In Cambodia, there are many threats to family stability, and when parents or grandparents fall into hardship, they are forced to make difficult decisions about how to ensure their child or grandchild’s basic needs are met. In desperation, many parents will take the last resort — relinquishing their child to orphanage care. But through research and community collaboration funded by Save the Children, USAID and GHR Foundation grants, Holt hopes to create a model of services that keeps children out of institutions and with their families.
Sinat’s home in Krasaing Mean Chey Village near Kampot, Cambodia. Sinat, dressed in green, waves as Holt staff leave. Sinat’s grandson is standing in the front of the frame, wearing the Holt schoolbag his child sponsor in America helped purchase for him.
Last January, I was sitting under a tin-covered porch on a rough, wooden platform. Red-faced and sweating, I was not cut out for the heavy, exhausting heat of the Cambodian summer.
The shade of Sinat’s porch was welcome relief. Sinat’s house is a single-room structure, with green tin walls. Unlike many of the homes in rural Cambodia, her home is not built on stilts, which typically protects homes from flooding. For that reason, Sinat and her 15-year-old grandson sometimes sleep in their rice storage room, an additional structure behind the main house, elevated about four feet off the ground on thick, wooden stilts.
When Holt travels to visit with families, our presence, especially in rural areas, usually draws a crowd. Kids come to see what we are doing in their village. Even adults show up, curious about the foreigners.