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A young Cambodian girl stands in front of her home in Borey Keila, an urban slum district of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Mark Rosasco)By LJ Anderson
Daily News Columnist
MercuryNews.com
When Mark and Barbara Rosasco embarked on a career change that involved promoting handmade traditional products from Southeast Asia, they made sure that a part of their business plan included giving back to the countries from which they hoped to profit. Having lived in Asia since 1990, they knew that the level of poverty and — at that time, in 1997 — the effects of the AIDS epidemic, were simply too great to ignore.
The focus of their philanthropic efforts has been in Cambodia, where 40 percent of the people live at or below the poverty line, and many have been forcibly evicted from their homes. The country has experienced the effects of civil war, government corruption, a decimated public health system, and although there have been improvements, among the highest HIV prevalence rates in Southeast Asia.
Mark and Barbara Rosasco, of Menlo Park, founded the Kasumisou Foundation (www.kasumisou-foundation.info) in 1998, a family foundation that provides support services to more than 70 Cambodian families, assisting with food, housing, school expenses, and visits from a home-care team.
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