Back in the ActionAid office sitting out looking over Parramatta Road, it is hard to believe that just two weeks ago I was in a remote village in Cambodia getting ready to build a pre-school.

I was in Cambodia as part of ActionAid’s First Hand Experience along with five amazing women from Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane.

The two week experience included cycling across Cambodia before visiting one of our rights programs in a rural village two hours from the bustling capital of Phnom Penh.

Riding through the villages outside Battambang

ActionAid supporters Jessie Blythe, Kristy Marshall, Bec Fox, Susanna McArdle and Camilla Done had all fundraised for the chance to discover Cambodia with ActionAid.  

It was a jam packed trip with early morning starts and long days of cycling, visiting temples, learning about the country’s devastating civil war, walking, eating the delicious local food (lots of it), sweating, laying bricks, rendering walls and spending time with locals.

The six days of cycling in the Cambodian heat was great fun (once we all got used to wearing the padded shorts and our bums going numb).  To have the time to cycle through villages and see, hear and smell everything around us instead of driving through in a bus gave a very different perspective.

The last day of the ride through dirt and dust

And when exhaustion set in, it was the local children and parents shouting out “hello” that provided a welcome distraction from our weary legs.

Each day served up a different challenge. Although the roads were blissfully flat, we had to deal with strong headwinds one day, 39 degree heat the next and finally dry dust, pot holes and dirt roads to the finish.

By day two we had all bonded as a group and Susanna was always there to shout out positive words of encouragement whenever fatigue hit.  Our guide Vuttha always lead the way with a smile and made sure we had lots of snack stops. We are now all connoisseurs on Cambodian sweet cakes and fruit.

Our lovely guide Vuttha taught us so much about his country, history and people.

We finished the ride! Jessie, Susanna, Camilla, Kristy and Bec with our guide, driver and mechanic

I was really excited about the next part of the trip. This was the “first” First Hand Experience that ActionAid Australia had organised and I had been liaising with the ActionAid Cambodia office trying to work out which project we could get involved with. The aim was to give our participants the chance to work alongside the community and to really understand how ActionAid works on the ground with our local partners.

We had a project briefing at ActionAid Cambodia’s offices in the middle on Phnom Penh that gave us a great overview of the work that my Cambodian colleagues were doing with local partners. We also discussed ActionAid’s Human Rights Based Approach at the heart of all our programming work.

We then took a two hour drive to the offices of our local partner in Kampong Speu province – KDDF.

Founded in 2003 by a group of disabled community members who all live in Srang Commune, KDDF’s mission is simple – to ensure disabled people have equal rights in society

Lotheany is 5 years old

KDDF’s work is incredibly varied and included everything from training disabled people with practical skills so they can earn a living, promoting women’s rights, supporting women ‘s livelihood programs, to teaching people about Cambodia’s new Disability Act and rights for disabled people.

Part of KDDF’s work funded through ActionAid Australia child sponsors included the construction of a new pre-school for the 100 or so 3-5 year old children in the community.

The preschool for Roleang village

As the Cambodian government does not provide funds for teachers and training, KDDF are also funding the small salaries of 18 volunteer teachers to work in the village schools.

It didn’t take long for word to get out that we had started work at the pre-school on the first afternoon. Slowly, but surely, children came to stare and check us out before coming on to the site to help us clear away all the rocks from the ground.

Each day after that, we had a crowd of about 20 children and some parents to inspect our brick laying and rendering skills. Of course it wasn’t all about the work and in our break times over coconut juice, we played games with the children, they sang to us and we tried to teach them “head, shoulders, knees and toes”

We all learnt how to render walls

 The FHE group also got to ask lots of questions of Bintheng (the AA Cambodia program officer who came with us). Why wasn’t there a toilet being built for the pre-school?  Why didn’t every house have a well? How many children go on to high school? How much was a water filter? How come the children don’t brush their teeth? How can we help more?

