Stories, news, and updates.
News, stories, and updates from Children in Families, placing vulnerable children in loving families across Cambodia.
What your support means for vulnerable children in Cambodia
Watch for this amazing one-day giving opportunity starting next month on July 15! Matching funds from GlobalGiving will make your qualifying gift go even further! What Your Support Means for Vulnerable Children We’re so grateful for all of you who are praying for and supporting our work to…
A Difficult Year, A Hopeful Future
Read CIF’s 2024 Annual Impact Report. Despite global crises and funding challenges, we strengthened partnerships, expanded OSCaR, and saw 250% growth in donor giving. CIF’s 2024 Annual Impact Report reflects a year of resilience and transformation. Despite financial challenges, donor losses, and global crises, CIF remained steadfast in its mission to keep children safe in families. The report highlights strengthened government partnerships, expanded use of our OSCaR case management system, and a 250% increase in individual giving. Alongside key data, we share powerful stories of change made possible through your support.
We Are Thankful
Thankful This month, I asked around the office, “What are you thankful for?” A few of our staff wanted to share their thoughts with you. We are thankful for your incredible continued support over the years and desire to learn more about family-based care. Through your generosity, Cambodian families are strengthened and held together, in…
Learning to Walk and Run – Newsletter May 2024
The May 2024 newsletter from Children in Families highlights several key updates and events. It announces the upcoming release of the book “Where They Belong,” which details the organization’s history and the importance of family-based care. The newsletter also shares Navy’s inspiring story of receiving a new prosthetic leg, recaps the World Without Orphans Conference, and acknowledges a fundraising effort by Somerset Norodom Phnom Penh ASCOTT. These stories underscore CIF’s commitment to supporting vulnerable children and families.
Where They Belong by Erin Foley – Introduction
Where They Belong” by Erin Foley is a powerful narrative that challenges the traditional model of orphanages and advocates for family-based care. Set against the backdrop of post-earthquake Nepal and Cambodia, Foley’s journey reveals the profound impact of placing children in families rather than institutions. Through real-life stories and successful models, this book offers a compelling case for transforming global child welfare practices. Discover how dedicated individuals and organizations are making a difference, and learn why children truly belong in loving families.
Board Announcement – Executive Director Appointment
The Board of Directors of Children In Families is pleased to announce the appointment of our new Executive Director, Mr Sam Ol Um. Sam Ol has been a vital member of the CIF OSCAR team since 2016 and has 13 years of experience covering a range of senior management roles and responsibilities.
Mid-Year Report and Photo Essay
CIF has spent the first half of the year restructuring our programs and has been developing and implementing our standard operating procedures, which are expected to be effective and better serve our clients in terms of support services and co-case management from the local authorities and NGO partners.
Impacting Generations: The Many Facets of Family of Origin as First Priority
“I am happy since we now – especially my two grandchildren – have enough nutritious food to eat. We always use vegetables from our home gardening, and eggs and meat from our chickens for daily food consumption. In addition, we started selling our vegetables for income. Hopefully, we can sell some chicken soon. I would like to express my deep thanks to CIF for all…
Part 2 – A Conversation with OIC
OIC is the very first speech therapy program here in Cambodia. They also provide help with swallowing and eating
Part 1 – A Conversation with OIC
“OIC is a really small team with really big dreams.” Ruth Byrce, OIC University Strategy Manager Speech is something many of us take for granted. For some, it comes naturally. For others, it is a daily struggle. We, at CIF, have our ABLE program, which focuses on physical therapy for children and families throughout Cambodia.…
Donor Support During Covid 19 – what is the donor’s role?
Life is difficult and uncertain right now. Covid-19 makes both life and work more challenging around the world, and that is no different for us at Children in Families (CIF).
