We need to open the first crisis center for families with abused children in Cambodia, a home of healing for 700 hurt children next year. For kids from traumatised and abusive families, the only answer now in Cambodia is orphanages, shelters and jail. But we've seen little miracles when our dedicated team works with a family, relatives and communities to build love and support for their children. Last year, Global Giving helped feed more than 600 children - this year, help them go home.
Riverkids look for families that are really, really hard to help, families that no other charities could help. While traffickers look for the most vulnerable families because their children are the easiest to prey on, we look for those that are incredibly difficult and complex - families who are hurting their children, planning to sell them and with generations of abuse. We listen to them, help them find recovery and protect their children. But change does not happen overnight.
Our Lifeboat model has grown from our WINGS (2014: http://bit.ly/1IdkPiI) project. We work with families with multiple serious problems, combining limited direct financial aid with intensive family intervention for six months in two stages to recover or find safe caregivers for their children with their family and community. The Lifeboat needs a dedicated team, good partnerships with other organisations and careful planning with the family and children involved at every stage.
Our house will be the only crisis center for difficult families in Phnom Penh. Currently families with complicated problems are bounced around as different groups try to help. The messier and harder the problems, the less likely they are to get helped, the more likely their children are to suffer. We'll provide and co-ordinate help for these hardest families in an active caseload of 60, and a target of 240 families in intensive care, 420 in monitoring annually.
