At Risk of Becoming a School Drop Out at 12!
12 year old Sinoun* was in very real danger of dropping out of school completely when the #everydayheroes of our social work team met her. Life was proving to be extremely challenging as she...
Friends-International Together, building futures.
Life on a dumpsite
About 30 kilometers south of Vientiane lies a huge dumpsite: the city landfill. Impossible to miss when driving on Road 13: trash as far as the eyes can see, mountains of garbage piling up...
A new life for Keo
Keo* is originally from a small Hmong community in Luang Prabang province, Laos. He used to live with his parents, his brother and five sisters. His father is growing rice in the land next...
New year resolution: why not #RunWithFriends in 2019?
On 2nd December 2018, more than 160 supporters of Friends gathered in Siem Reap, Cambodia to run the Angkor Wat International Half Marathon. Many others sponsored our runners who raised over $30,000 to support...
Futures Now!
2019 is a very important year indeed for Friends-International. August will mark 25 years since the launch of the very first Friends program, Mith Samlanh, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. 25 years on, and that...
At Friends, empowerment also means second chances
As a child, Davin, her parents and two sisters shared a one-room wooden shack in one of Phnom Penh’s slums. Her mother sold second-hand clothing at a nearby market and her father worked in...
Empower an individual, empower a generation
My name is Bo Vibol and I am twenty-three years old. I now work as a motorbike mechanics teacher’s assistant in Friends’ vocational training program, but I used to be a scavenger on the...
From life on the streets to Head Chef
Abandoned by her mother when she was three years old and then abused by her aunt during her teenage years, Saroeun had a rough start in life. At the age of 17, she decided...
At The Summit Of Social Gastronomy!
This fascinating and exciting update on TREE Alliance at Gastromotiva 2018 comes via Anton Ventslav, TREE Chef Coordinator, based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. “TREE Alliance was among those invited to the 2nd ever Social Gastronomy Summit, ‘Gastromotiva...
Children’s Day – Partners In Child Protection
ChildSafe Movement are delighted with the recent recognition of leading travel business G Adventures as the first ChildSafe Certified Global Travel Organization. Certification involved a stringent review of G Adventures processes and policies to...
Voluntourism & Orphanages, Challenges Remain
In Cambodia, Friends-International has worked closely with the Government, other agencies and partnerships such as 3PC, for over ten years now in ending the plight of the thousands of children who have been unnecessarily...
Education for Chenda
A child’s right to education is the centerpiece of this story from one of our Cambodia programs. Chenda* is ten years old and lives with her grandmother and sister in a simple house constructed of zinc...
Joy, first trainee at Let’s Eat Vientiane
Joy* a cheerful 17 year-old girl, started her vocational training at Let’s Eat, our newest restaurant in Vientiane, Laos in August. She was actually the first student to join the training! From Champasak province...
Youli’s Dream: Education For Her Children
Youli* is 33 years old. She lives with her husband and her 4 children in a Hmong community near Vientiane, Laos. We first met her in 2013 and have supported her family since then....
Baby Milk Scam (Revisited)
(This guest post from Laureline, ChildSafe Technical Coordinator for our Siem Reap program in Cambodia, revisits a popular tourist scam which is putting infants at risk in the city and highlights what can be...
