Peacemakers / Cambodia Peace Mission

How we do it

Anatomy of a peace mission.

A Rotary peace mission brings many kinds of help to one place at one time. In Cambodia, that meant teeth, hands, eyes, a school, and a day spent remembering why peace matters.

WhereKampong Cham and Siem Reap, Cambodia

Led bySteve Bender, Rotary Club of Newport Beach

Care givenEye surgery, reading glasses, dental, prosthetic hands, children's oral health

Cost to patientsNothing

Steve Bender in black scrubs on the clinic grounds, with tents, volunteers and patients moving between stations behind him — Steve Bender on the grounds of our Cambodia mission clinic. Each tent is a station: registration, dental, hands, vision.

What happens on a mission

Many kinds of help, one trip.

Dental care

Our dental team treats patients all day under the tents, from extractions to restoring children's front teeth so they can smile, and go to school, again.

Prosthetic hands

LN4 hands are fitted for landmine survivors and others who lost a hand. Each new owner tests it by writing a thank-you card to Rotary.

Read about LN4 hands

Eye surgery

Surgeons operate in the clinic's surgical room, restoring sight to patients who have been living in the dark. For many, one operation means they can work, read and see their grandchildren again.

Steve's Vision reading glasses

Steve's Vision gives free reading glasses to people who can no longer see up close, at clinics, schools and temples around the world.

See the glasses in action

Children at the landmine school

Volunteers from our Oral Hygiene Initiative (OHI) visit the school at the Landmine Museum in Siem Reap, giving children fluoride treatments and lessons in caring for their teeth.

At the dental station

More teeth than dentists.

The line for the dental station never seemed to end. There were more teeth to pull than we had dentists to pull them, so Steve rolled up his sleeves and helped. Under the supervision of dental university faculty, he worked alongside the dental team until the last patient was seen.

Steve Bender in a mask and Steve's Vision scrubs holds up dental forceps after an extraction — One more tooth out, under the supervision of dental university faculty.

Steve Bender watches closely as a dentist with a headlamp treats a monk in orange robes — Working alongside the dental team as a monk is treated.

Watch: Steve extracting a tooth at the Cambodia mission clinic (11 seconds).

A blessing in return.

After the clinic closed, a monk whose pain we had relieved invited Steve to kneel for a traditional Buddhist water blessing. It was his way of saying thank you, and one of the most moving moments of the entire mission.

A monk in saffron robes sprinkles blessed water over Steve Bender, who kneels with hands pressed together in a carved temple pavilion — Being blessed by a monk after the clinic, in thanks for relieving his pain.

Steve Bender and an Oral Hygiene Initiative volunteer sit with a classroom of smiling students holding new toothbrushes and toothpaste — Cambodia Landmine Museum school, Siem Reap. After fluoride treatments for every student, everyone went home with a new toothbrush.

Steve's Vision

Reading glasses, around the world.

A simple pair of reading glasses lets a grandmother thread a needle, a farmer read a seed label and a monk read scripture again. Steve founded Steve's Vision many years ago, and it has given away tens of thousands of free reading glasses, carried on every mission and fitted on the spot, so people walk away seeing clearly the same day.

Visit the Steve's Vision website for the full story, including the Doc in a Box dental trailer and the vision trailer.

In Cambodia we fitted glasses for monks, nuns and elders at a Buddhist temple. Some were still wearing the price stickers when they came back to say thank you.

Steve Bender and new glasses wearers seated beneath a large robed Buddha statue — Seeing clearly, beneath the Buddha.

Steve Bender fits a pair of reading glasses on a man seated with nuns in white robes at a temple — Fitting reading glasses at a Buddhist temple in Cambodia.

Steve Bender kneels and clasps hands with a smiling woman wearing her new glasses — A thank you, hand in hand.

Steve Bender stands behind five temple elders and nuns seated on a woven mat, all wearing their new reading glasses — Happy recipients of free glasses.

“The only hope for any of us is peace.”

John Lennon, 1969

The Cambodia Landmine Museum

Where the war is still in the ground.

Outside Siem Reap, the Cambodia Landmine Museum was founded by Aki Ra, a former child soldier who went on to clear thousands of the mines he and others once laid. The museum shelters a school for children whose lives have been touched by landmines, and it is where our Oral Hygiene Initiative team gives fluoride treatments and toothbrushes to every student.

Aki Ra also founded Cambodian Self Help Demining, a Cambodian team that clears mines village by village, and he was honored as a CNN Hero for the work. His museum asks every visitor a simple question: once you are back home, will you help?

A defused 241 kilogram US MK82 bomb casing stands upright in the museum garden with its label — A defused MK82 bomb, 241 kilograms, now a garden marker at the museum.

A hand lettered museum poster titled Tourists do you know, listing landmine facts and asking visitors to help — The museum's appeal to visitors: a mine costs about $5 to buy and about $500 to clear.

Red Danger Mines warning signs with a skull and crossbones in Khmer and English — The red warning signs deminers post around a minefield.

A museum painting of villagers mourning people killed by a landmine on a path beside a lotus pond — A painting in the museum shows the moment a family's walk to the fields becomes a tragedy.

Cambodian Self Help Demining, founded by Aki Ra in 2008.

LN4 hands for survivors From mines to vines

Remembering

A day at the Killing Fields.

Every mission to Cambodia includes a visit to the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, outside Phnom Penh. Under the Khmer Rouge, from 1975 to 1979, well over a million Cambodians died from execution, starvation and forced labor. The memorial stupa there holds the remains of thousands of victims.

We go because peace work starts with understanding what its absence costs. The landmines that still maim farmers and children are part of that same history, and so is every hand we fit.

Music from survivors

Playing along with the landmine band.

On the paths around the Angkor temples, a band of landmine survivors plays traditional Khmer music to earn a living with dignity. Steve and our team sat in with them, bows and all. It is one of the most joyful ways we know to say that survivors are musicians, parents and neighbors first.

Steve Bender and a young team member play traditional Khmer string instruments alongside members of a landmine survivors band — Sitting in with the landmine survivors band.

Steve Bender and a team member laugh as they carry Khmer fiddles past the band's sign, Traditional music by victims of landmine — “Traditional music by victims of landmine.” Angkor, Cambodia.

In pictures

The clinic at work.

Steve Bender and a volunteer in front of hundreds of patients seated under a large tent — Patients waiting at our clinic in Kampong Cham.

Steve Bender and the Cambodia team with a smiling hand recipient holding his note reading Kind of you — Our team with a new LN4 hand recipient and his note: “Kind of you!”

A surgeon operates through a surgical microscope while two masked assistants look on in a tiled operating room — Eye surgery in the mission operating room.

Gloved hands perform eye surgery under a bright surgical light — Restoring sight, one patient at a time.

Video coming soon. A film of the full mission, from setting up the tents to the landmine school, will be linked here.

Steve Bender flashes a peace sign from the top of steep stone temple steps — Give peace a chance. Steve at an ancient Khmer temple.

Steve Bender sits with hands pressed together in a temple doorway beneath a towering tree — A moment of gratitude in the temple doorway.

Two long-tailed macaques sit on a carved stone railing with Khmer script, one gently grooming the other — Looking after one another. Long-tailed macaques on a carved temple railing, Cambodia.

Join a mission

Bring your skills.

Eye surgeons, dentists, eye care professionals, hygienists, Rotarians who can fit a hand and people who can simply carry boxes and hold a child's hand are all part of a mission. If you would like to go on the next one, or help your club plan one, the Rotary Club of Newport Beach would love to hear from you.

LN4 Hands Mines to Vines From landmines to rebuilding