Hello
TOLA experienced a childhood of hardship and became an orphane at age seven, when both his parents passed away within a few months of each other. He came to live with us at Kinderhilfe Kambodscha with his two younger sisters in 2008, where the siblings finally found their home and grew up in our large family.
Tola enjoyed school and his studies and was a very good pupil. He started vocational training and an apprenticeship and became a chef. Today he lives and works independently and comes to visit our village rather often to say Hello.
His way to becoming a successful chef, despite being orphaned at age 7 and abandoned by all living family
AVUTH Tola was born in the summer of 2001 in the Kampong Provinz as oldest of three children into an extremely poor family. In his childhood, the children often went to bed hungry as both parents were unable to find stable work and tried to get by with whatever work they could find - often very hard manual labour. After even these difficult jobs became rarer to find, the family moved to the Rattanakkiri Province, hoping to be better able to support the family there. Possibly due to the hard working conditions, his mother got seriously sick and passed away in 2008. Tola's father was overwhelmed with the task of raising his three young children and abated the children.
First, local authorities were able to locate living grandparents and the children were sent to live with them. Shortly after, news that the father of the family had fallen seriously ill and assed away reached the grandparents. Their situation was very hard as well and they involved the local authorities as they had no means to feed and care for their grandchildren.
The Ministry for Social Affairs determined that the situation of the three siblings was severe and reached out to the team of KKEV-Cambodia. The legal papers to transfer the siblings into our care were processed quickly and they arrived at our Kinderdorf on August 18th, 2008, when Tola was only seven years old.
His grandparents moved away into another province and could not be found by authorities and the three children grew up in a big family at the village of Kinderhilfe Kambodscha.
Tola was enrolled into first grade upon his arrival and enjoyed going to school. He graduated from school in 2017/18 and decided to start a vocational training program to become a chef. After two years, he finished his studies and was able to find a good position at a restaurant in Phnom Penh, where he continues to work even during the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, he lives independently in Cambodia's capital, but he often comes to visit our village, although this has become a little more difficult due to social distancing rules.