Welcome to the New Cambodian Children's Life Association

Neth's Story:

As a child, the founder of NCCLA survived the horrors of the Khmer Rouge.   The Pol Pot regime was in power between 1975  and 1979.  They pursued and usually executed anyone associated with the previous government or army, anyone who was educated or professional, and anyone with family wealth.   Neth's father was a military doctor and was taken away and killed by the Khmer Rouge at the beginning of the regime when Neth was five years old.  He remembers his grandfather, who was an officer in the government army, also being taken away and executed. 

Like almost every child during the Khmer Rouge, Neth was taken away from his mother and grandmother and survived in a children's work camp for almost three years.  Every day Neth was forced without breakfast to cut wood in the jungle.  He was given only watery rice soup for lunch and dinner. Thousands of children starved in these work camps and many children even ate mud to survive.  Fortunately, Neth's mother located his camp and risked death on many moon lit nights by running several kilometers through the jungle to reach the camp.  By making a small hole in his sleeping hut's grass thatched walls, she would feed him small amounts of food, stroke his head and whisper soothing words before running  back to her own forced labor work camp.

When Pol Pot was overthrown in 1979, Neth, his mother, and his grandmother walked 110 kilometers back to Phnom Penh.  At age nine, Neth helped his family survive by selling cakes and fruit at markets in the city.  Eventually Neth's family made enough money to send Neth to school.  It was located about 30 kilometers from their home.  Neth walked that distance every day.  After school Neth worked at Phnom Penh's garbage dump collecting glass, metal, plastic, or other recyclables.  The money he earned there paid for most of his food and school supplies. 

In 1987, Neth's grandmother bought him a bicycle so he could work as a bicycle taxi.  A year later he sold that and rented a peddle-cab (a bicycle with a seat at the front) and continued this job until he finished high school.  After high school Neth was hired at a hotel as a security guard for $20 per month.  Later he became a waiter there and also enrolled in English classes.  After becoming fluent in English, Neth also became a part-time teacher at a private high school in addition to maintaining his waiting job at the hotel.

Neth's big break happened when the United Nations Transitional Authority arrived in Cambodia in 1992.  Neth was hired as an interpreter by them.  His wage was an astonishing $300 per month.  Most of the money was saved while supporting his family.  In 1994 Neth and three other friends opened a restaurant which he worked in for two years before it was sold. 

Neth then accepted a job teaching English to employees at the Ministry of Minerals and Industry and the Ministry of the Interior.  In 1998 he opened the Veiyo Tonle restaurant which now supports NCCLA .

In 2002 Neth met and married Thawee.  They could have used the small profit margin from the restaurant to set up a comfortable home, instead the profit was fed to NCCLA .  Neth and Thawee chose to use the restaurant as a home for the next three years so all the money earned could go towards the NCCLA children.  They ran the Veiyo Tonle as a restaurant during the day and early evening, but would sleep on the chairs during the night. 

Neth knows poverty -- he experienced it for most of his life.  He also learned how important even a small break can be in changing a life.  This is his goal at NCCLA .  He, and Thawee, and the whole staff at the orphanage are not changing one life -- they are changing twenty-four lives. 

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