Bridget: Assisting ABLE to help children with Autism thrive
Our ABLE team are continually learning and innovating as they seek to support children with disabilities to reach their fullest potential while being fostered or cared for in communities. Each family who cares for a child is an advocate for their child and disability care in their neighborhood. And each day our ABLE team are…
The Long and Winding Road: From orphanage back to family
Last week, we looked at about three considerations central to the process of reintegrating children from an orphanage, back to their community. Each step of the way, we work with leaders to ensure that we are able to get the best outcomes for the child, their family and their community. The safety of the child,…
Family reintegration? 3 things are key…
Well, it’s all good to say that we need to reintegrate kids from orphanages back to their families, but how can that actually be done?
Out of Orphanages and Into Families: Meet Dy Noeut
Here at the CIF main office in Phnom Penh, the communications team recently welcomed the Outreach team into our shared space. Now that we’re in close proximity to each other, we’ve had more opportunities to hear about the work Dy Noeut and his team are doing. A couple of weeks ago, Dy Neout and I…
The Buzzword in Orphan Tourism
Recently the Rok Kern team was invited to speak at one of the International Schools here in Phnom Penh about volunteering and how we can best serve others. We spent a lesson talking to the year 11s about the issues around volunteering in orphanages and the growth of Family Based Care in Cambodia. After watching…
Full Transcript: “Promoting Inclusion in Family-Based Care”
*The following is the speech Sreyny Sorn, manager of the ABLE Project at Children in Families, gave at a side event at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 5 March, 2019. The event was titled “Promoting Quality Family and Community-Based Care for Children with Disabilities.”* One of the agencies helping to organise…
ABLE heads to Geneva
One of the agencies helping to organise this event is the Better Care Network. The Better Care Network (BCN) is an interagency network committed to facilitating global information exchange and collaboration among organizations and other actors working on the issue of children without adequate family care. BCN has an ongoing relationship with CIF and nominated…
Considering volunteering overseas: Read this letter from one student to another
The Rok Kern project is an education project, aimed at teaching students and church-goers outside of Cambodia, about the harms of volunteering in orphanages and how they can “make a difference” in healthy and sustainable ways. Sometimes, the Rok Kern team has the opportunity to meet with international students within Cambodia and run similar workshops…
“A Family to Care for Them” A conversation with Leak
It was the middle of a hectic week when I had the chance to chat with Leak in the office at CIF. He had just returned from the province, meeting with government officials, village chiefs, police officers, teachers and church leaders, passionately spreading awareness about the benefits of caring for vulnerable children in families. As…
A Volunteer Story: Willingness to Learn and Building Capacity
What happens when a three-day trip to Cambodia from Australia turns into a long-term journey? Being locally run and staffed is one of the core values of Children in Families (CIF); however, there are a few foreigners who volunteer long-term with CIF to help build staff capacity. For International Day for the Volunteer, we are…
International Day of Persons with Disabilities
Children In Families (CIF) is celebrating International Day of Persons with Disabilities today! The theme for 2018 is “Empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality.” Children In Families’ ABLE Project is right in step with this objective. It’s even in our name. ABLE stands for “Accepted, Belonging, Loved, Empowered.”
Lost in translation: Part 2 Bridging the Khmer/English language gap
Earlier this week, we explored why the language used in social work matters. We looked at all the reasons why we at CIF insist on Cambodian social workers for Cambodian clients. If CIF believes so passionately in doing Khmer language based work with our clients, what do we do about working with organisations and people who…
Lost in translation: Why the language used in social work matters
Most people have a pretty natural idea that social work is job that involves a lot of language. After all, a lot of social work students say they chose the field because ‘they just love talking to people.’
