It was back in August 2006, during an insane stage of business traveling, when I found myself in Phnom Penh for one day with my friend Mikkel. Since we both share a passion for photography, despite our tight business schedule, we met at 6AM at the hotel lobby to share a quick breakfast and run out for some picture hunting.

The first destination was the Royal Palace, where we noticed lots of kids already at the main entrance, some of them were selling water, others were simply begging. The palace looked magnificent from outside, but it was still closed at such early time. Luckily, we finished our meetings early and spare some extra photography time. At around 5PM, we got back there. This time was open, and there was Sreypich.

As we walked from our taxi to the main entrance, among a bunch of kids, she approached me waving a bottle of local water while screaming "one dollar Sir, one dollar please". Instead, I proposed "one picture, one dollar", to which she agreed and posed. That was the first picture I took of Sreypich.

Right after a quick walk inside the Royal Palace, pushed by Mikkel's departure time, we rushed to the next place. On our way out, Sreypich was waiting for us at the exit door. She approached me, pointed at the Green Tea Mirinda I was drinking, and said "Please Sir, nam nam!" while pointing at her belly with the other hand. I agreed, shot a quick video while saying Goodbye and left for the next place: Wat Ounalom.

At Wat Ounalom there is a small bookshop, and there was Sambath. As far as I could tell, we were the only foreigners in the area. We were dragging everyone's attention. I approached Sambath and asked for Khmer books for kids, since I used to always bring my children books from different places. To my surprise, Sambath was the first person in the city who I could communicate with. His English was way above the average. We took a few more pictures and jumped back into our taxi. That was the end of the journey in Phnom Penh.

While waiting for my flight back, I walked into a bookshop at the gate. There was tons of books with beautiful pictures of Angkor Wat, a place that was impossible to reach in a one day trip. "Next time", I thought. However, for some reason, the book that really caught my eye was "First they killed my father", by Loung Ung. When I saw that picture of Loung Ung holding the chalk board with her name, something strange happened. Perhaps it was that I saw some ad when the book was launched, but I'm not sure. By the time I arrived to London, I have finished the book and I couldn't stop thinking about Sreypich. As I was reading Loung's story, I imagined Sreypich going through the whole experience. While I knew that Pol Pot was long gone, I was certain that Sreypich future was in serious danger. Even though the killing fields are now just a touristic attraction, I know that Sreypich was menaced by poverty and child abuse, which is a real problem in many countries in Southeast Asia.

A few days after my trip, I started thinking about Sreypich again. I was just thinking how little in my currency would cost to get Sreypich out of the streets. While watching the pictures over and over, thinking it was impossible for me to do anything from Europe, I realized in the picture of the bookshop at Wat Ounalom, I could read a phone number displayed outside. Sure enough, I called.

Sambath picked up and it didn't take much effort for him to realize it was me. I wrote down his email address and we started a written dialog. Sambath offered immediate help and following my instructions went to the Royal Palace at 5PM. That was when Sambath met Sreypich. Undoubtedly, the timing was right. Sambath came right back to me with the news. Sreypich and her parents were being kicked out of the small shack they were sharing with a number of other families, because they failed to pay the rent. To make things worse, her mother was pregnant.

That was when my wife and I started our mission, which would have been impossible without Sambath's help, and the help of Mikkel and other friends who also cooperated. It only took little money, and the priceless support from Sambath to have the family relocated to a safer place close to a school. Sreypich was signed up and started taking school classes right away. In the afternoon, she started English classes as well. In addition, as a reward to Sambath, we also started supporting his language classes, which were mandatory for his second part of the career. Despite the fact that Sambath had other jobs in addition to the book shop, it would have been impossible for him to afford his career.

A few months later, my wife and I visited Phnom Penh. I saw Sreypich transformed into an elementary school student. She was nicely dressed up in the school uniform and seemed perfectly adapted to the class. It was simply beautiful to be there. It felt like a big family reunion after years. The big surprise was when we arrived to the house. It was only four walls with no furniture, but this time it was their own walls. Sreypich's mother had the little baby girl in her arms. When we asked her name, they told us they were waiting for us to name their daughter. This was totally unexpected. Her name is Sophia, which by coincidence has a beautiful meaning in Khmer.

During that trip, we took Sreypich and her father to Angkor Wat. It was an amazing discovery for all of us, as they had never been there before either. It's been now almost two years, and the whole family is doing just great. The mission is not finished, and it has not always been easy. Sometimes it involves much more than just wiring money every month, but the results are more than rewarding.

You can see the complete Sreypich picture gallery here.