Stretching to the limit

Daughters of Cambodia's increased outreach efforts, which started at the end of 2012 and have continued into 2013, have been more fruitful than we could have imagined, with more than 100 new clients starting work with us so far this year. However, this exciting growth also brings new challenges for Daughters, as space in our sewing room and Operations Centre is becoming increasingly limited with each new client.

Nonetheless, Daughters is committed to maintaining our policy of never turning away a girl or boy hoping to leave the sex industry. But in order to do so, we will need to expand. Daughters is currently in negotiations with our landlord regarding rental of a building he is constructing immediately adjacent to ours. Such an expansion, if negotiations go well, could more than double our available space and ensure our strategic presence in the red-light district of Stung Mean Chey for years to come.

In the meantime, Daughters is continuing our outreach program to draw in as many clients as possible, and we're set to launch a new nighttime outreach later this month.

White Linen Boutique Hotel Opens

Daughters of Cambodia's newest social enterprise, the White Linen Boutique Hotel, opens today. In a country ravaged by sex trafficking, White Linen offers hope to young women who are looking for freedom and dignity outside the sex industry. White Linen aims to provide relevant training and employment to our clients in order to meet demand in Cambodia's growing hospitality industry, giving our clients the ability to sustain their exit from the sex industry long after their graduation from Daughters.

The name of the hotel was inspired by Scripture: "She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear," (Rev. 19:8, NLT), and represents a counter-narrative to the commonly held Cambodian belief that "women are like pure white cloth that cannot be made clean once stained." At White Linen, we help victims of trafficking see their own value through dignified, rewarding employment.

Soak in the view from our penthouse suite's private rooftop terrace.

The hotel itself is located on a tranquil street near the popular Russian Market and features five custom-designed rooms in a light and airy layout. Its breezy balconies and complementary home-cooked breakfasts make White Linen the perfect home-away-from-home for couples and tourists, while its common lounges, guest kitchens and flexible booking options make this hotel ideal for large families and teams.

Beautifully made custom products from the Daughters of Cambodia Sewing Room and the Sons of Cambodia wood workshop and screen printing press are on display throughout the hotel, from the screen-printed pillows inviting guests to "relax" or "sleep," to the hand-sewn laundry bags and complementary toothbrush pouches.

To learn more about White Linen Boutique Hotel, visit our website or book online now. To see even more photos of the hotel, visit our Flickr album.

The Frangipani Suite boasts a stunning four-poster bed.

Even the hotel's exterior is done in White Linen's signature light blue and white color scheme.

time to celebrate!

We had a wonderful reason to celebrate recently - Daughters just turned 5 years old on January 1st 2012, and we held a celebration in February in the new building we rented in February. It was a special time together :) to which we also invited a few partners and friends of Daughters. We had some worship together, testimonies from clients, a message pastor David Chacko (Covenant Renewal Centre), slide show looking back over 5 years, cake from Daughters cafe, and we all agreed together as I (Ruth) prayed this prayer:

"Jesus, we want to thank you for your great faithfulness to us these last 5 years. We acknowledge that it is you that has led Daughters and done an amazing work changing so many lives, leading so many out of slavery and darkness, into freedom and light. We give you all the glory for this, and we thank you for allowing us to be part of such a wonderful miracle. We are blessed and privileged to be part of this, and most of all to know you.

Thank you too for this great new premises which you have provided for us. Please fill this place with your presence, we invite you to come here. Please make our work fruitful in this place. We dedicate this building, we dedicate the work of our hands, and we dedicate our lives to you. In Jesus name. Amen!"

Valentines Day at Daughters!

cool gig to support Daughters

God is faithful to us!

God is so faithful to help us when there seem to be no other solutions! We had a situation of threat recently, which had no clear solutions without risking lives. One of our clients, N, has been with us for 2 years. She has dysfunctional behaviours and some frontal lobe damage from a childhood injury (ADHD and anger). Her husband is a violent ex-convict who beat her, and whose violence and alcoholism has caused serious health problems in one of their 3 children who got caught in the cross fire. He was referred to Teen Challenge last year by Hope for Life, a local church we partner with, and he has made huge changes after becoming a Christian there, so much that Teen Challenge and the local church are both interested in employing him as staff in the future. N also became a Christian through Hope for Life. But N has been engaging in very destructive behaviours in recent months (night time activities with bad people, live-in lovers, regularly abandoning her daughters aged 9 and 13, and substance abuse). She developed paranoia towards our staff member, Socheata, who is the manager of the Sewing Business where N is employed. When something goes ‘wrong’ in N’s experience (such as her shoes going missing 2 weeks ago, which subsequently were found on a different shoe rack), she curses Socheata and has recently been threatening her. We take her threats seriously. Her husband was imprisoned in the past for causing grievous bodily harm to a neighbour after N told him this neighbour has said bad words about N. Recently we suspended N for cursing others and bringing pornography into the building. N then threatened that a 3rd party (who she named, and he is a definite threat) would hurt either Socheata or Ruth the director if we fired her from Daughters. She also stated that her husband will quit at Teen Challenge if we fire her, and will be harmful to his recovery and Christian development, which is clearly in the best interests of the children. We sent out this story to our prayer network last Friday with this request: ‘Please pray for this client, to truly come to repentance before Jesus and put her life right, and that we will have great wisdom to know the best decision and strategy in this situation’. Before one day had gone by, we had a wonderful answer to this prayer. Last Friday at Daughters church, Ruth preached on repentance and purity. It was a powerful and anointed message. This client, N, was there. She cried all the way through the message. At the end of the message, she responded, desperate to repent and change her life and desperate to end the sin and behaviours she's been engaged in. It seems to be a wonderful victory and the best answer to this difficult situation :) Please pray for N to continue to sustain this choice, and to walk it through day by day.