Harmful or helpful: Exploring the ethics of missions and school trips
Short-term missions or volunteer trips are conducted around the world with the best intentions to care for children and their families and communities. People fundraise, visit, give and serve hoping to make a difference to individuals and to the injustices in our world. Increasingly, research is suggesting that these trips can be harmful to the…
Finding A New Family: How CIF recruits our foster parents
Frequently, when the terms “Foster Care” or “Emergency Care” are spoken about within many Western nations, a myriad of negative experiences and stories surface. People picture children uprooted time and time again. Children shuffled through a system, clutching a garbage bag to their chest filled with their only personal belongings. Children in Families (CIF) takes…
Menghong: Personal Dedication to Keeping Children in Families
Keeping a Girl in School and Family It was a steamy midday in the midst of Cambodian rice paddies. Menghong was sitting across from Bopha*, a widowed mother of eight, under the shade of a mango tree. He had had this conversation many times before with other families. He wanted to search for the right…
Wrapping up the GlobalGiving Campaign: The Gift that keeps on Giving
Children in Families (CIF) ABLE Project – our project supporting children with disabilities and the families caring for them – was recently featured in CIF’s GlobalGiving Accelerator Campaign. GlobalGiving is the largest global crowdfunding community for NGOs and charities. We had three weeks to raise at least $5000 from at least 40 donors. If we were successful,…
Friendship: A Passion for Children With Disabilities
Two Children in Families’ staff share their “messy” start to a deep and beautiful friendship. A motorbike, carrying a petite Khmer driver and her American passenger, was being carefully navigated down the dirt road toward the home of a local family. Recent rainfall rendered the road muddy and rutted. Suddenly, the driver struggled to maintain…
Emergency Care: Meeting Chenda’s Needs In the Unknown
Courtney Smith is an Occupational Therapist and a technical advisor to the ABLE Project at Children in Families. She shared with us her experience interacting with the Emergency Care project and why it is a crucial first step in helping children develop healthy attachments. I recently worked with a child called Chenda in our Emergency…
Infant Mental Health: An Interview With Mother’s Heart Organization
Vital Infant Years The early years of infants are vital to mental health throughout a lifetime. Studies are showing how impactful even the first few months of growth is in babies. Those months shape how their brain forms connections and develops. This is why nations are beginning to recognize mental health for infants through initiatives…
Child Protection as a driving value: A Chat with CIF’s Program Director and Kinship Care Manager
Child Protection is at the heart of everything CIF does. Earlier this month we sat down with Naomy, our Programs Director and Menghong, the Kinship Care Project Manager, to discuss the importance of child protection in our Kinship Care and Foster Care projects. We invite you today to be part of this conversation. The Importance…
Meet Chanthy: Bringing Love and Warmth to Emergency Care
Along the busy streets of Phnom Penh sits Tum Nup Tuek Church, a familiar landmark to the surrounding community. Chanthy, a devoted member and women’s ministry volunteer, attends every Sunday and considers the surrounding area her home. “I have siblings in the provinces, but I was born in Phnom Penh and have lived my whole…
Lucky to be fostering: One family’s journey to becoming CIF Foster parents
Maly and Nhean are like many Cambodian rural couples. They are well established members of their community, known and respected by their neighbors and involved in community life. They are subsistence farmers who supplement their income during the year with extra jobs. Nhean works as motodop – a motorbike taxi ferrying neighbors and visitors to…
Family Training: A Long-Term Approach
Over 20 adults and several children filtered into the rows of plastic chairs. They had come from throughout Prey Veng for foster care training with Children in Families (CIF). A balance of men and women attended. An occasional boisterous cry from a child would break their concentration, but it was a group intent on learning.
Growing up in Community
Loneliness is a common thread for many children growing up in challenging home environments or within foster care systems. Children often feel isolated, like none of their peers understand, or like the struggles that their families face are unique to their families. Some children have missed significant amounts of school because of financial hardship. Entering…
OSCaR in Myanmar: Providing Technical Support for like-minded organisations
In late March, two of CIF’s staff members travelled to Yangon, Myanmar, to provide training to two organisations on how to use OSCaR. Project Manager Sam Ol, and Chris, the Social Work Technical Adviser, spent three days with staff from Kinnected and from Compasio. The organisations work with vulnerable children in Myanmar and along the…
Celebrating Purple Day: A Child’s experience of Epilepsy in Cambodia
Sreypich and her foster family greet us with smiles as we ride our motos into their front yard. Today our ABLE staff have come for a visit to see how Sreypich is going. Sreypich has epilepsy and over the last seven months, ABLE has been working with her foster family to ensure that she is…
Finding a Permanent Family
Chanty has been waiting to have a child to call her own for over 20 years. Today, she proudly holds the paperwork from the court to say that Dany and Sambat are her legal children. For the first time in CIF’s organisational history, over the last few weeks five of our foster families legally adopted their foster children.
