One Girl. One Sponsor. Many Lives Transformed.

Once a sponsored child, Vannak now gives life as a midwife, just as sponsorship once gave life to her dreams.

When Vannak walks through the Health Centre in Kampong Leaeng, Cambodia, she’s walking through the heart of her own transformation. With each step, she carries a deep sense of pride in the woman she’s become and how far her community has come.

As a midwife, she supports mothers as they welcome a new life into the world. This kind of medical help didn’t exist 20 years ago, a symbol of just how much can change when a girl is given an opportunity.

This future was once only a dream her mother held, a future that seemed impossible when Vannak was a young girl. “My house was in a remote part, and the road would often flood up to my knees,” she recalls.

In her village, girls were expected to stay home and marry young. But Vannak’s mother, a farmer, held a rare belief: education could change everything. Even when they couldn’t afford lunch, she insisted Vannak go to school.

Vannak’s hands once held schoolbooks gifted by a sponsor. Today, they help bring new life into the world.

 

In 2003, World Vision arrived in Kampong Leaeng. That same year, Vannak was sponsored — a moment that changed the trajectory of her life forever.

 

At first, it was schoolbooks and pens. “They were essential,” she says. But more than supplies, it was the belief of her sponsor that shaped her future.

 

“My sponsor always asked how I was doing and encouraged me to keep going,” she says. And so she did. With every letter, her once impossible dream of becoming a midwife began to rise above poverty and gender barriers.

There are many others like Vannak waiting to turn their dreams into powerful futures.

Sponsor a girl by 11 October, International Day of the Girl.