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There are 10,000 – 20,000 children living on the streets in Cambodia. Over 60% start sniffing glue, which curbs their hunger. They don’t know that sniffing glue causes brain damage. Children end up living on the street because their family cannot afford to feed them, or the parents died, or they were abused. These children are easy targets for rape and trafficking.
Friendship with Cambodia supports a shelter for street children near the Thai border in Banteay Mancheay Province in northwest Cambodia. It is one of the poorest provinces and there are many children working, begging, and prostituting in this area. The shelter can welcome up to 25 children. Some of the children who come to the center were trafficked and many are orphans.
The children are given a home, food, schooling, activities, and counseling. The staff work with each child to find a long term solution. If possible, the child is reunited with his/her family and the impoverished family is given help with food and employment. If the child is abused or orphaned, he/she is invited to live in a Family House, where a loving couple is hired to raise ten children.
$300 pays the rent at the shelter for one month.
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