Reflection on Sponsoring CCF Kids since 2012
By NiQ & Michele Lai, Jan 2025
Reflection on Sponsoring CCF Kids since 2012
By NiQ & Michele Lai, Jan 2025
As a family we have been involved with Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF) since the early 2010s and had visited CCF in Phnom Penh as a family when our son JaQ and daughter Alysha were still under ten. As this age, we felt that our children were too young to fully comprehend the situation at CCF, so were pleasantly surprised a couple of years later when our children asked to sponsor a younger CCF sibling each. Whilst we financially sponsor siblings as a family, the correspondence with the siblings is done directly and in private between JaQ and Chhey Ya, and Alysha and Ching. It has been an amazingly enriching experience to see our extended family grow over the years.
2012: Early family visit to CCF
2023: In back row, Ching is 2nd from left and Chhey Ya is 3rd from left
Reflection on Sponsoring a CCF Little Sister since 2020
By Alysha Lai, Jan 2025
Ching receiving a Academic Award
Five years ago, when I started sponsoring Ching, I was just starting high school, and she just started middle school. Sponsoring Ching was my 16th Birthday Gift, and it’s been so much more than that. In the lottery of life, we were dealt very different cards, yet we had so much to write about and found much in common. We seemed to be living parallel lives as she wrote about making friendship bracelets with her friends or worrying about her upcoming exams. And with every monthly update, I learned more about her personality, three close friends, and all the leadership positions she’s managed to achieve. I feel like her older sister, giving her advice and wishing her the best. I think it’s a special bond when you sponsor someone around the same age, growing up and learning together. As I started my second year at university, and Ching is in her final years of high school, I wish her the best and more. I hope to visit her in Cambodia in person someday soon!
Reflection on Sponsoring a CCF Little Brother since 2012
By JaQ Lai, Jan 2025
2012: JaQ, Chhey Ya and friend (from the left to right)
2017: JaQ, Chhey Ya, friend, and NiQ (from left to right)
Chhye Ya, receiving his prize becoming for first intern placement.
Growing up with Chhey Ya—my sponsor sibling in Phnom Penh—over the course of twelve years has been an irreplaceable gift. I hope that sharing a bit about our friendship might give some perspective on the transformative force of CCF sponsorship.
I met Chhey Ya when I was ten years old and he was eight. In our first messages, we told wrote about our favourite toys, the holidays we celebrated, and our friends at home. We encouraged each other in our studies, and exchanged stories from daily life. Over time, our emails included conversations about the future, family, our worries, and our aspirations. Chhey Ya is one of few friends I have known since such a young age.
Looking back at those early exchanges, I also recognise a developing awareness of the difference between my life in Hong Kong and Chhey Ya’s in Phnom Penh. This difference has been one of the facts of our relationship. It is easy to hone in on this difference and imagine sponsorship as a mere transaction, in which the sponsor gets a view into poverty and their own privilege, in exchange for money. What I find mistaken about this idea is that it misses out on the reciprocality of a real exchange between people. Sponsorship is not a view-into, but a relationship with—a relationship which, like any, is more colourful and entangled than any one aspect.
In the first years of our friendship, I thought of myself as a sort of older brother to my sponsor sibling—now more than ever, I understand that I have been inspired by Chhey Ya’s dedication, humour, and passion. As one example, Chhey Ya’s deep care for his younger siblings has been an ongoing inspiration for me to build a stronger relationship with my sister.
Last year, Chhey Ya decided to begin vocational training. The conversations we had about work, satisfaction, and responsibility in the past year have certainly shaped how I consider my own life. With Chhey Ya’s transition—from the academic education system to vocational school, and now a career as a cook—my approach to supporting him as a friend has also evolved. As we enter into the next stages of our lives, I am grateful to have had this opportunity to grow up with my sponsor sibling, and look forward to many more years of friendship. I hope that hearing a bit about what our friendship means to me might inspire you to begin a sponsorship of your own.
Evolve together,
NiQ, Purpose Club Founding Member
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