Sharing CIF’s Experience: Consulting in Indonesia
In February this year, Save the Children International put a request to Children in Families, asking that we consider sending a couple of staff members to a conference in Indonesia. The Indonesian government is in the process of setting up and formalising foster care across the country. Save the Children suggested that CIF’s experience in…
Founded By Strong Women
Children in Families (CIF) champions strong women and, in fact, CIF would not exist without the determination of a couple of them. A partnership between a Khmer woman and an American woman sparked a flame that would be an important element in to reshaping orphan and alternative child care in Cambodia. Both women, Keo Ravy…
OSCaR and Social Work: Why Language Matters
Today is International Mother Language Day. The theme of the day is that “linguistic diversity and multilingualism count for sustainable development.” Put more simply, in the world of development, you need a good grasp on the language you’re working in for your work to be effective The UN goes on to explain “It is through…
Discover Family Based Care
Research shows that voluntourism to orphanages is harmful to children growing up in those institutions. Voluntourism refers to when people combine tourism with the desire to make a difference. They want to serve the people they have been visiting, often by volunteering at an orphanage. Despite their good intentions, this practice increases child protection and…
Compassion and Capacity Building: Sam Ol’s Journey to CIF
Across the Border Either coated in dust or rutted in mud, the refugee camp Sigh II – situated in the mountains of Thailand – was the birthplace of Sam Ol. His very poor and humble beginning set a stirring in his heart to fight for justice causes in society. It would become a foundation for…
Beauty in Muddy Waters
The mud comes up to mid-calf height. It is thick and sticky, leaving a dark brown coating on every surface it touches. We step hesitantly, searching for a firm footing, but our feet only sink further. Fortunately, the muddy path only lasts about three meters. Unfortunately, it is the only way in and out of…
Meet Damy: Caring for Children by Caring About Numbers
Have you ever donated to Children in Families and wondered who received the money at the other end? Someone has to make sure it gets to the right people, right? Our administration department is staffed by two wonderful ladies, Damy and Phalyn, who faithfully do the paperwork needed to keep CIF running smoothly. Today we…
You Know My Name: The Journey to Belonging
Last month we introduced you to Courtney, one of our ABLE Technical advisers. This month she reflects on her experience of accompanying one of our ABLE children to a medical appointment. We arrive at the hospital and wander around the massive grounds until we find the pediatric therapy center. Long is a high-energy 12 year-old…
Staff Retreat: Values, Ownership, and Why We Do It
What values guide us and our work? It’s a question that goes to the heart of an organization and its workers. And it is a question that the CIF staff got to ask themselves and each other recently. Last month we gathered as a whole-staff team for our annual retreat. This retreat was financed thanks…
A chat with Courtney: How Occupational Therapy in making a difference in ABLE
“So why did you end up volunteering for our ABLE program?” Courtney, the newest member of the ABLE team, pauses for a brief moment before she answers: “What impressed me most about the ABLE program was not only the excellence of the work they are doing, but their dedication to contextualize therapy and treatments for…
Learning to stand on his own two feet: A day in the life of ABLE
The air is cool, much cooler than expected in July. We are on a tuktuk, heading out to the Cambodian school of Prosthetics and Orthotics. We have a follow up appointment for one of our foster care children, Leak (pronounced Lay-ak). Like many of our foster care and kinship care cases, Leak has special needs,…
Celebrating ‘Anne with an E’ Part 3: Family- based care in Fiction
When we think of foster care and kinship care in popular fiction, we can very easily believe that kinship care and foster care are harmful.
