An Honor in Los Angeles

In November I went to Los Angeles to receive the iWitness Award from Jewish World Watch, an organization formed through a collaboration of Southern California synagogues concerned to raise consciousness about the mass killings in Darfur and about genocide throughout the world.

I was honored to be recognized by Jewish World Watch for the work I have done in launching Khmer Legacies, and was pleased to have the opportunity to speak to students and community leaders from the Cambodian community at the award ceremony.

While my short-term mission has been to preserve the testimonies of survivors and the history of Khmer Rouge atrocities, my long-term goal is to add the voices of Cambodians to the collective voice of communities speaking out against genocide. This conviction guides my own work as it does, I believe, the efforts of Jewish World Watch to raise a "call to conscience."

The award itself, seen in the picture, is a shofar, a Jewish horn sounded on Rosh Hashanah to stir the conscience.