Our Approach
We believe that the right people to build a better Cambodia are Cambodians. That’s why all our staff in Cambodia are local. They are incredibly devoted to both our children and to their nation.
Being a street child is simply a recognition of their current circumstances, but not a predication of their future. They only start-out poor.
We establish our Life Centres in the poorest districts of Phnom Penh and enrol 100 street children from the location. Each Centre has seven trained staff who carefully vet each child to ensure that they’re genuinely poor. All our children still live at home (however basic and poor that may be) so we work very closely with their family (some with two parents, sometimes one parent and sometimes grandparents). Then we start to build their future with health care, education, life skills, leadership, fluency in English and creative development.
Our children are the real heroes of this story, they’re amazing!
Education
Transform provides world class tutoring and learning. Whilst we partner with local schools (which they attend for half-days) we build basic competencies far beyond local standards. And we train them to think laterally, think creatively and think like leaders.
Leadership & Life Skills
This is the real backbone of Transform. A transformed future begins with transformed thinking. We expect all our children to grow up as leaders in their homes, their careers and in their communities. We teach them how to make wise life choices, and we ensure that each child is linked in meaningful ways to life-long friends and mentors.
Health & Welfare
Part of the legacy of poverty are low standards in health and general welfare. Often home environments are dangerous and threatening. That’s why very early in the life of our Centres we begin to work with our children’s families and the local communities. They are outstanding. Our staff respect and honour our children’s families so much, and that has given us licence to speak into their lives, creating huge gains in their health and general welfare.
Creative Arts
We believe that within every child lies a creative genius. Even in our western world we are sadly poor at identifying anything but the most obvious creative giftings. So, we have created our own tools to help our young children identify in which ways God has designed them to excel creatively. Then we deliberately nurture that genius for the next 15 years!
The Future
Our oldest kids are now studying in university. They will always be Transform kids, but their role changes as they mature. As part of our support program each university student also works as an intern in Transform, now investing in young street children who are beginning their own journey. These interns are our future, and we’re so proud of them.
We began with high hopes, daring to believe we could change the course of destiny. We dare to dream because we expect our Transform children to dream. Together we’re writing an extraordinary story of transformation.