Dear Cambodian
Children’s Fund employees
Kram Sok
Channoeurn, Country Manager; Morm Sopheak, Head of Finance; Taing Sotheara, Operations Manager; Trina Capps, Organizational Development Manager; Tracy France, Head of Education; Ryan Witcombe, Marketing and
Communications Manager; Kram Sokchannin, Education Manager; James (Jim) Weyers, Head of Sponsorship; Asha Griffith,
Manager Partnerships & Volunteers; Ly Sophea, Head of Facility
Ouk Sochenda,
CCF1 Manager; Chum Vichheka, CCF2 Manager; Voeun Sivleng, CCF6 Manager; Ngoy Hen, CCF Community Center Manager; Thim Sokha, Childcare Manager; Hoy Leanghoin, CCF Community Outreach
Manager; Nhem Rithy, Child Protection Manager; Keo Sidanin, Internal Auditor; Kang Chamroeun, Sponsor Communications Manager; Chhem Saron, Sponsor Engagement Manager Sok Phearak,
Sponsor Relations Manager; Khoy Radeth, Vocational Supervisor; Chhoeung Sopheap HR Manager ; Janet Tartaglia Leadership Program Manager.; Pichnita
Ou, Administrator
; Kon Chic Small, Finance; Sea Vaung, Education Officer; Bateman Khan, Sponsorship Officer; Nicky Cummins, Office Manager; Joleen Soo; Bob
Alexander; Ly Sophea; Chum
Viccheka
Hoy
Leanghoin; Ngoy Hen; Thim Sokha; Chhem Saron; Keo Sidanin; Voeun Sivleng; Nhem
Rithy; Asha Griffiths; James Weyers; Trina Caps; Ryan Witcombe; Sreypov Som
Some of you will be
aware that I have, this past 18 months, been asking your boss Scott Neeson a
number of questions.
Scott refuses to
answer any questions about World Housing, CCF’s refusal to allow families to
retain copies of contracts they enter into with CCF, over-crowding in
dormitories etc.
I believe, as CCF
employees, that you have a duty of care to CCF’s 700+ children in residential
care; that you should ask Scott Neeson some of these same questions yourself.
You could start with
these:
“Who is the young woman, Scott, who looks to be considerably
less than half your age, cuddled up to you in this photo? How old is she? Is
she a resident living in one of our CCF centres?”
“ If it is OK for you to cuddle teenage girls like
this, does that mean it is OK for other middle aged men to cuddle teenage CCF
girls?”
On this same topic
you might like to ask a question of James Mc Cabe along these lines:
“Mr Mc Cabe, if, as head of of the CPU, you were to
come across a photo like this, of a middle-aged man who appears to be high on
drugs of some kind, with a teenage girl in his arms, would alarm bells start
ringing? Would you initiate an investigation?”
You could also ask Mr
Mc Cabe, who heads up CCF’s Child Protection Unit:
“Do you believe it appropriate that very wealthy
middle aged men in positions of power and authority should encourage young
women in their care to be as intimate as this teenage girl clearly is in this
photo?”
You will not get any
answers to questions such as these but the way in which Scott Neeson and James
Mc Cabe evade answering them may give you some insight valuable into their
characters and CCF’s growing credibility problem. It is a credibility problem
that is having a serious impact on CCF’s donor base. If CCF loses one more
major sponsor all of your jobs will be at risk. However, this is not what is
important here. It is the integrity of the organisation you work for. Be
informed about who you are working for.
For those of you
that Scott Neeson does not trust, or for those of you he wants to keep in the
dark, your emails are vetted by him; censored. Blocked to people such as
myself. Blocked to journalists. (In the case of about 25 of you I have managed
to get past the block, as 25 of you will be aware). You will not get this
email, but many of your co-workers will and will direct you to this blog.
How do you feel
about the non-disclosure contract Scott Neeson forced you to sign? When you
talk amongst yourselves? How do you feel about the very real possibility (nay,
the certainty) of losing your job if you speak to anyone in the media about
what actually takes place behind CCF walls? About the 2, 3 and sometimes 4
children sleeping in one bed? Do you think this to be fair? Or do you think
that CCF should have nothing to hide and should welcome the interest and attention
of journalists? After all, if CCF is doing all the things that Facebook says it
is doing, that Scott writes about in his press releases, why not open the doors
to the media and let us all see this good work and heap praise on CCF? Scott Neeson heaping praise on himself is not
quite the same.
I have spoken with
enough members of CCF staff (both Khmer and expatriate) to know that of the 200
- 400 people a day that visit this blog at prsent there are plenty of you who
read it – even if emails to you are blocked. And for those that do, (and now
for you, if you are reading this online) perhaps some questions arise similar
those I am asking here.
Perhaps you could
ask Scott when next you have a staff meeting?