Celebrating ‘Anne with an E’ Part 2: Resilience and Reintegration
Myth #1: Orphans are inherently resilient and institutionalised children can easily reintegrate into society. Last post we introduced the idea that orphans are a central part of Western popular culture. If you missed it, you can find it here. We talked about how the words often used to talk about orphans evoke a strong sense…
Celebrating ‘Anne with an E’: Orphans in Popular Culture
Part One: An Introduction to Orphans in Popular Culture Ludwig Wittgenstein once said “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” Our language shapes our perceptions of what life is like, what our values are and the way we understand the world. The language we use matters. The way we tell stories…
A Case Management System – What’s That?
The Case Management System Last week we linked to a post from M’lop Tapang about a trip some of our staff made to Sihanoukville. Our CMS team went to deliver six laptop computers, and begin the process of helping the M’lop Tapang Social Workers migrate their work flow to the CIF Case Management System. Back…
Volunteering Short Term: The Excellent Amy!
Introducing Amy In the coming weeks on the CIF blog, you might notice a bump in the quality of our photos. That’s due to the work of Amy Higg. Amy is a professional photographer from Queensland, Australia. She put her business on hold for two months this year, spending that time volunteering short term in…
Children in Families is a Stars Impact Award Winner for 2016!
Super Exciting! We are super, super excited to be able to make this announcement: Children in Families has been named as a winner of the Stars Impact Awards for 2016! Any award is great news, of course. But this one is something special. The Stars Impact Awards are given each year to “strong, grassroots organisations…
The ABLE Program and the Staff Who Make It Happen
We would like to introduce you to the staff who work in our ABLE program. Meet Lisa. She is a Physical Therapist, and has worked at CIF for the past four years. Her time here has seen the beginning and growth of the ABLE program. She now serves as a technical adviser to our Khmer staff. ABLE ABLE…
Welcome Lynny
While we are sad to say farewell to our amazing General Manager, Jesse Blaine, Children in Families (CIF) recently welcomed our new General Manager, Lynny Sor. Jesse is passing the torch and will focus more on pastorship. We are excited for this incredible, resilient Khmer woman to join our team. She is a wife, mother…
Changing a Nation: One Child at a Time
Meet Naomy. With a gorgeous singing voice and bright smile, this intelligent, talented mother of two children – teenagers – has been our Program Director for almost three years now. She joined us from the collaborative organization, Chab Dai, where she spent four years serving as their Project Manager. Naomy is the oversight for Foster…
Empowering Sustainable Families
As an organization, we want to work ourselves out of a job; at the very least, evolve with our approach. The needs of communities will change as Cambodia becomes more developed and families gain empowerment. To have true success, holistic needs must be met, both sustainable and long-term. If over 80% of children in orphanages…
Foster Care: A Mother’s Love for Pisey
Success of a program (foster care) is best measured over time, looking at long-term results. In the line of work we do, we get to meet a lot of great families. Some are exceptional. Pisey’s* family is one of those. As one of CIF’s first families to foster and care for children, here is their…
From Lonely Orphan to Loved Son
From birth to five-years-old, Sam Ang, a blind child, lived in an orphanage, suffering developmental delays and self-harm due to trauma. When CIF placed him with a foster family, he was incapable of eating or talking. Within a year, all that changed. Watch his video to learn how the love of community and family drastically…
Som At Video: Kinship
Soon after her husband died of AIDS and their possessions were sold off, a desperate Som At felt there was no choice but to take her young children to an orphanage. It ripped her heart out to “trade” her children for $30 and a bag of rice. Thankfully at the last minute she changed her…
Media: The Power of Dignity or Shame
