Sombath Somphone | ສົມບັດ ສົມພອນ

Dear Sombath,

I am not sure you know the writer Eduardo Galeano. I do think you would appreciate him. If you haven’t read anything by him, I do hope someday you ‘ll get the opportunity to read Galeano. One of my favourite books is his Book of Embraces. As Galeano says, writing is a way of embracing other people, so I am writing you.

One of the chapters in the mentioned book is called Celebration of Mistrust that goes like this:

On the first day of classes, the professor brought out an enormous flask.

“It’s full of perfume,” he told Miguel Brun and the rest of the students. “I want to measure how perceptive each one of you is. Raise your hand as soon as you perceive the scent.”

And he removed the stopper. Moments later two hands were in the air. Some five, ten, thirty—all hands were raised. Continue reading “Dear Sombath…from Nico Bakker”

Dear Sombath,

I was talking to Shui Meng yesterday about your ideas on holistic education,”education of the heart” as the basis for building strong governance; shaping personal morality and integrity, individual and societal concepts of active citizenship, and relation of self to the natural environment, family, community and society.These ideas continue to inspire and direct my approach to education as a teacher. I am now living in Hong Kong and it is fantastic to see so many young people here engaged as active citizens and how the education system, both formal and informal, is teaching people to be informed, concerned and active in all aspects of society.

A group of my year 9 students were doing a research project about Laos recently and a large part of their presentation was about your work in education and civil society. The ideas they learnt about have motivated them to find out more, to understand how privileged they are in Hong Kong, that other countries are struggling to achieve what they often take for granted here- and they are planning more projects to follow up. We will be running a school trip to Laos in the Autumn, have set up a ‘Design for Change’ program as an after school activity at our school and they will also be raising awareness and funds for UXO victims in Laos. I hope it is some comfort to you that you continue to inspire us and that your ideas are meaningful and guiding to so many young people in their daily lives and work, well beyond the borders of Laos.

I look forward to talking to you about all this soon, showing you what the kids have done as a result of your inspiration, and discussing all the exciting projects that we have planned.

Ben Edwards

Dear Sombath,

I write you this letter having never met you before.

Like so many others across the world I only came to know of you after your disappearance.

I consider this a great tragedy.

However, I also see it as representative of the importance of your work and all that you have achieved.

Even in your absence your ideas and values are reverberating around the globe and inspiring and influencing a new generation of young scholars, social activists, community development workers and anyone else who feels that we need to move beyond simplistic interpretations of economic growth as representative of social progress and people’s wellbeing. Continue reading “Dear Sombath…from Kearrin Sims”