Soky Sokea (aged 35 years) writes:

"As a child, I was orphaned. So my brother and I grew up with our grandparents. They did not own land and had to work for others. Their daily wages were very low. This meant that we could never financially progress. I would cry in despair because I just felt like my life was hopeless. I knew that I would never have an opportunity to study because we had no money to support my studies.  When I was a student, I was often late arriving and returning home because I had to walk 2-3 hours each way. Many times I had no lunch."  

"Eventually, when I was selected to live at Joshua Boys’ House back in 2002, I simply could not believe how good life with Empower Asia was! Now I could go to school each day, I had food, school books, clothing and I learnt about God. Now I felt that I had a future! After high school, I studied Management at university.”

Now Soky is a social worker operating within a Christian NGO working with children on the front line by both rescuing and preventing them from involvement in Phnom Penh's massive sex industry. Soky continues, “If you could help more kids [like I once was] to come to our Empower Asia boys' and girls' homes, then that would be wonderful.