Din Socheat's artwork

Sasha and Sovann worked with four young landmine survivors to create artwork representing their past experiences and their ambitions for the future. Each artist created one box. Inside each box, the artist painted the story of how his accident happened. On the outside of the box, the artist painted their ambitions for the future. The boxes are hung and people can stick their head inside to see the paintings.

Below is Din Socheat's story and a photo of his artwork.

My name is Din Socheat. I am 16 years old, and I had my accident when I was 15.

One day I was looking after my family’s cows in the fields near where we lived in Beang Ampil district. I saw something that looked like a toy so I reached down to pick it up and play with it. For a couple of hours I took it apart and put it back together, then took it apart again.

Suddenly the toy exploded in my hands. The explosion was so scary, I lost consciousness. When I woke up I managed to get up and walk the 30 meters back to my house. When my mother saw me, she cried and cried. She hadn’t thought anything of the sound of the explosion as mines quite often exploded in our area.

I kept thinking I must keep strong as I was losing a lot of blood. My mother went to find people that could help and I was carried on a stretcher to a hospital seven kilometers away. I fainted on the way and woke up in the hospital where they treated me for free in an emergency ward.

The bone was broken above my elbow and I had lost my left arm, three fingers and half of my thumb on my right hand. I felt hopeless and wanted to die. I was in the hospital for one and a half months and had 21 operations. When I got home I was given some help by an organization, including money to help my family.

While I was in the hospital they contacted the Cambodian Landmine Museum (CLMM) and one of the teachers from the CLMM came to see me and ask me if I wanted to live at the CLMM. When I left the hospital I was at home for a month and then in 2008 I moved to CLMM near Banteay Srei.

I have now lived at the CLMM for almost a year and have been going to school. I have decided I want to be a teacher of various subjects and also teach children about the danger of landmines. I want to give as much of my knowledge and experience to younger children so they can learn and have better opportunities when they grow older.

Cheat is the youngest of four siblings. His two older brothers live in Thailand working as laborers, and his sister is married and lives in the village where Cheat had the accident.