By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
GROWING up with a farmer for a dad, Vicky Hamilton knows the importance of water.
These humble beginnings were inspiration for the Narre Warren mother of three in recently helping to provide water filters to under-privileged villages throughout Cambodia.
“My dad’s been a farmer, he’s retired now, but he had a market garden out in Devon Meadows,” Vicky said.
“So I grew up knowing the importance of water.
“When we went out to the villages and saw the state of the water they were drinking, it was shattering.
“When I came home and took a glass of water from the tap, I was so grateful.”
Vicky used to be scared of flying but when her father Kevin urged her to join him on a church tour to Cambodia, Vicky found the humanitarian need so severe that she has been back several times since her first trip in 2012.
“I just fell in love with the country. To see the needs there blew me away,” she said.
“We can’t imagine it; I wouldn’t have been able to imagine it.
“It was very rough, going without my comfortable Western needs that I’m so used to.
“I was taken to a local village.
“This was the start of the passion, when I came back I took my husband over there, too.
“He’d never been out of Australia before let alone a third world country.”
It’s understood each filter caters for a family of five and can help to remove up to 98 per cent of germs.
“My Dad’s just gotten back; he did another 60 filters, and now we look after someone in Cambodia who will touch base with us to make sure they’re being cleaned,” Vicky said.
“A lot of the villagers have upset bellies all the time, fevers, and also in parts of Cambodia there is a natural table of arsenic.”
Vicky’s newfound passion for helping those less fortunate in Cambodia gain access to clean water has spread to her husband, Ben, and three children Tamara, 13, Corey, 9, and Isabelle, 6.
In December the whole Hamilton family travelled to Cambodia for six weeks to supply water filters to the villages.
“The kids were awesome, they pretty much gave up Christmas to be involved.
“You can’t get that education in the classroom,” Vicky said.
“We were sitting there and my six-year-old said she kept thinking about these people in the villages.”