I am, I suspect, being
overly optimistic about your being allowed to ask any questions at all; let
alone receive answers. Rather than answer them Scott will almost certainly try
to shoot the messenger. This is the tactic he and his fellow Team Neeson members
have employed this past 15 months – attempt to destroy the credibility of
anyone who raises questions about his honesty; anyone who points out that he is
engaged in a variety of money-making scams. He'll tell you I'm a pedophile, “wanted
in Europe!” He’ll tell you that I am jealous of his success, that I'm a loser,
a bitter old man, a failed filmmaker and so on. (Yesterday he
referred to me as a “delusional certifiable bitter twisted lunatic.”)
Let him have his
say and then say to him:
"Scott,
Mr Ricketson may be all the things you describe but could you please answer the
questions we are asking you?"
There are some
questions you might like to ask that relate to whether or not Scott can be
trusted to tell the truth. Ever!
CCF’s World Housing
initiative could be a good place to start:
“Why, Mr Neeson, did you spend more than a year
telling us all that CCF was, though its World Housing initiative, giving houses
to poor families in Steung Meanchey when this was not true? Why didn’t you tell
us that CCF was renting the houses to the poor families you said had been given
them? Is it OK to lie to raise money from sponsors and donors who believe that
you are telling the truth? You know, that old, ends justify the means
question?”
In the event that
Scott Neeson has some vaguely credible answer to this question, you could hit
him with another that he will find very difficult to answer. In fact I can tell
you right now, he will not answer it.
“Who owns the land on which the houses have been
built? Is Mr Ricketson right when he says that Kram Sok Channoeurn, CCF’s Country Manager, is the owner of the
land? If so, does this mean that she is now the owner of the houses being
rented to the poor families? Wow! She is making heaps of profit from all this
‘gifting’! You’re OK with this, are you, Mr Neeson? Or is Kram Sok Channoeurn just a front for you and it is you who now owns
all these houses? Close to $1 million worth according to your own figures.”
On the question of the
houses themselves (packed together like sardines; a slum in the making) you
could ask him how much each house costs and how much he tells donors each house
costs. And then do your maths. 360 houses at $2,800 a house = $1 million. Who
owns these houses? Certainly not the families they were given to! Then who? The
owner of the land on which they have been built?
You won’t get answers
to questions such as these and perhaps you will begin to wonder why your boss
never answers questions! Why, instead, he launches personal attacks on anyone
who has the temerity to ask him, Saint Scott, any questions at all. It is not
just my own questions Saint Scott refuses to answer. It is also questions put
to him by those journalists (rare in Cambodia) who do not see their role as
providing Scott with free (one would hope there’s no cash involved!) public
relations material through the newspapers they work for.
Perhaps there are
some amongst you who actually believe what you read on CCF’s Facebook page;
what you read on the Great Non Profits website.
Don't take my word
for Great Non Profits being a scam. Put my allegation to the test yourself.
Post any of the questions I have asked here, anonymously, and see how long it
takes Scott to have them taken down. Alternatively, voice some of your own
criticisms of CCF on Great Non Profits and see how long they last online.
Great Non Profits
is a public relations vehicle for cashed-up charities and NGOS to spruik their
product. They must pay money in order to have negative comments removed and to
keep their name at the top of the pile. A very clever scam.
OK, you may think
that none of this has anything to do with you. You are not responsible for how
Scott Neeson runs CCF. You are just doing your jobs. Right?
I would argue that
refusing to ask any of these questions does not absolve you of moral
responsibility for CCF’s unethical and illegal behavior. Yes, lying about
‘gifting’ is unethical and yes, not entering into proper legal agreements with
the parents of children removed from their families is illegal.
When Scott is
exposed as a fraud you will not be able to say, with any credibility:
"I had no idea this was going on! I feel
that I have been lied to; cheated by Scott Neeson and CCF."
No, pleading
ignorance will not work. For years to come, forever perhaps, this blog entry,
with your names attached, will bear witness to the fact that you were, in Feb
2016, invited to ask some questions of Scott Neeson and CCF but declined to do
so. You will then share with Neeson, Lemon, McCabe and members of the CCF board,
moral responsibility for, amongst other things, the stealing of houses given by
generous donors to poor families by CCF, to be given to the owner of the land
upon which they are being built.
Quite apart from
the fact that World Housing is a scam, presented as ‘gifting’ to the poor by a
man who has great difficulty in the truth-telling department, you members of
CCF staff have also been complicit, through your silence, in the creation of a
rabbit-warren slum in which families are packed together like sardines and
denied all rights to live as they choose that have not been sanctioned by
Neeson - a modern day slum lord.
If, on the other
hand, you ask questions of the kind that I have suggested here, and receive
solid and honest answers, you may well decide that it is me who plays fast and
loose with the truth; not Scott. Fair enough, as long as your decision as to
who is lying, me or Scott, is an informed one.
“I did not know
what was going on at CCF,” will not be an option when Scott Neeson and CCF are
eventually exposed.
