Organization

Cambodian Children's Trust


Cambodian Children's Trust (CCT) is a Khmer-led child protection organization in Battambang, Cambodia, founded in 2007.[1][2] It works to keep children safe with their own families, and it pioneered the Village Hive, a community-led model of social protection.[2] In June 2025 the Cambodian government adopted the Village Hive as its national framework for social protection.[2][3]

History

Tara Winkler and Pon Jedtha founded CCT in Battambang in 2007 to help 14 children leave a corrupt and abusive orphanage. At first CCT ran an orphanage of its own to give the children a safe home.[2][4] In 2008 it realized that the children were not orphans but came from poor families, and it began tracing their relatives and reuniting them.[4][2] It opened its first community center and foster care homes in 2010.[4]

By 2012 CCT had turned itself from an orphanage into a family-based care organization, and that year it piloted its model in 11 villages in Battambang.[2][4] Better Care Network counts it as the first orphanage in Cambodia to make that change, and CCT credits the change with helping to start a nationwide movement for care reform.[1][2] It joined the 3PC and ChildSafe alliances in 2014, and in 2015 it joined the Family Care First initiative and helped found the Rethink Orphanages network.[4]

In 2013 CCT set up Jaan Bai (rice bowl in Khmer), a social enterprise restaurant run by Cambodian youth under a profit-share agreement. Fifty-one percent of its profits support the Village Hive.[2][1] In 2015 CCT began working with five public high schools and a teacher training college in Battambang City on a computer skills (ICT) program, and it ran its first ICT pilot in 2016.[1][4] The course became part of the national high school curriculum. When its only donor could no longer fund it, CCT chose not to seek new money, and the public schools kept running and funding the program themselves. More than 20,000 students have completed it.[1]

In 2016 and 2017 a two-year Family Care First pilot, funded by USAID and overseen by Save the Children, the Global Alliance for Children and outside researchers, assessed CCT's model. In the 2016 to 2017 year CCT grew from 27 to 36 villages in Battambang Province, raising the number of people who could reach its services from 53,969 to 96,666. It also hired and trained 22 village-based social workers, expanded its ICT program with funding from the Atlassian Foundation, began building six computer labs at three high schools and a teacher training college, and launched the ICT Angkor website of free computer courses in Khmer.[4] Its social workers made 1,877 home visits to families in crisis and received 155 new case referrals. They reunited 31 children with family-based care, and foster families kept 19 children and young people safe and out of institutions.[4]

CCT launched the Village Hive in 2019, and the first pilots opened in Battambang District in 2022.[2][5] On June 26, 2025, in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian government formally adopted and launched the Village Hive as the national framework for social protection.[5] That year, on the nomination of Cambodia's Ministry of Social Affairs, CCT received the 2025 ASEAN Outstanding Social Welfare and Development Award for the Village Hive.[3] CCT says its role now is to support the model's handover to local councils and communities, refine it in Battambang District and help it spread across the country.[3]

The Village Hive

The Village Hive brings local government, public services and community networks together in one hub. It puts prevention and early intervention first and joins education, health and social work, though not every service is yet part of every community.[5] It was designed with local communities to replace dependence on charity with public support systems owned locally.[1][2]

The Battambang District pilot aims to build one Village Hive in each of the district's ten communes, which hold 62 villages and 116,793 people.[5] CCT's goal is ten Village Hives across the district by 2032. As of 2025 it was raising $1,000,000 for the fourth, in Preaek Preah Sdach Commune, which it says has no public social protection system.[6] Better Care Network puts the model's reach at 104 villages.[1] CCT credits the pilots with reducing risks to children and domestic violence, preventing children from being separated from their families and raising living standards.[5]

Child protection services

CCT's senior social workers work with Battambang District social workers (OSVY) to manage complex cases in two districts and build local skills. They use Signs of Safety, a strengths-based approach led by the family, and help families build safety plans and support networks of trusted relatives, neighbors and friends.[7] CCT runs a confidential child protection hotline, open 24 hours a day, which it says is the only one in Battambang.[7]

When a child cannot stay safely with parents, social workers look first to relatives and friends and then to foster care, and they give carers training and financial support. Children in foster care may join the Care Leaver Network, which supports young people as they move back to family care or into independent life. CCT also offers counseling for trauma and helps caregivers with parenting skills, legal support, income, housing and material needs.[7] Its services have included home building and repairs, rental support, health care, community foster care, education support and financial coaching.[8] In November 2020 APLE Cambodia listed CCT in its directory of services for victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation.[8]

Networks and support

CCT is a member of the FCF|REAcT Network, the 3PC (Partnership Program for the Protection of Children) Network, Rethink Orphanages and the ChildSafe Alliance.[1][9] Cambodian Children's Trust Australia, a registered charity (ABN 83158383558), gives CCT financial and organizational support.[10] In the United States, The Hope Effect, a 501(c)(3) organization, accepts gifts for CCT.[11] The retailer THE UPSIDE has given part of every sale to CCT since its first day of trading.[12] CCT's donation page offers fundraisers, gifts in someone's name and gifts in a will.[6]

People

  • Pon Jedtha, co-founder; governance director (2017)[2][4]
  • Tara Winkler, co-founder; managing director (2017)[2][4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Better Care Network, Cambodian Children's Trust
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 Cambodian Children's Trust, About
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Cambodian Children's Trust, home page
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 Cambodian Children's Trust, Annual report 2016-17
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Cambodian Children's Trust, The Village Hive
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Cambodian Children's Trust, Donate
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Cambodian Children's Trust, Crisis response
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 APLE Cambodia, Referral directory
  9. ↑ 3PC, Our partners
  10. ↑ Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, Cambodian Children's Trust Australia
  11. ↑ The Hope Effect, Donate to Cambodian Children's Trust
  12. ↑ THE UPSIDE, The Cambodian Children's Trust

Sources

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This page was last edited on 26 September 2026, at 23:25.