Srey Rathana, is the founder of the Little Angels Orphanage, is an orphan himself. During the Khmer Rouge regime, his father was shot in front of him and his mother died a year later. He himself, was shot and critically injured, nearly losing the sight in one of his eyes. He was nine years old then.
The orphanage originally housed five children. Today, there are 81 and the youngest is five years old. Fifty are orphans and thirty one are either disabled (from land mines) or come from broken homes.

I have been involved for 18 months (based in both the UK and Cambodia) trying to raise and secure long-term financing. At the orphanage we are very grateful to the visitors and tourists who bring clothes, food supplies and small monetary donations, however, this is very much on an ‘ad hoc’ basis and means the orphanage exists ‘hand to hand’.

Our AIM is to ensure the future of our orphanage, and more importantly, be able to continue to offer a ‘safe haven’, education and work skills for future children.
We are on the doorstep of Angchor Wat, where visitors are expected to increase from 3.38 million in 2016 to 7 million in 4 years time. This provides us with a great opportunity.

We aim to develop links with local businesses, especially in the Local Tourism Sector enabling our children to become Tour Guides and work within the Hotel & Catering industry.There are currently just over 2,000 government qualified tour guides at Angkor. Increased visitor numbers, over the next 4 years, well necessitate a doubling of this figure.

Our children will be able to contribute to the community and growth of the local economy, therefore improving their self esteem.

OUR IMMEDIATE AIMS:

TO TEACH LANGUAGE (BOTH ENGLISH & MANDARIN) AND COMPUTER SKILLS

Provide learning materials, in terms of books and new computers
Recruit volunteer teachers.

TO IMPROVE & DEVELOP THE FACILITIES AT THE ORPHANAGE
This will allow us to provide a refuge for a further 40 children in 2018.