and very dignified. You connect, and you connect viscerally. ( www.vtonyhauser.com )

Well anyway, a good friend of Tony’s saw the exhibit in London. Her family moved to Hong Kong, and she moved heaven and earth to get the exhibit to come. Her name is Jackie Russell and she is a whirlwind. There is no way this exhibit was not going to be in Hong Kong once Jackie made her mind up to get it there!

The pictures were exhibited at the Canadian International School. If you have had the pleasure of visiting their campus in Aberdeen, Hong Kong, you know how beautiful it is. If you haven’t, go to their website (http://www.cdnis.edu.hk/) and check them out. It is truly one of the nicest facilities I have ever seen.

We met hundreds of kids and Aki Ra and Tony told their stories: Aki Ra of being a child soldier and deciding to spend the rest of his life making Cambodia safe, and Tony of stumbling on the old Museum and returning to do the photos. They were kind enough to let me speak a bit about the history of the conflicts in Cambodia and how I got involved in this campaign.

Jackie kept us running all week. We spoke at the Asia Society, met for nearly 3 hours with CNN, had an interview with the South China Moring Post newspaper, spoke at the FCC and Rotary Club of Kowloon and Jackie hosted a cocktail party on Monday for almost 200 people at the International School where the Canadian Consul, Ms. Doreen Steidle spoke.

But the crème de la crème came Wednesday evening where Jackie and her friends had put together a dinner for over 80 at Crown Wine Cellars in Shouson Hills. It was the armory for the British Army and the last place to fall when Hong Kong was captured by the Japanese at the outbreak of WWII. Now a World Heritage Sight, it is quite amazing.

And so were the people of Hong Kong who raised their glasses and open their wallets for the Child Welfare Centre at the Landmine Museum.

We will forever be in their debt. Jackie and her family are visiting us at the end of the month. We’ll never top what they did, but the smiling faces of the kids will say far more than either Aki Ra, Tony or I could ever say.

Thank you Hong Kong!!!

Babu