Journeys

The Stung Treng Woman's Development Center employs and trains 50 women in weaving and dyeing silk. They use non-toxic German dyes. They harvest mulberry leaves, extract the silk from cocoons and weave. The Center empowers women, provides life skills and enables them to escape poverty. They create beauty. MekongBlue.com is their web site.

35 children attend primary school at the Stung Treng Women's Development Center. They have two teachers. They receive lunch every day. They live in the local community. Their mothers attend a six month weaving course. The children are happy.

Stung Treng is a small sleepy town on the Mekong. Most travelers pass through toward Laos or south. It is the entry point for Ratanakiri Province in the remote Northeast. Medicine is expensive in Cambodia. You see many children with "drips" in towns and cities.

TB is on an island across the Mekong from Stung Treng. There is a pre-Angkor ruin, a wat and a high school in the village.