Recent News & Updates!

The Sewing room:

During the first half of this year, we have begun implementing exciting plans in the Sewing Room for this year – we are aiming during 2011 to become more professional in our production and capacity, and have commenced new training courses, run by a professional trainer to the garment industry in Cambodia. Ten of our best producers in The Sewing Room have attended 3 training modules in pattern cutting. We also chose 16 clients to attend production management training courses, which were held in April and May, and all 16 graduated, and are putting their skills to practice in our production rooms. We have been purchasing new production equipment and having coaching from a professional production trainer, to increase efficiency, quality and productivity.


We added a large number of new products to our range and these are available in our online catalogue - www.daughtersofcambodia.org/downloads/Daughters%20Catalogue%202011.pdf

Our new catalogue includes the beautiful jewellery made at Daughters, which uses locally sourced raw materials and several re-cycled objects. We have added lots of pretty accessories and cushions. We have also launched our beautiful new sleepwear range, designed by British designer Emma Hawthorne exclusively for Daughters. It is made from soft, light cotton in pretty colours and trimmed with hand-made lace. Emma is returning to Cambodia this summer to work at Daughters longer term, and we are excited about that.


Jewellery

Since opening our shop last year, we have found that our biggest seller, of all the products we make at Daughters, is the jewellery. We have recently hired an additional 3 clients from Daughters Sewing Room to make jewellery, making a total of 7 girls full time in the jewellery program. In addition, we have 4 of our boys in Sons program cutting the coconut pieces that we use on the jewellery along with other accessories such as buckles and buttons.

Wwere blessed to have several designers working with us since January, 2 short term jewellery designers and an accessories designer.


Silk Screen Printing:

WE have been working hard to improve our t-shirt program, under Sons of Cambodia. We have 2 volunteers, Chet and Amarja, both from the USA, who are managing the production and systems, such as inventory flow, management of orders, and systems for tracking stock. We have a silk screen expert, Matt from the USA, who is Amarja is training the clients in silk screen printing skills, and Matt is also working on some exciting new designs.


Other Skills Trainings

Two clients in our Visitor Centre commenced a twelve month training in management, provided by Hagar Career Pathways. They will return to Daughters at the end of the training and use their skills to each manage 2 of the small businesses based in our Visitor Centre. We are very excited for them!



Social Services Programs

Our social work team, now 7 people, has been very busy and active. Their work is often dealing with critical situations and emergencies involving domestic violence, or interventions to prevent the trafficking of babies or young children. Another very common problem is the clients’ lack of skill in managing their money. We have appointed one of our counsellors as money management counsellor, since many clients engage in gambling, reckless spending, or losing money because they do not keep it safe. Many also have debts that mean they cannot buy food or pay rent. We are working with them to help them reduce their debts, save a portion of their salaries, and manage their money better.

We have seen some recent successes in our men’s project. This is a new project working with husbands who perpetrate violence, or engage in other dysfunctional behaviours. We have made referrals of 3 husbands to a residential treatment program for substance addictions, and they are making extremely positive progress. We have been building relationship with a few other husbands, and have also seen them implement growing behaviour changes through the behaviour management techniques our social workers have been teaching them. We often find that their children are caught up in the family problems and some have been at risk of being trafficked as acts of revenge or due to neglect. We have been able to successfully prevent several babies recently from being trafficked. We have also made 2 referrals to a women’s refuge for victims of domestic violence, and this intervention has been very valuable in proving safety and support for those victims.

We promoted one client in the Sons program to be supervisor of the other boys. Since coming to Sons, he demonstrated radical lifestyle change from the first day, and has grown by leaps and bounds in taking initiative and responsibility. He is a fantastic peer mentor to the other boys, who respect him and learn from his example. His work is diligent and conscientious. We are very proud of him.


