I hope that you watch this, Scott Neeson, Alan Lemon and James Mc Cabe and all others in Cambodia running ‘orphanages’ - filled with kids who have mums, dads, uncles, aunts, grandparents and communities to take care of them.
If there were any rule of law in Cambodia many of you would hauled before a court and charged with the illegal removal of children from their families. Show us the contracts you have with the parents of the kids you have in your care. You won’t. And nor is there anyone (and certainly not human rights groups) who will ask you to make such contracts public.
Cambodian families deserve better!
“Tara Winkler speaks out against the spread of orphanages in developing countries, caused by the good intentions of foreign donors, and of harm that comes to children when they are separated from family and left to grow up in institutions.
Tara is the Managing Director of the Cambodian Children’s Trust (CCT) which she established with Jedtha Pon in 2007 in order to rescue fourteen children from a corrupt and abusive orphanage. She has led CCT through a number of significant organisational changes, including the closure of the initial CCT orphanage in favour of a family-based care model to empower Cambodian families to escape poverty, assist institutionalised children return to families, and help orphanages transform to a family-based care model. Her first book, ‘How (NOT) to Start an Orphanage – by a woman who did’ was published in April 2016.”
