STOEUNG TRUNG, Cambodia – After Chea Meng Kieng stepped on a landmine in 1987, shrapnel remained imbedded in his right leg. He could neither walk long distances nor do most farm work. Though he and his wife rented a small piece of land to grow rice and beans, their meals remained meager.

Then, he attended a six-month electronics training course offered to mine survivors by Clear Path International and its Cambodian partner, Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development. Following his graduation in November, he received a grant from the two organizations’ training center and started a repair shop in his village 17 miles from the two organizations’ training center on the Mekong River.

Now Chea makes a decent $80 to $90 a month, puts three meals on the table each day and can afford to buy his pain medicine. Under CPI/CVCD’s follow-up medical care, he may also receive orthopedic surgery to heal his leg.

“This business gave me a new chance in life,” he says. “Now I almost forgot my past.”

During the past year and a half, 125 Cambodian landmine and bomb accident survivors like Chea have received vocational skills training thanks to the generosity of Clear Path donors such as the McKnight Foundation, the United Methodists Committee on Relief, the Johnson & Widdifield Charitable Trust, Susila Dharma USA, Susila Dharma Britain, Grace Episcopal Church and many individual donors.

Since late 2001, CVCD has provided skills training in sewing, beginning English, computer data entry and computer repair to 65 mine survivors in Phnom Penh and in sewing, mechanics and electronics to 60 mine survivors in the Stoeung Trung District of Kompong Cham Province along the Mekong River northeast of the capital.

The two organizations designed the courses together. CVCD staffed and ran the urban classes in Phnom Penh and the dedicated training center in Stoeung Trung with Clear Path providing the funding, technical assistance, accounting and reporting. CPI and CVCD hope to attract additional funding to continue the rural program in Kompong Cham for another two years.

So far, Phnom Penh graduates have found jobs in restaurants, at non-governmental organizations, garment factories and other local businesses. In Kompong Cham, more than half the students successfully launched their own micro enterprise like Sarath, says Kristen Leadem, Clear Path co-founder and Southeast Asia regional director.

And, Leadem adds, the course had some unexpected results in the social arena.

“The courses allowed them (students) to form strong bonds alongside newfound self-esteem as survivors with economic productivity to offer. As a sign of these lasting bonds, two marriages and numerous friendships resulted from the training.”

CPI and CVCD added a retroactive medical treatment component to the training program to help address lingering physical ailments that hampered the students’ mobility or economic success.