A recent media campaign by a Cambodian NGO, portraying children in rags and labelling them as “a sex worker” or “a street kid” has kicked off a storm of discussion. How do we as NGOs portray or represent the people we are trying to help? While many children and families do live in poverty, we need to…
Support Families, Not Orphanages
Explaining why you should support families, not orphanages, Friends-International put out a short-but-powerful illustrated ChildSafe video. They reiterated the same message Lumos Int., Children in Families (CIF), and several other organizations have found through research: most children in orphanages have families; they just live in poverty. Many issues stem from placing children into institutional care. The…
Orphanages to Family Care: Leakena at CIF
Meet Leakena. This amazing, 28-year-old Khmer woman started at CIF as our Outreach to Orphanages Manager in January 2016. She was previously a teacher’s assistant for toddlers at an international school. She also volunteered at Raven’s Hope International as a Liaison helping build spiritual growth, leadership development, and mission opportunities to young women from around the world. When Leakena heard about…
Trafficking Children Part II: Solutions
In our last piece, we addressed the problem of child trafficking, and the forms it takes around the world. This time, we’re looking at the hope. We’re going to walk through recognizing the systematic issues behind trafficking and the practical steps all of us can take to help solve the issue. After all, every child deserves a chance to…
Problems & Solutions: Child Trafficking Part I
Six months ago, world news headlines highlighted the child trafficking and abuse in Thailand’s fishing industry. The BBC reported children from Myanmar and Cambodia are forced to work on vessels and in processing factories, leading to dangerous and debilitating injuries, not to mention violating a litany of human rights. (Article here.) During the past decade,…
Foster Care: Sreynear’s New Beginning
Meet Sreynear, one of our beautiful foster children who went from a place of pain – a sad child who acted out in anger – to a place of life and of thriving. We are so proud of her Foster Care family for their incredible love and endurance through the difficult times. Even more, we…
Trauma and Health: Address One, Help the Other
It is so damaging it can trim 20 years off of life expectancy. It disrupts brain development, immunity, hormones, and even DNA transcription. It is childhood trauma. In the linked TEDTalk, Dr. Nadine Burke, who serves in a community with low income children and families, addresses a study by Dr.s Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda…
Media & Communications
Do you love writing & networking on social media? Children In Families (CIF) is looking for a full or part-time volunteer who enjoys meeting adorable kids and awesome families to share their stories. You will have the opportunity to travel into the province with social workers; do photography; write compelling research pieces, stories, and share…
Stories – Powerful and Valuable
“Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.” ― Ben Okri, Nigerian Poet and Novelist Humanity gathers together around stories. Whatever the format – a book, a movie, a tale told around the fire with friends, facing the flames, backs to the darkness – we as people grow in the sharing…
Kinship for Samnant
*Follow our CIF staff narrative on a field visit to check-in on a Kinship Care Family outside of bustling Phnom Penh. Names have been changed to protect identities.* “Do you want to go with me on a family visit?” My coworker, our Kinship Care Program Manager, peered at me from behind his computer. “Yes,…
Attachment And Bonding
A Safe Place – Attachment and Bonding We all need and long for a safe place – a location or person giving us space to wholly be ourselves and find comfort. Most people realize that they need relationships in which safety and freedom of identity exist. Clinicians call this attachment and bonding. But what happens…
Rithy* and Hope for Children with Disabilities
As Children in Families (CIF) grows we hope to never lose focus on what really matters – each individual. Recently one of our Kinship and ABLE program families offered to give our readers a glimpse into their life. We are excited to share Rithy’s* (name changed) story as a snapshot of how there really can be…
What’s in an Orphan Photo?
