Begging Children – An Exhibition To Make You ‘THINK!’

From 26^th November 2014-31 January 2015 the Friends-International (FI) Kaliyan Mith program in Siem Reap will be running a thought-provoking exhibition of images addressing the issue of giving to begging children.

Our acclaimed training restaurant Marum will host the exhibition daily in its grounds from 11.00am until 10.30pm. The exhibition coincides with the celebration of 20 years of FI’s work and features a series of visually arresting images created by renowned French artist Pascal Colrat for a campaign launched by the FI ChildSafe Network, alongside information on the theme ‘THINK Before Giving To Begging Children’. The exhibition will also include a selection of the winning images from the recent Siem Reap photo competition run by Marum.

The ‘THINK” campaign is the ChildSafe Network’s first international campaign, aiming to build awareness of the negative impacts of giving to children selling and begging on the streets and ultimately to reduce this harmful practice. Program Director of Kaliyan Mith, Ms. Ampor Sam-Oeun said ‘We hope this exhibition will reach out to more than 6,000 tourists and expats during the high season reinforcing our ChildSafe message that giving to begging children is actually harmful and places them at continued risk. The images are very striking and really help to drive this very important message home. We hope that the exhibition can also be shared elsewhere in Siem Reap after January, and we are very grateful to our sponsors who have helped us create a platform to raise awareness and promote behavior change through this exhibition.’

The ChildSafe campaigns, ‘THINK” and ‘Children Are Not Tourist Attractions’ have proved very successful in placing the issues of child begging and orphanage tourism firmly in the public eye, with over 3 million people seeing campaign materials through social and other media and online channels. Pascal Colrat, the man behind the ‘THINK’ images is a world‐renowned French artist popular for his provocative artworks which combine photographs and graphic design. Colrat employs billboards, posters, postcards and other forms of mass media to reach a large, international audience. His work is displayed in several prestigious museums and galleries across Europe and the US and often has social or environmental issues at its heart. Pascal began his collaboration with Friends‐International in 2007 after visiting Friends’ Laos program, Peuan Mit. This collaboration eventually resulted in the often unsettling images created by him for the ‘Think Before Giving ‘campaign, which continues to resonate with audiences worldwide.

We would like to extend our grateful thanks to the following sponsors for their valued support for this exhibition –