Friday 25 June 2010

New Hope: A Life Transformed



I just spent the morning with Kerry at a place called New Hope in Cambodia. It's a very impoverished community that this year has started to send its children to school for their first time.

Last October, an Airline Ambassadors team identified a little girl in this village who had no name and no hair (the villagers called her "No Hair") - the daughter of a karaoke bar worker (involving sex work) who didn't want or couldn't raise her. She was a little two-year old who waited for her mother every day, just waiting, waiting, waiting.

She is now safe in Kerry's loving home, speaking Australian English (Kerry's from Brisbane) and sooo eager to learn, so funny, so very full of life and hope. And she has HAIR. Her name is now Somnang - meaning "New Hope" or "Lucky" in Khmer.

I got to play with her today trying not to show my happy tears to see with my own eyes such a precious life transformed. I am a witness. Tomorrow we will bring her to our hotel to swim - Kerry said she's a little fish.

Thank you everyone for your efforts, time, passion, and compassion.

Deborah Quigley
AAI Volunteer

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