THE ORPHAN PHOTO Iranian photographer and artist, Bahareh Bisheh, took this captivating image of his little cousin after she had fallen asleep on the pavement outside their home. The photograph took the social media world by storm, the story of this “orphan photo” evolving into an orphan missing her mother. REMINDER AND RESPONSE The incredibly…
Meet Chantrea our New Kinship Care Manager
Meet Chantrea! New to CIF, he serves in our Kinship Program, striving to strengthen family foundations and resources so children can remain with their biological families. After seeing social issues and injustices while growing-up in Kampong Speu, he pursued social work in university. Chantrea wanted to give back by finding a way to improve Cambodia’s…
How We Deal with Compassion Fatigue
When Helping Hurts – Dealing with Compassion Fatigue Compassion Fatigue, secondary traumatic stress (STS), vicarious trauma…these are all terms used to describe the toll that can accompany caring for others who have experienced or are experiencing trauma. It’s no surprise then, than people like the Children In Families regularly experience this kind of vicarious trauma. Others…
Outreach Program Announcement [INFOGRAPHIC]
New Outreach Program! We are excited to announce the official beginning of our new outreach program here at Children in Families. It’s an idea that we’ve been mulling over for sometime here at CIF and now it’s off the ground and running! Working with Others At the center of the new program is the desire…
ABLE Program Evaluation – What do You Think?
The ABLE Program Evaluation “Tell us what you think!” That is what we said to 16 CIF foster and kinship care families caring for children with special needs when we invited them to participate in focus groups as part of our recent ABLE Program evaluation. The best way to know if what you’re doing is…
Sustainability, Staff Development, and the Power of a Quiet River
Caring for kids by caring for our staff Cambodia is a primarily agricultural country, and the product that covers most of the landscape, from Battambang to Svay Rieng, is rice. That means that Cambodian people understand the principle of only being able to reap where you sow (or stung, as they call the painstaking process of planting stalks…
How do CIF, David Beckham, and Child Abuse Prevention go together?
When it comes to child abuse prevention…what do CIF and David Beckham Have In Common? Hint: It has nothing to do with exceptional soccer skills. While David Beckham may be best known for his career as a renowned English soccer player, he has recently been getting attention for something else – the launching of 7: The…
4 Things we Love About the Lumos Orphanage Video
Harry Potter, Lumos, Orphanages, and Children In Families You’ve heard of Harry Potter, right? Of course, most people have. Well what you might not know is that JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, also started a charity. The JK Rowling Lumos charity exists to “help the millions of children in institutions worldwide regain their…
Village Photos Showing our Provincial Home in Cambodia
What’s the Environment Like for CIF Clients? The Road and the Village Children in Families’ provincial office is in Svay Rieng Province. It’s about two and half hours from Phnom Penh, and it used to be a heck of a drive to get there. But the Tsubasa bridge (or the Japanese bridge, as it’s more commonly known around the…
Who Knew? Saving the Poor is also Saving the World. No, Really!
Can saving the world happen by saving the poor? It’s a simple enough principle, to say we should help people, and you may not think it’s such a controversial one. But sometimes you do have to ask, what will helping this person cost me? And in the case of helping children in poverty in the developing…
How a Funeral Taught us to Celebrate Life
The Value of a Human Life How do you determine the value of a human life? For those of us with a Biblical worldview, of course, the answer is clear. Every human being is precious, having infinite value, on the basis of having been made in the very image of the Creator. This inherent worth…
9 Things We Learned from the Red Cross Haiti Fiasco
From Haiti to Cambodia Show me the money…It’s complicated. If you’ve ever been involved in any sort of non-profit work you know that there is always a tension between fundraising/marketing and programming. On top of that when it gets down to actually helping people things can be….well…complicated. I’m sure many of you have heard or…
2014 Annual Report
The 2014 Annual Report Okay, so I wanted to start out with a quick disclaimer. We’re a small org that doesn’t have a communications department, so we do our best. The last few years, the annual report has been an after thought, but this year we wanted to do a better job. That is not…
Children in Adversity Infographic
Permanent Homes for Children in Adversity Check out our children in adversity infographic which shows our goal — up to 90% of children in adversity being re-united with their biological families. If that’s not possible, placing the remaining 10% children in adversity in loving adoptive families. Children in Adversity need Permanent Homes The best solutions…
Want Real Change? It Takes a Village!