Bintheng Han, Program officer at AA CAmpbodia with some of the staff from KDDF

It made for lively discussion on the bus on the way to and from the project. And over the three days everyone was able to gain a deeper understanding of how ActionAid supports the local partners through training and funding. But at the centre of everything was that all the villages that were part of the commune where KDDF worked, were able to bring about changes to their lives and change the things that were most important to them.

Kristy the bricklayer

All five women agreed that the time spent on the project was life changing – and so much more rewarding than “a short two hour visit where we can take photos”. There was a real sense of satisfaction that the $16,000 that they had all worked hard to fundraise had been worthwhile and they could see that their money was going to make a real difference to this community.

Handing out exercise books to the eighty children from the village

Susanna said it had “felt wonderful seeing the first hand effect that raising money has on the communities”. Kristy also agreed “My overall experience was fantastic. Nothing compares to the sense of personal achievement in completing a physical challenge, as well as helping to improve the quality of life of another.”

The FHE team: Susanna, Kristy, Bec, Camilla and Jessie

Even though I work for ActionAid and already understood our rights based approach and working with local partners, it wasn’t until meeting the staff and also speaking to some local people who are beneficiaries of KDDF and ActionAid’s work that I could see how these communities were empowered to bring about change to their own lives. And while it’s a long road for change in Cambodia, I feel positive that change will happen.Bec said to me on the bus after the first day on the project “you must feel so proud to work for ActionAid and for an organisation that is making a difference.”

Yep, I definitely do.

Paying taxes is no fun, leaving a big hole in our wallets. But it lets us enjoy a quality of life that everyone deserves – even though sometimes it means swapping our glass of premium lager for tap water.

Yet multinationals, like beer giant SABMiller, manage to avoid taxes worth millions of dollars in developing countries.

These companies profit greatly from the community. So it’s a no-brainer that they should pay their fair share of taxes.

How do they dodge tax, and how can we stop them?

ActionAid has done extensive research all over Africa and found that SABMiller, owner of global beer brands Peroni and Grolsch, siphons millions in profits out of its overseas operations into tax havens every year.

Although this tax sidestep isn’t illegal, it deprives economies of much needed tax revenues.

ActionAid has found evidence of SABMiller practicing this kind of tax dodging in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia and India.

SABMiller is the world’s second biggest brewer. This year alone they’ve pumped out an island-floating 21 billion litres of beer, with an AUD19 billion turnover. But over the last two years, they haven’t paid one Ghanaian Cedi of corporate income tax to the Ghana government at their Accra brewery.

Not one Cedi, even though they control more than one third of the country’s beer market, with Ghanaians pouring over AUD103m into the company’s coffers since 2007.

This is news to Marta Luttgrodt , who sells SABMiller beer just outside the Accra brewery.

“Wow. I don’t believe it”, she says.

Toiling away over 12 hours a day, she makes just enough to support her family – but she pays more taxes than the brewing giant towering behind her.

ActionAid research shows SABMiller would post much larger profits if it didn’t use tax havens – and bigger profits mean more tax. The company actually reported a loss in their Ghanaian operations last year.

SABMiller’s expert tax dodging across six developing country operations has seen them avoid paying an estimated AUD32 million.

Take Action Now!

Here in Australia, SABMiller half owns a joint venture called Pacific Beverages that operates its premium brands Peroni and Grolsch, and the local brand Bluetongue.

Join beer lovers around the world in sending messages to the CEO of SABMiller – if you do they will have no choice but to pay attention and change their ways.

Take Action Now!

ActionAid Australia is searching for our next outreach blogger. We’ve received 352 comments in favour of 52 nominees. Shortlist coming soon…

Join the hunt for our next outreach blogger

ActionAid Australia‘s first blog is now online.

Check out ActionAid CEO Archie Law’s blog for an insight into the aid sector. His first post explains why he’s dedicated a good chunk of his life to working in the sometimes frustrating, but always inspiring, international humanitarian and development sector.

And next week as part of Project TOTO, we’ll be setting up blog in Tanzania.