Protect 20 girls from abuse in Cambodia

Chantha (not her real name), aged 10, has been living at CWDA’s Safe Shelter since 2012. Her father had died and shortly after her mother abandoned her, leaving her elderly grandmother to care for her. Chantha’s aunt, unable to take Chantha in herself and worried that she was at high risk of being trafficked due to her vulnerable situation and poverty, came to CWDA for help.

Thanks to the generous support from our donors, a year later Chantha is a happy and confident young girl. She is studious, speaks English and aspires to be a teacher when she is older.

Typically Chantha wakes up at 5:30am and begins her chores of cleaning the sleeping area and making the beds with the other girls. She then showers and gets dressed for the day before going downstairs to the communal living space and eating a breakfast of eggs and rice, cooked by the older girls and supervised by the house ‘mother’. After breakfast, she washes up the bowls and cutlery and then gets started on her homework.

At 10.30am, Chantha has an English lesson for an hour, provided by CWDA’s native-speaking volunteers. She then has lunch consisting of soup, pork and rice, before helping to clean up and getting ready for school.

During the afternoon, Chantha attends a local Khmer school until 5pm. After a dinner of curry and rice, she watches TV, plays with the other girls and reads before finally going to bed at 8pm.

When asked what living in the Safe Shelter meant to her, Chantha replied: ‘I like living at CWDA because it makes me happy to go to school, learn English and be looked after by house mother’.

Chantha, and the other girls at CWDA’s Safe Shelter would like to thank you for your generous support, which enables them to continue living in a safe and caring environment.