Director Foreword

My name Phong Socheath

I am the Founder/Executive Director of Child Hope Organization (CHO).I graduated with a Master’s Degree of Business Administration in 2008 from a private university in Battambang, Cambodia, the University of Management and Economics.

Having spent eleven years growing up in a Thai-border refugee camp (Site2 Camp), I commiserate with the stories to life in that time of the Cambodian conflict; particularly with the indescribably difficult Khmer-Thai border living conditions.

At that time I passed my high school examinations (1992) and I was repatriated to Cambodia in 1993, to begin my career within the nonprofit organization sector. So far I have over 17 years experience working either full-time or part-time with nonprofits. I started as a program assistant to the program manager within a mine awareness program in Cambodia, and worked my way up the ladder through community development worker, field officer, project manager, and finance/administration manager in 2008, before leaving to start CHO. With these positions I have fully gained experience with community development, education/training, advocacy, and human and finance resource management. The history of the founding of Child Hope Organization follows:

CHO is an organization working to help the absolutely poor children and their families in Cambodia’s poorest communities to reach children in need of special care, and to protect them against all forms of violence, exploitation, and abuse, including sexual and commercial abuse, child trafficking, and child labor. Child Hope Organization (CHO) is a local humanitarian, non- governmental, apolitical and non- religious organization founded in 2008 and legally registered with the Royal Cambodian Government chartered Nº. 1299SCN, as approved by the Ministry of Interior on 15th June 2009 in Battambang City, Cambodia.

I’d like to share a little bit about us, our background, and our love of children. CHO’s compassion toward the vulnerable and poor children has been moved by the many needs, wants and obstacles, such as the lack of nutrition, poor educational infrastructure and support and poor healthcare so many children face. I learned of these issues especially after visiting with children in isolated villages in Salar Krao district, Pailin province. The children I met pleaded for help. After coming back to Battambang I and my colleagues knew that we had to do something to make a difference in the lives of those vulnerable and poor children and so CHO was established in order to provide hope to them.

As a founder of CHO, I have always shared a keen interest and have been involved in helping hurting villagers and underprivileged children. From the beginning of the CHO project, partnership children and their communities in target areas have been provided services of education/training together with some materials to complement the trainings.

After the partnership between CHO and the vulnerable and poor children have been established and assistance provided, we enjoy the rewards of seeing them improve their living conditions and education levels. Through our commitment, we provide help to children and their families even during times like these, when it a struggle to find enough funds and resources to sustain CHO activities over the long term.

We humbly bring these life experiences to everyone, for consideration in hopes of moving your heart with compassion for vulnerable and poor children so that our grass-roots efforts can continue to help them directly or indirectly. Please join us in our journey of sustainable development for children who need help from us.

Sincerely

Phong Socheath (Mr)

CHO-Executive Director