Workshop Program

We have held educational workshops recently on the following topics:

The importance of hydration (drinking enough water)
Emotional abuse education
Making healthy choices when selecting a mate
Prevention of Diarrhea
STD education
Correct use of medicines
Preventing intestinal parasites
The Immune System
Drug & substance misuse workshops (external trainers)
How to implement a savings scheme & money management
Hepatitis, dengue and malaria prevention
Education in the use and misuse of medications
Parenting skills



Medical Program:

We had an outbreak of rubella among our clients earlier this year, and due to the steady number of pregnant clients, we developed some new health policies which we have been implementing for the purposes of infection control. Rubella is particularly harmful to the foetus in the first trimester of pregnancy, and is very widespread among the community at large in Cambodia. We introduced isolation measures for clients with rubella and the incidences were eradicated at Daughters, which we were thankful for.

We have widened our infection control measures to include a range of other diseases that are important to eliminate without further spread.


Photography Classes:

We have 5 clients who are learning photography skills for a project which we ran for 4 months. They were trained by a photographer George Hsia from the USA. We will be producing a photojournal shortly as a result of this project. It was a great opportunity for them to learn this beautiful skill.

some thoughts for the new year

When I was young, I used to dream of being a world changer, a history-maker, for the purposes of God. Now I'm (slightly) older, I know that anyone can do this - it doesn't depend on ability, or some personal attribute, it depends on stepping out in obedience to God, putting faith to the test, and the power of prayer. If you are exactly where God has called you, doing what he's anointed you to do in the place he's anointed you to be, you can live life that is exciting and miraculous beyond your wildest dreams. Not glamorous - obedience is a place of humility and there is a cost. But a place where you know God, because either he comes through for you or you crash and burn. And he comes through every time :)
This has been my experience. I am living my dream. Its not an ability of my own, or personal charisma, or super-human energy or anything else that depends on me - its all about God creating something amazing and me being privileged to be a part of it. He is the one who does amazing things over and over, to make every difference in our hurting world. He is the one who shines :)

a few words to close the year with...

2010 has been an exciting year for Daughters of growth and expansion and change in wonderful areas, with new projects, and amazing outcomes, all of which greatly exceeded my expectation.

We opened our new Visitor Centre, as previously described, housing 3 businesses, and able to accommodate the large number of visitors who are interested in supporting our work. This centre has been covering its own costs for some time already. Due to the volume of products being sold in the shop from our sewing business, The Sewing Room is also covering its own costs, which are substantial, being our biggest business employing 50 clients. This outcome is greatly beyond our expectation, and helps us move towards our goal of sustainability.

We started a new project, Sons, in February offering opportunities to male transsexual sex workers (‘ladyboys’) to change their lives, with 2 new small business schemes geared to their skills. We now have 12 boys who are stable and committed. They are making great progress. Their needs and struggles are different to those of the girls, and we are learning along with them. They are precious and a blessing.

We received funding for a social work program in June, and now have an active counselling and social work team, headed by a British Social Worker, Amanda, which is actively creating change in domestic situations of clients, to improve quality of life, reduce risk factors and protect children.

We commenced a new project to combat gender-based violence, which is a huge problem for our clients. We have 2 staff employed in this project, 1 female and 1 male. The male social worker is working with Cambodian husbands to reduce dysfunctional behaviours including domestic violence, but also addictions, abuse, unwillingness to financially contribute, frequenting brothels, and many more behaviours, in order to raise the standard of domestic life for vulnerable women. Dysfunctional male behaviour norms are a huge problem in Cambodia, but are largely untackled and we are thrilled to be making a difference in this area also.

The most thrilling aspect of all is the change I see in the clients who work at Daughters; as I interact with them each day, I see life, hope, joy, dignity and self-worth shining out of them tangibly, along with a determination. This determination comes from empowering them in the ways we strive to do, so that they are working to raise their own lives in greater and greater ways into a place of having surmounted, conquered, the chains of their past, having gained for themselves self-esteem in their hearts, dignity from their work, increasing quality of domestic life, financial security, a respected status in society. Most of all they know they are loved, and this is where healing begins.

I cannot end the year without acknowledging the incredible contribution made by Daughters’ dedicated and gifted team of staff, both Cambodians and foreigners, and the large number of volunteers who have raised our capacity in various ways throughout the year. None of this would have been possible without them, and I wish to express my thanks to all of them for working so hard to give our clients a new and beautiful life that would not have been possible otherwise.

A huge thank you is also due to our donors, both large and small, who believe in what we do, support us in our stress (!) and work incredibly hard to raise funds without which none of this would be possible.