From Hollywood to Landfills
Just 10 years ago, Scott Neeson was one of the most influential person in the movie industry. He was famous, wealthy and living a life of luxury in Hollywood. However, one backpacking trip to Cambodia changed his whole life… from being a self-serving person, to an extremely giving person.
Scott spent 10 years at Fox, ultimately becoming President of 20th Century Fox International. During his time, he oversaw the release of blockbusters such as Titanic, Braveheart, Independence Day, X-Men, the Star Wars prequel trilogy and over 100 other films.
In 2003, he left Fox for Sony Pictures Entertainment… but before starting his new role, he took a mini sabbatical through Asia. When in Cambodia, he realized that there were many children whose livelihood depended on sifting through hazardous waste for scraps to be sold. Inspired by this, he started the Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF).
After building the foundations, he then returned to LA to start his new role with Sony Pictures Entertainment but made monthly trips to Cambodia. A year later, he resigned from his Hollywood job. He also sold off his home, boat and cars, and moved to Cambodia as founder and executive director of CCF.
CCF was originally set up to help 45 children living in dangerous landfills of Cambodia. Fast-forward 10 years, CCF is now helping more than 11,000 children and poverty-stricken families in Cambodia.
When Scott first had the idea to help poor Cambodian children off landfills, he mentioned that he gave good thought to it. He knew he couldn’t juggle two lives, one in Hollywood and the other in Cambodia. He knew that he would have to give up all of the luxuries that he has gotten accustomed to for half of his life, and most importantly, he knew that starting CCF was not something that he could back out of as thousands of lives would become dependent on him.
Despite his worries and lack of experience in fundraising, Scott left his high-flying job and started CCF. Such an amazing display of kindness and compassion!
There must have been many ups and downs, but it did not deter Scott. Instead, it proved to be the best decision he made in his life, and he feels happier now than ever before.
I truly admire Mr Neeson, not because he left all his material possessions, but for his sheer determination to help these children… none of whom are not related to him. This is real love without agenda. It is because of him, that these children now have a higher chance for education, health care, work skills and a brighter future.
I hope many people will be inspired by Scott Neeson and support associations and organizations that bring relief to the difficult lives these underprivileged families have to face every day. There are many who are born into situations that are so difficult to get out of, that all they need is a little help. That little help can go a long way to creating a better future and preventing them from living a life of poverty.
Please read and share the article below and watch the videos on Scott Neeson. I think Scott is truly an inspiring role model not only to the children of Cambodia, but to the whole world. What do you think?
Tsem Rinpoche
Scott Neeson left Hollywood to save children rooting in Cambodia’s garbage dumps
He sold his mansion, Porsche, and yacht and set off for Cambodia to provide food, shelter, and education to destitute children.
Scott Neeson’s final epiphany came one day in June 2004. The high-powered Hollywood executive stood, ankle deep in trash, at the sprawling landfill of Stung Meanchey, a poor shantytown in Cambodia’s capital.
Scott Neeson, a former head of 20th Century Fox International, cares for more than 1,000 Cambodian children and their families.
In a haze of toxic fumes and burning waste, swarms of Phnom Penh’s most destitute were rooting through refuse, jostling for scraps of recyclables in newly dumped loads of rubbish. They earned 4,000 riel ($1) a day – if they were lucky.
Many of the garbage sorters were young children. Covered in filthy rags, they were scruffy, sickly, and sad.
Clasped to Mr. Neeson’s ear was his cellphone. Calling the movie mogul from a US airport, a Hollywood superstar’s agent was complaining bitterly about inadequate in-flight entertainment on a private jet that Sony Pictures Entertainment, where Neeson was head of overseas theatrical releases, had provided for his client.
Neeson overheard the actor griping in the background. ” ‘My life wasn’t meant to be this difficult.’ Those were his exact words,” Neeson says. “I was standing there in that humid, stinking garbage dump with children sick with typhoid, and this guy was refusing to get on a Gulfstream IV because he couldn’t find a specific item onboard,” he recalls. “If I ever wanted validation I was doing the right thing, this was it.”
Doing the right thing meant turning his back on a successful career in the movie business, with his $1 million salary. Instead, he would dedicate himself full time to a new mission: to save hundreds of the poorest children in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Much to everyone’s surprise, within months the Australian native, who as president of 20th Century Fox International had overseen the global success of block-busters like “Titanic,” “Braveheart,” and “Die Another Day,” quit Hollywood. He sold his mansion in Los Angeles and held a garage sale for “all the useless stuff I owned.” He sold off his Porsche and yacht, too.
His sole focus would now be his charity, the Cambodian Children’s Fund, which he had set up the previous year after coming face to face, while on vacation in Cambodia, with children living at the garbage dump.
