Thean Chanthou is sitting in her aunt’s house, wearing her long school uniform and tells us with tears in her eyes her story.
I really like to study and I wish my dream to become a teacher becomes true, but I don’t know how to reach my dream yet.
Thean Chanthou is 17 and has two brothers. Her father drowned in 2011 and her mother died 4 years later because of a sickness. The small family moved to her unemployed grandmother which was really poor. She sadly died in 2016 and left the 3 siblings alone. Chanethou and her little brother are still studying in school and her older brother supports the whole family by working as a construction worker. Chanethou studies hard and goes to school regularly, when she comes home she does housework and works as a coolie to earn some more of the needed money. The 3 siblings are living in their aunt’s house, who is living in Thailand right now but wants to come back to Cambodia soon. Chanethou’s parents left them a small piece of land, but they cannot afford to built a house on it.
We don’t know how to live when my aunt and her family come back from Thailand. We don’t know what we should do when my brother has a wife and I don’t know how to continue my life in the future.
On the 16th of October 2015 we choose Chanthou and her family for our support program and gave them food, school uniform, a cow, mental support, help by getting a birth certificate and support for her studies. The cow, that already gave birth to a calf in 2017 kept them from total poverty and hopelessness
I never forget to find the grass for my cow. It is all my hope.
35% of Cambodian’s population is poor and another 3 million people are living right above the poverty line and will fall underneath it if something unexpected happens. 45% of the poor inhabitants are under 19 and 40% of the population living in rural areas face multidimensional poverty.
Salvation Centre Cambodia tries its best to help the people in greatest need. Therefor we will give nutrition and other support to 400 people living with HIV, we will help families to get social and legal services, we will support a program that safes 560 children from abuse by insuring their safety and supplying their basic needs and we will give nutritional support to 90 vulnerable children in the next 3 years. We want to insure that all theses people can live a human and dignified life.