Kunthea’s Story

Kunthea giggles a lot when she speaks. She is eleven years old, and she looks as if she’s just had a growth spurt, but her posture is confident. Kunthea has lots of dreams, ones that she believes she will be able to reach because of the support of her foster parents. But Kunthea’s story has not always been a happy one.

Kunthea’s father couldn’t care for her, and her mother left for work in Thailand when she was very small, so at a young age, she was placed in an orphanage. At the age of seven, Kunthea was raped by an older boy at the shelter. When orphanage staff found out, they knew she couldn’t stay, and arranged for her to be taken into short-term care while a more permanent solution could be found. After three months there, Kunthea was referred to Hagar, and started her journey towards healing with her foster family.

Their family home is in a province a few hours outside of Phnom Penh. They raise pigs, chickens, cows and dogs. Kunthea is good at taking care of the animals, she says herself that her best chore is taking care of the chickens and the cows. She’s learnt how to plant vegetables as well, and can clean and cook, thanks to her foster mother. Her favorite thing to cook is rice and fried pork. Kunthea loves her foster siblings, she says, “my sisters always make me happy, we joke and tell stories”. Her social skills have developed a great deal since she lived in the shelter, where she would often have behavioral problems and didn’t know how to interact with her peers. Now, she talks confidently about her best friends and what they like to do at lunch break. They jump rope and talk about things that are happening in their lives. Each day, they walk to school together.

When Kunthea first arrived, she felt nervous and a bit scared. She said, “I lived in fear, I was scared.” But those feelings quickly change when she experienced the love and acceptance that came from her foster family. “I felt happy. I joined a family. I stopped having scared feelings, and I felt happy. Now I feel safe, (and) I enjoy my family.” Kunthea says just the place itself makes her feel happy. She loves to read Khmer books in her spare time, and she likes drawing and painting. Kunthea hopes to be a science teacher when she grows up.

Her foster parents love children. They’ve been fostering for 11 years, and they’ve had a total of 21 children through their home. When asked why they became foster parents, they shared,

 “Because some children need someone other than their parents to care for them. They have no warmth or real shelter. We want to provide warm care to children who don’t have real love in their lives. To increase the hope in their lives. We want to send them to school”

They’ve had their challenges with fostering children, with some having behavior issues and others even attempting to end their own lives. Kunthea has not been exempt from difficulties. Initially, she struggled to manage her anger and her foster parents had to learn new ways to help her to do so. Kunthea would hide under her bed when she was mad, and wouldn’t come out easily. Now, they say she listens to advice, and she’s the best behaved daughter that they currently have living with them. Kunthea, they say, is the child that they could trust to run the house if they weren’t here, making sure all the chores get done. They describe Kunthea as smart and charming, and are obviously proud of her school results, sharing that she is a role model in her class.

Her foster parents have big dreams for her future, hoping that she will go on to study and become a teacher just like she wants to. With the continued support of Hagar and her foster parents, there is no doubt that Kunthea will go on to thrive.