“The perks in Hollywood were good – limos, private jets, gorgeous girlfriends, going to the Academy Awards,” says Neeson, an affable man with careworn features and a toothy smile. “But it’s not about what lifestyle I’d enjoy more when I can make life better for hundreds of children.”
He sits at his desk barefoot, Cambodian-style, in white canvas pants and a T-shirt. At times he even sounds like a Buddhist monk. “You’ve got to take the ego out of it,” he says. “One person’s self-indulgence versus the needs of hundreds of children, that’s the moral equation.”
On the walls of his office, next to movie posters signed by Hollywood stars, are before-and-after pictures of Cambodian children. Each pair tells a Cinderella story: A little ragamuffin, standing or squatting in rubbish, transforms in a later shot into a beaming, healthy child in a crisp school uniform.
Scott Neeson, a former head of 20th Century Fox International, cares for more than 1,000 Cambodian children and their families.
Neeson has more than 1,300 sets of such pictures; that’s how many children his charity looks after. Every one of the children, the Australian humanitarian stresses, he knows by sight, and most of them by name. “You go through a certain journey with them,” he says.
Houy and Heang were among the first who started that journey with him in 2004. Abandoned by their parents, the two sisters, now 17 and 18, lived at the dump in a makeshift tent.
“We felt sick and had no shoes. Our feet hurt,” Houy recalls in the fluent English she’s learned. “We’d never seen a foreigner,” Heang adds. “He asked us, ‘Do you want to study?’ “
Today the sisters are about to graduate from high school. They want to go on to college.
Neeson maintains four residential homes around town for more than 500 other deprived children and is building another. He operates after-school programs and vocational training centers. He’s built day cares and nurseries.
His charity provides some 500 children with three meals a day and runs a bakery where disadvantaged youths learn marketable skills while making nutrient-rich pastry for the poorest kids. It pays for well over 1,000 children’s schooling and organizes sightseeing trips and sports days for them.
“I drive the staff crazy,” says Neeson, who employs more than 300 locals, many of them former scavengers. “If I come up with a plan, I want to see it implemented within 48 hours. If I see a need, I want to do something about it. You don’t want to see suffering prolonged.”
He sees plenty of both need and suffering.
After decades of genocide and civil war, millions of Cambodians live in abject poverty. Many children are chronically malnourished, and many never even finish primary school.
On a late afternoon, as garbage pickers begin to return to their squalid dwellings of plastic sheets, tarpaulins, and plywood, Neeson sets out on his daily “Pied Piper routine.”
Navigating a muddy path, pocked with fetid puddles and strewn with trash, which winds among clusters of derelict shacks and mounds of garbage, he picks his way around a squatters’ community. Everywhere he goes, children dash up to him with cries of “Papa! Papa!” They leap into his arms, pull at his shirt, cling to his arms, wrap themselves around his legs.
“Hey, champ!” he greets a boy who clambers up on him. “He needs a dentist so badly,” he notes, referring to the boy’s rotten teeth. His charity offers free health care and dental services to the children and their parents.
In 2007 Neeson won the Harvard School of Public Health’s Q Prize, an award created by music legend Quincy Jones. In June he was named “a hero of philanthropy” by Forbes magazine. (“Well, I finally made it into Forbes,” he quips. “But no ‘World’s Richest’ list for me.”)
When Neeson spots certain kids, he hands them their portraits from a sheaf of newly printed photographs he carries around.
“I want them to have mementoes of themselves when they grow up and leave all this behind,” he explains. They give him their latest drawings in return.
He stops at a windowless cinder-block shanty inhabited by a mother and her three teenage daughters. The bare walls are adorned with Neeson’s portraits of the girls in school beside their framed Best Student awards.
Scott Neeson, a former head of 20th Century Fox International, cares for more than 1,000 Cambodian children and their families.
“I’m so proud of my children,” says Um Somalin, a garment factory worker who earns $2 a day. “Mr. Scott has done wonders for them.”
Neeson rescued one girl from being trafficked, another from domestic servitude, and the mother from a rubber plantation, after he had come across the youngest girl living alone at the dump. “We always bring the family back together,” he says. “We help everyone so no one slips through the cracks.”
The need is great: Life here can be unforgiving. “This girl has an abusive father. This one here fell into a fire when she was 6. That guy got shot. That one there lost an arm in an accident,” Neeson says, reeling off details.
Then, flashlight in hand, he doubles back down another path – and steps into what seems like a different world. Behind a high-security fence, children sit in neat rows in brightly painted classrooms, learning English and math in evening classes. Others play on computers in an air-conditioned room.
Until recently, the site where Neeson’s new school now stands was a garbage dump.
