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The mission of Hagar is to care for women and children who have been cast out of society.  In addition to survivors of trafficking and other domestic and sexual abuse, Hagar also cares for mentally and physically disabled children.  In Cambodian society those children are often cast off for two reasons.  First, there can be a stigma attached to disabilities due to Buddhism. Their parents believe that the children have a disability due to problems in their previous life.  Second, they simply don’t know how to care for disabled children.

Because of this there is a great need to educate the people about how to prevent disabilities and how to care for their disabled children.  So Hagar started the House of Smiles program (Check out this video!).  Today we spoke to the founder and met several of the children and families involved.  The program consists of a residential recovery program, community foster care and education.  With this program the children can get the appropriate physical therapy and can also attend school for the first time!

Their ultimate goal is to integrate children into public schools to help eliminate the stigmas and raise awareness.  In the next year they want to develop job skills training for their parents to earn a sustainable income.  They also want to create a job program for the disabled since there are currently no jobs available for the disabled in Cambodia.

One of the coolest parts of visiting the families was to see that the parents of each of the children had taken in foster children from the residential program!  They had learned so much and their children had made such progress that they invited other disabled children to be part of their family and care for them.

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