Cambodia's remote Ratanakiri province, with its red earth and rubber plantations, is the world’s main source of the beautiful zircon stone. The zircon is the most brilliant of all blue gemstones. It has a refractive index that rivals the diamond and considered more rare....
Emi & Eve is thrilled to announce our collaboration with jewellery atelier Ammo in Siem Reap. Ammo was founded by UK jewellery designer Madeline Green, who established her atelier with backing from local NGO SaoMao. Ammo Jewellery Design was formed from the desire to marry...
Being very familiar with Balinese culture, I was surprised to find, on my first visit to Cambodia in 2012, that temples and temple ceremonies looked very familiar, with flowers and much gold gilding everywhere. The Apsara figure translates as “celestial nymph” and I saw many of...
An insightful documentary "The Landmine Girls" by Emma Louise Fry, who was an International Journalism masters student at University College Falmouth at the time she made it. In it we follow two girls who are part of a CMAC demining unit and listen to them...
Deep in the hot dim maze of the Russian Market in Phnom Penh, you can find various jewellers' shops. Our gemstone dealer's tiny shop is an oasis of light, air conditioning and sparkling gemstones in glass cabinets. He comes from a family who have been in...
I was born in Pursat province, Cambodia. I don’t have any siblings and my mother died when I was 4 years old. My father was killed when I was 8 years old by a notorious Khmer Rouge soldier. It was a terrible time for me....
It's hard to imagine what went on thirty years ago in the Kingdom of Cambodia, where people now go about their business planting rice, going to market, getting married and going to school like anybody else in South East Asia. Talk to anyone as young...
Historically, the rare, deep blue sapphires of Pailin in Cambodia were once the most highly regarded by gem traders throughout the world. The original source of the legendary Pailin sapphires is known to be the The Phnum Yat volcano in the south west corner of...
What adventures did you create as a kid? Perhaps you built a tree house in the backyard, or played ball with the neighbours' kids. Until it was time to go in for dinner. This was a far cry for children in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge...
In 2008 a Norwegian film maker, Morten Traavik, organised a beauty pageant in Angola that featured women who had lost limbs because of landmines. Although the idea seems a bit shocking, it was a concept developed to challenge the conventional concepts of beauty, and the general...
Emi & Eve have been working with a home working seamstress, Thearith Soun, for some time. Thearith is a skilled tailor. She is also not only a war survivor but also a HIV survivor. She heads a small group of seamstresses with HIV in her community....
A long ride in a tuk-tuk from the city centre of Phnom Penh, alongside other tuk-tuks and motorbikes laden with goods for market, brings us to a somewhat forlorn suburb with various sized houses, some unfinished. Cambodia has not got round to many things we...
The grand entrance of the CMAC headquarters in Phnom Penh is flanked by two tall upright decommissioned bombs. It delivers you into a cream walled, empty, high ceilinged lobby featuring an enormous poster depicting a green countryside scene of demining activities. The public relations officer...
