Father, daughter team up to help Cambodia
10/20/2007
Long-time journalist Bernard Krisher is finally free to say and do what he likes. Though the former Tokyo bureau chief of Newsweek was hardly a shrinking violet before retirement, leaving the industry has allowed him to pursue other interests.
"I always felt a journalist should not be a participant--you should not be an activist. You have enough power as a journalist to write about things and to make an impact that way," says Krisher, 76. "Once you leave that particular discipline, then you're certainly free to follow your passions and link yourself to a cause."
Unlike many retirees, Krisher's obsession these days is not his golf game, but improving the quality of life in Cambodia. What began as a "mom and pop operation" in the early 1990s has turned into a full-fledged father/daughter venture. This past spring, Krisher's daughter, Deborah Krisher-Steele, quit her job at jewelry empire Harry Winston to pursue nonprofit work in Cambodia.
"Our diamonds are better," she says, referring to the children the Krishers are trying to help. Before working for Harry Winston, Krisher-Steele worked for several nonprofits. "I know what the problems are in these nonprofits, so I think I bring that to this organization. I know how administrative costs pile up," she says. "That's not the way we run things."
Though it's something of a dramatic career change, Krisher-Steele says the decision to work with her dad is hardly surprising. "Having grown up with a father who was a journalist and traveled around a lot of Asia--not just Japan--I was aware of what was going on," she says. "Basically my dad dragged me around everywhere, so that probably had the biggest impact."
Krisher came to Japan in 1962. As the Tokyo bureau chief of Newsweek, he quickly made a name for himself in, as he puts it, "un-covering the Vietnam war."
"No one was claiming their fiefdom, which journalists very jealously guard," he says. "They were all in Vietnam focused on that and I sort of capitalized on that and was able to travel all over Asia if I saw a story. The radar screen was on Vietnam, which I didn't much care about."
Krisher's travels took him to Cambodia, and he quickly fell in love with the country. "I was very taken by Cambodia and saw a fairy tale type of country with a benevolent king," he says. "It was a little Paris in Asia. The city was very beautiful, the people were very kind and gentle and happy."
After the Khmer Rouge regime and subsequent political unrest left the country in shambles, Krisher was compelled to do something. In 1993, he launched the Cambodia Daily
.com>. "The greatest needs in Cambodia and probably many countries like it are information, health and education. I began with information."
Starting the newspaper felt like coming full circle, he says, reminiscing about the Pocket Mirror, a publication he started at the age of 12.
Also in 1993, Krisher founded Japan Relief for Cambodia and American Assistance for Cambodia, nonprofits to aid in the reconstruction process. Today, his projects have funded the building of 385 schools
One of Krisher's favorite parts of his work is helping kids become Internet savvy. "I'm looking to the next generation," he says. "It's amazing the satisfaction you get seeing little kids learn and using that education to improve their lives. If there was more education and these kinds of programs all around the world, I think we'd get rid of many of the ills.
"There'd be no terrorism because terrorism I think comes out of the fact that these people have no hope; they don't think anybody cares about them, so they don't mind even killing themselves and hurting other people who haven't shown any interest in them. In Cambodia, they know people care. People build schools for them and they learn from the schools and they benefit, so they don't have this feeling of animosity, hate, imperialism, colonialism or whatever--I think this is something that's been lost on much of the world and on a lot of politicians."
As a survivor of the Holocaust, some of Krisher's motives for his work in Cambodia are deeply personal. "I was born in Germany--we luckily left unscathed, but many of my relatives died. I saw so many people who didn't make the right decision quickly enough in order to flee, or who didn't know how to react against attacks by powerful people."
One thing both Krisher and his daughter are adamant about is working toward sustainability. Krisher credits Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for passing on some valuable insight during an interview in 2000. "She's the one who gave me this--she was very critical of NGOs who go to countries and make people dependent and give and give and give," he says, adding that she emphasized the idea of teaching people how to fish rather than giving them fish.
Krisher recalls his first trip to Cambodia decades ago, when he doled out gifts of cash, shoes and soy sauce. "I realized that was very nice and people were grateful, but that after a week or two it's gone," he says. "I hope we can someday just wave goodbye with a smile. This may take another decade, but that's the wish."
Until the programs reach a sustainable level, the Krishers are confident that they'll find the necessary support. According to Krisher-Steele, the time is right for nonprofits to flourish.
"A lot of money is coming in to NGOs abroad from Americans. A theory is that this is coming from people who don't support current U.S. foreign policy," she says. "This is foreign policy on an individual level."
For his part, Krisher is doing his best to reap the benefits of his decades-long journalism career.
"If you have to program your life, I would say work hard to make a lot of money and make a name for yourself, and don't think about what you're going to do for other people for the first 30 or 40 years of your life," he says. "Then you go back when you've left your work and you can say, 'Now you can pay me back, you can build a school.' It's worked, actually. Cash in on what you've done."(IHT/Asahi: October 20,2007)
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