Cambodia
St Edmund's Parish is twinned with the Parish of St John in Siem Reap in the Apostolic Prefecture of Battambang in Cambodia.
Siem Reap is a large city built on the tourist industry as it is about five miles from the World Heritage Site of Angkor Wat, which attracts many millions of tourists. It is a bustling city and the Church is near the centre of the city and has many outreach programmes in rural areas, but also welcomes many tourists.
Our twinning began in 2005 with a formal agreement arranged by Bishop Michael. We exchanged a few letters with the priest, Fr Heri, and then in November of that year he came to England and visited St Edmund's. This was the real beginning of our friendship with the Parish in Siem Reap which extends to this day.
Over these years we have had exchange visits where we have welcomed parishioners from St John’s and been welcomed ourselves by them. We have supported projects in St John’s parish such as the Cow Bank, the Rice Bank and a Rice Soup programme.
A Rice Bank is a simple idea which has a great ability to help people in Cambodia. The parish grows rice on land it owns and then stores the grain. Towards the end of the dry season, when the people are running out of rice, they can borrow a 50-kilo bag, which they pay back when they harvest their own.
The cow bank works in a similar way: the Church buys a cow and then gives the first calf to a family to raise. When that cow has its first calf, the family give this to the Church, any other calves then belong to the family, and the original calf can go to another family.