Our Twist on “It Takes a Village” Call it a ground swell, a surround effect, holistic development…pick your buzzword. But when a Cambodian government official pays a visit to offer a complement, rather than a new special “tax” just for you, you tend to pay attention. Just about everyone would agree that it’s good to…
April 2014
Dear Prayer Supporters, April is when Cambodians mark their new year. It is a great time to make new resolutions to stand with CIF in prayer throughout the coming months! Our team gathers each first and third Monday to pray for the children and families of CIF, our staff, and the broader issues affecting children…
March 2014 Prayer Letter
Dear Prayer Supporters,March has slipped away from us in a flurry of activity. However, we do depend on our faithful prayer warriors to stand with us, so we will still send this out, though at the “eleventh hour”! This month please join us in praying for the following: Ly A’s placement has been disrupted due to…
February 20th, 2014
Dear Prayer Supporters,This month we experienced bittersweet emotions as we mourned the loss but celebrated the life of one very precious baby girl. She came into the world with major challenges and was not expected to live very long. It was encouraging to see the depth of love and care poured out on her by…
January 2014
CIF staff trained with the Ministry of Social Affairs this month. Pray for a full understanding of all the material, and a smooth transition into using the brand new forms and procedures.Pray for safety for Jesse, Sarah and girls who are in Bangkok, Thailand where there is a lot of civil unrest.Pray for Jenjum Program…
One Family’s Story
Sam* was received by Children In Families and placed into a foster family at the age of four. He had been rescued from a situation of abuse and severe neglect. When Children In Families stepped in to help, Sam was withdrawn and extremely isolated. He used no words to communicate, was very afraid of people,…
Srey Ny – Physiotherapist for ABLE
My name is Srey Ny. I am a physiotherapist and I work with Children In Family’s ABLE program. Before I came to work at CIF I had worked for another organization called Banteay Prieb. Through that organization I worked with many people with disabilities in a village setting, so it was good preparation for my work…
June 2013
Good health for all foster care children as rainy season brings a lot of colds and coughs.Many of our children with disabilities continue to face serious health challenges. Pray that Sam, Sammy, Cham, Lanny, Dydy, Lally and the children who are HIV positive would all stay as healthy as possible. Pray that the care families…
What About Those Poor Dump Kids?
Report from Indochina Starfish Foundation by Kate Griffen Indochina Starfish works with the “dump kids”. We currently have 315 kids who access our 2 non-residential education centers in Stung Mean Chey and Chbar Ampov. We have 1 social worker per 50 kids in our organization. We are very familiar with the families and their circumstances and…
Why Not a Family?
Children In Families is excited to share with you the release of a new video ‘Why Not a Family?’ presented by Uniting For Children. Uniting For Children is a movement whose purpose is to “expand the conversation about the best ways to care for orphaned and vulnerable children”. Children In Families International Coordinator, Cathleen Jones, was a…
Supporting Families to Care for Children with Disabilities
When I was in college (some 20-plus years ago) I was greatly impacted by a story on a television news show about orphanages in Eastern Europe which housed multiple children with disabilities. It was heartbreaking to see how these children, some of whom had only mild and easily correctible impairments when they first entered the…
Child Rights – Privacy
Article 16 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states addressed child rights privacy,“No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour or reputation.”This makes sense, right? We are entitled all entitled to…
On Not Visiting an Orphanage in Cambodia
A long time ago, Chris and I worked in an institutional care setting as foster parents with a number of vulnerable children. We lived in the same house, and were responsible for their everyday needs. We were ‘foster mum’ and ‘foster dad’ . Gosh, it was hard. Anyway, not once did a mini van full…
The Beauty of Family
I grew up on a farm where the air was clean, the grass was plentiful, and the trees were worthy to be climbed. My childhood memories consist of stomping through mud puddles with my older brother, meeting my dad for picnic lunches in the hay fields in summertime, baking cookies with my mother, helping my…