The elders in our community are bringing back traditions, mentoring students, and raising children who have no one else. That’s why we call them our yeay and ta, our grannies and grandpas.
Why they’re so important to our community
Forty years ago, the Khmer Rouge came close to wiping out an entire generation of Cambodian people. This was one of the most horrific periods in the country's history, but some members of our community lived through it.
Today, these are the people who remember what Khmer culture was really like. That’s why they’re so integral to restoring lost family values, community structures, and Khmer traditions.
Your support helps our grannies guide the next generation
Grannies pass on wisdom, values, and traditions within our community
Grannies and grandpas graduated from the literacy and computer classes
Grannies are fostering abandoned and orphaned children
Meet our Grannies
These are a few of the women who bring our community together as they share their stories and pass on Khmer values to future generations. You can help a granny support her family.
Your donation will contribute to food for their families, a safe home, free healthcare, and a few trips that help them reconnect with the country they knew before the war. Each granny can have up to five sponsors, allowing for support to extend to others throughout our community.
Granny Mao
Granny Mao who is now 96 had found by Scott while she was hunting for recycled scraps on the Steung Meanchey dump. She is too old to work and suffers from high blood pressure. CCF is committed to doing its best to ensure that Granny Mao can live the rest of her life in comfort.
Granny Noch
Granny Noch was born in 1945 in the rural area of Kampong Speu Province. She’s friendly and has a wealth of life experiences. She’s always willing to share them with our CCF’s students and people in the community we serve.
Granny Mealea
Granny Mealea’s lived a life of struggles with 2 grandsons under her own care. She was born in a poor family in Kompong Speu and has 12 brothers and sisters. At her schooling age, she didn’t have a chance for education because at her time women were considered to be born just to be homemakers.
Granny Theary
Granny Theary was born in 1962 in Battambang province. She’s a hard-working single mother who has to take care of her daughter who is ill. Never having been to school, she joined CCF’s adult literacy program which enables her to read and write Khmer Language by her own now.
Granny Thany
Granny Thany was born in 1950 in Prey Veng Province. She’s joined literacy program she can now can read and write by her own. She’s also learned how to cut hair. To give back to CCF, now she spends her spare time to cut hair for CCF kids free of charge.
Granny Touch
Granny Touch is a friendly and active granny in our CCF Granny Program. She likes socializing with other grannies and sharing her life experience with juniors in the community to encourage them to cherish their opportunities with CCF and to strive to be future leaders.
The Theang treatment
When Theang joined CCF in 2014, she had long hung up her scissors. With a little persuasion, she came out of retirement. Now, Granny Theang has no intention of slowing down. She might be a grandmother of five, but she has more energy than the little ones playing in the community’s pagoda outside her makeshift salon.
Sisters Reunited
Granny Bun Sen aged 98 meets her 101-year-old sister for the first time in 47 years.