“When I started working for him, I was surprised how much he does for the children,” says Chek Sarath, one of his helpers. “He places their well-being above his own.”
Neeson stops by young children who have their eyes glued to a Disney cartoon playing from a DVD.
“I miss a lot about Hollywood,” Neeson muses. “I miss Sundays playing paddle tennis on the beach with friends and taking the boat out to the islands.
“Sundays here, I’m down at the garbage dump. But I’m really happy.”
• Learn more about Scott Neeson’s work at www.cambodianchildrensfund.org.
Donate / get involved
UniversalGiving helps people give to and volunteer for top-performing charitable organizations worldwide. Projects are vetted by UniversalGiving; 100 percent of each donation goes directly to the listed cause.
To support programs in Cambodia and elsewhere, UniversalGiving recommends:
• Asia America Initiative builds peace, social justice, and economic development in impoverished, conflict-plagued communities. Project: Support a healing center for child victims of war.
• Globe Aware promotes cultural awareness and sustainability. It seeks projects that will help people live happy, healthy, and independent lives. Project: Teach English in Cambodia.
• Plan International USA works side by side with communities in 50 developing countries to end the cycle of poverty for children. Project: Give school supplies to children in need.
[footnote]Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/2012/0810/Scott-Neeson-left-Hollywood-to-save-children-rooting-in-Cambodia-s-garbage-dumps[/footnote]
Videos on Scott Neeson
Australian Story: Streets With No Name
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/scott-neeson.mp4
Scott Neeson on ABC news
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/scott-neeson-abc.mp4
Scott Neeson on PBS news
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/scott-neeson-pbs.mp4
Pictures of Scott Neeson
The initial plan was to save 45 children from the garbage dump… now there’s over 11,000 children and families get aid from the CCF.
Scott and all the children he cares for in Cambodia.
Before Cambodia, Scott seen in the movie set ‘Braveheart’ with Mel Gibson.
Love… surrounded by garbage.
Scott has built facilities for these needy children so that they can have a better education and better health care.
Scott spends most of his time now raising funds for the children of Cambodia as he often said, CCF is a lifetime commitment.
For more information on Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF)
Website: https://www.cambodianchildrensfund.org/
Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/cambodianchildrensfund
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tweet4ccf
Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/CCFund/videos
Please support us so that we can continue to bring you more Dharma:
If you are in the United States, please note that your offerings and contributions are tax deductible. ~ the tsemrinpoche.com blog team
Inspiring read of Scott Neeson a most influential person in the movie industry,walked away from Hollywood to start a charity. Left everything he had built,been famous, wealthy and living a life of luxury for the sake of those children living in the slump in Cambodia. He decided to leave Hollywood behind and moved to Cambodia and founded Cambodian Children’s Fund . It was on a trip to Phnom Penh, Scott saw hundreds of children and their families living and working on the Steung Meanchey garbage dump, one of the most toxic environments. It was a moment that changed his life, helping thousands of vulnerable children and their families escape a world of forced labour, child trafficking and desperate poverty into safety and independence. From being a self-serving person, to an extremely giving person truly inspiring. Scott has been living in Phnom Penh where his journey still captivates, inspires and bewilders people from all over the world.
Thank you Rinpoche for this inspiring post.
It is terrible to see that there are so many people who need help to survive. Everybody should have the chance to go to school and have a comfortable home, but in many countries without social system this is not the case.
This is so moving.
“If you want to know your past life, look at your present life. If you want to know the future, look at your present actions.”
Scott must’ve collected tremendous amount of merits in his past life. With strong practices and prayers to benefit all sentient beings.
Thus he acquires immense wealth,fame, authority, etc.
His imprints are triggered when he visited the poor slums in Cambodia. It’s easy to see how Scott so willingly gave up everything without detachments as the mind continuum of his past life and present is one.
When reborn as an ordinary person to benefit sentient beings, one’s capability is limited.
But when one is reborn with immense wealth, fame, authority and is known throughout, one’s benefit and reach is tremendous. To benefit 11,000 families to ease their sufferings is no easy feat. Imagine we can’t even benefit 1 family in our lifetime.
Buddhas, Boddhisattvas mind comes in many different forms even as beggars, celebrities, animals etc using whatever form and method necessary.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing, I hope that we all be like Scott in this if not our next future lives to reach out and benefit all sentient beings and take their sufferings away.
Great inspiration to all, Mr. Neeson. He really proved what is leading by example, and have the deep knowledge of Dharma, leaving all attachments, and giving love and compassion to all around him…unconditionally!
I’m deeply ashamed that I cannot even give up and get out of my comfort zone to help someone in need.
Mr. Neeson’s actions really speaks louder than words.
With deepest respect to such kind soul.
