She didn’t have a home. Did once, but bolted when she was eleven, to save her own life. Ran like she’d never ran before. Hid under a wrecked car. Predator men are feral and dangerous to 11 year olds. And her own drug mum had allowed this predator into their shack. He had the drugs and money and hiv-aids. And he soon destroyed mum. She abandoned her eleven year old daughter: made her an orphan.

Please join us for a Gala Dinner to celebrate the 88th birthday of His Majesty The King of Thailand Monday - December 7, 2015 Grand Hyatt Hotel 123 Collins Street Melbourne

A poor five-year-old Cambodian girl named Panda says in perfect Thai: “This morning I studied English. Now I am solving multiplication problems. I love coming to school! My teacher, Kru Rat, teaches me new things every day."

Way, way back, even before we opened our Mercy Centre, we had a dream for our children in the slums beside the slaughterhouse – a simple-but-profound dream shared by all the moms, dads, and community and religious leaders: we dreamed that we would send all our slaughterhouse children to school.

The "three grandmothers" is the most famous story in the old part of the slum known as the Klong Toey slaughterhouse. The kindergarten kids love the story and ask the teacher over and over to "tell us again" before their afternoon nap at school.