Friends-International Blog

On International Families Day, one Cambodian mother recalls how the Mith Samlanh program supported her to keep her family together… ‘My husband died leaving me with six children, so I moved to Phnom Penh in search of work. It was very difficult and I didn’t have enough money to send my kids to school here [...]

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One hand holds the customer’s hair, the other moves deftly with scissors, as former glue user Srey Phear*, 20, concentrates happily on the new hair style she is creating for her customer. She is employed at a beauty salon near Independence Monument and also studies accounting at the Human Resources University in Phnom Penh. “My [...]

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For International Women’s Day, we focus on two of our amazing female staff from the Peuan Mit program in Lao PDR. Let’s meet Davanh Keoninanluck, the school follow-up and case manager (part of the Peuan Mit Reintegration Team) and Parsialy (Sia) Boualong, a non-formal education teacher and case manager, part of the Drop In Center/Outreach [...]

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Sport is a great way to build confidence in marginalized young people. This  half-time report on the mixed fortunes of our Kaliyan Mith youth football teams in Siem Reap from our man on the touchline, Friends Social Work Technical Advisor James Farley, gives us the lowdown on progress to date… ‘As the Siem Reap 7-a-side [...]

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The Siem Reap half marathon, held in Cambodia each December, is not just a test of stamina and skill for participants but also forms a significant part of the fundraising calendar, with many runners pushing their physical limits to raise awareness and funds for their favorite cause or issue. So it was for FI volunteer [...]

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What does our tagline ‘Together, Building Futures’ really mean? For the young man in this story, it means many others working alongside him to help him shape a better tomorrow for himself… and his family. This is Vuthy’s story. It is not his real name, but everything else in this story is real. This story [...]

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Vuthaya Charoenpol (Ann) is the Country Program Director of the Friends Peuan Peuan program in Thailand. She is based in Bangkok, but in our ‘story from the field’ from her today, we travel with her on one of her frequent visits to the Aran Project, on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. Visiting Peuan Peuan [...]

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A blog post from Friends-International Executive Director and Founder Sebastien Marot, in Phnom Penh. ‘Today I went with Phally (Mith Samlanh’s Program Coordinator) to visit a few of our Drop-In Centers in Phnom Penh which I had not visited in a while. It is always a great pleasure to jump on a moto with Phally [...]

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Young people from very poor communities in Vientiane Capital and Vientiane Province in Laos have very little opportunities to complete their primary education, and most of them do not progress to secondary school. Vocational training centers are still fairly rare, even in Vientiane, and most of them are completely out of the reach of very [...]

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Ms K lived in a rural area of Vientiane Province with her grandmother and young brother until she was 15. Her parents, very poor farmers, left their children and traveled to Vientiane to earn a better living. They found work at the municipal landfill, 36 km south of the city. They lived on the dumpsite, [...]

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