Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen Lauds The Nippon Foundation’s Support in Education, Health Sectors

I paid a courtesy call on Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen during my visit to the Southeast Asian country from March 22 to 25 as chairman of The Nippon Foundation, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination and Special Envoy of the Government of Japan for National Reconciliation in Myanmar.

During the 75-minute meeting at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh on March 24, I briefed him on the foundation’s activities in the education and health sectors in the kingdom as well as on the humanitarian assistance we are providing to internally displaced ethnic minority women and children in Myanmar.

Mr. Hun Sen expressed his satisfaction with the progress of The Nippon Foundation’s activities that benefit not only the people of Cambodia but also those of other countries in the region.

I began by telling him about the $6 million project we launched 30 years ago in Cambodia to establish and support a school to train prosthetics and orthotics professionals. A prosthesis is a replacement for a lost limb, while an orthosis is an external device used to support, correct or assist a limb.

The Pol Pot regime’s brutal genocidal reign of terror resulted in the killing of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the late 1970s and many people lost limbs years later after coming into contact with landmines used in the internal conflicts.

We have continued to operate the school, always incorporating the latest technologies, and it is now so advanced that 28 nations have sent trainees there to study the manufacture of prosthetic and orthotic devices. In particular, I thanked the prime minister for accepting five teachers and 26 students from Myanmar for training in preparation for working at a similar institution in their own country.

The second project I touched on was an English teaching program for rural students in Cambodia, under which the foundation has so far provided scholarships to around 2,500 students to study in Phnom Penh and abroad.

At the request of the Cambodia’s Education Ministry, the foundation also provided English textbooks and other educational materials for junior and senior high school students in rural areas in the kingdom.

Thirdly, in my capacity as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination and chairman of The Nippon Foundation, I thanked Prime Minister Hun Sen for the Cambodian Health Ministry’s cooperation in combating leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, in the kingdom. So much progress has been made that almost no new cases of leprosy are found there.

Regarding the situation in neighboring Myanmar, I discussed the foundation’s activities to provide humanitarian assistance to people from ethnic minorities, especially women and children, who have been displaced by the internal conflicts between the military and the ethnic armed organizations (EAO).

I then raised what I call the “humanitarian ceasefire” that I brokered late last year between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA), an EAO in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine.

There is no time frame for the humanitarian ceasefire as the agreement provides that it will remain in effect as long as the foundation and international aid organizations provide humanitarian assistance to the people of the state, including food and medicine as well as the construction of schools, clinics and infrastructure.

This has led to peace in one of the areas of Myanmar that had seen the most intense fighting. I told the prime minister that I am striving to have the ceasefire between the military and the AA spread and bring peace to all of Myanmar, which has experienced continued conflict for many decades.

At the end of our meeting, he agreed to my request to pose for a photograph next to a banner reading "Don't Forget Hansen's Disease", a campaign that I initiated in 2021 to ensure that leprosy is not overlooked even amid the coronavirus pandemic.

I have known Mr. Hun Sen for the last 30 years and this was our first meeting since March 2022. Afterwards, he posted on social media: “I thanked Sasakawa for the foundation’s help in the education and health sectors and in the fight against leprosy. They have not just helped Cambodians. Through their prosthetics training and their humanitarian work in Myanmar, they have reached beyond the Kingdom’s borders. I requested that they continue to provide assistance.”