This is cliched but I still have to say that this is not something we’d encounter everyday. It has parallels to what the Buddha had done, the Buddha who decided that all the glamour, money, parties will not get us real lasting happiness and Scott is out there building a great community for the poorest of the poor in Cambodia. And it is so moving for him to keep at it making it happen for the poor kids of Cambodia. I salute your efforts and compassion for what you are doing.
Truly an inspiration for everyone. His compassion and giving was a good example for all. With his fame and wealth, he forgo to help on the Cambodian children, i hope more people like him then the world is peace.
Mr Scott Neeson is really amazing and inspiring! He gave up his high flying job and luxurious life style in Hollywood and went to help the poor and under priviledged children by starting a Cambodian Children Fund after he has visited a dump site during his holidays to Cambodia. What Scott Neeson did and is still doing is like a living Bodhisattva to me! I hope and pray that he will live a long life and more donations and help will come his way to make his organization grow bigger and bigger to benefit more children. Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this heartwarming and touching story.
The phenomenum here in this blog has shown us that through dedicating ourselves to working for the happiness of all needy beings, can we ever experience suppreme happiness for ourselves. “The dedicated attitude of bodhicitta is the powerful energy capable of transforming our mind completely,” as said Lama Thubten Yeshe in his written message “a vision of totality”. This is not something we believe in blind faith, but is a demonstrated experience as shown now to us in this episode! So if we want to be happy as much as possible, the only thing to do is to dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to the welfare of others,as shown to us explicitly by our Guru in this Blog. Many heartfelt thanks to Rinpoche on behalf of all who has seen, viewed, read and learned so much from his Bog!
Thank you for the sharing Rinpoche. Mr Scott Neeson is indeed a compassionate person and sincerely keep his determination to help others.His practice of selflessness should be a good example to all.Most of us only talk about empathy but how many of us would actually do something to change the situation.
For Mr Scott Neeson to give up everything when he was at his peak of his career in order to help someone he does know display compassion and generosity at its highest form.
May Mr Scott Neeson succeed in all his effort to help those helpless children and their families in Cambodia without obstacles .
Scott Neeson is truly an example of how humans are capable of showing compassion. I really support the fact that he does such wonderful things and I wish more people would do the same. Thank you for sharing this.
Mr Scott is definitely a role model we should look up to, I really respect him for everything he has done and still doing. He willing to give up his luxurious life to help these children which are not even related to him. He really is a wondeful and compassionate human being. Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
Is such touching video and Scott is really a hero. Scott has show us what is the true happiness all about is not the wealth the fame the true happiness is about helping others who in need. Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this video with is really inspiring and it really touches my heart.
Scott Neeson found compassion in his heart after his visit to Cambodia. He was so compelled to go back to help bring back HOPE to these poor Cambodian children. He was fearful of their future if he had not stayed to do something beneficial for them. It is another inspiring real story of how someone so successful in Hollywood will “renounce” his career, money, big house, big parties and luxuries and give them up to help others.
Oh WOW! Scott Neeson is an inspiration! For someone who is at the top of his life living in luxury and comfort is willing to give up everything, including his ego, to be with underprivileged children far away from him home is a fine example of altruism. All he had in mind are the welfare of the children and a dream to alleviate poverty.
I salute him! It is also example for me to see that I can give up my attachments and ego for the greater good of people. There are many more people who are much better off who can give their life to other.
In life, if we pay more attention with an open mind, there’s actually a lot of inspirational people around us, whether it is far or near, it just depend on whether we want to see it or not.
Scott Neeson is truly inspiring, for anyone to climb up to his level is not easy, but to be like him that climbing to this level and yet, willing to let go of everything in his luxury life and go to a third world country to serve others.
Scott’s action told us very clearly that money is not everything, the real wealth does not come from the outer material, but it come from the inner spirituality, that is kindness, to be kind to others bring us unending happiness.
Intelligent people knows to utilize things around them to bring them great wealth, but only the wise one knows when to let go of their great wealth for a greater purpose. Learn from them, let our life be beneficial to others and not just to serve ourselves with ended up meaningless.
Scot Neeson is so inspiring and makes me reflect on how little I do for others.
How much I am unable to get out my comfort zone to do more. Making excuses why I cannot.
I am ashamed and feel sad about myself. With this realisation, I will for a start do what Rinpoche has advised me and develop the habituation to climb higher onto this letter of giving without agenda.
Scott Neeson is a shining example of the potential of what any human being can achieve in serving others; which is what Buddhism, the saints, Lamrim and especially the 3 Principle Aspects by Lama Tsongkhapa advocates for using this human rebirth. Regardless of his religion if any, he is an inspiration and a shining example to humanity.
Thanks Rinpoche for the reminder.