Just as the Tapang tree provides protection to those who shelter under its branches, M’Lop Tapang (“Under the Tree”) has worked to provide a safe haven for street children in Sihanoukville, Cambodia since 2003.

M’Lop Tapang envisions an environment where all children grow up in their families feeling safe, healthy and happy; a society where all children are respected and treated equally; a community where each child has a choice about his or her future.

M’Lop Tapang’s mission is to provide street children with protection from all types of abuse, ensuring them a happy, healthy and safe childhood as well as a better future. M’Lop Tapang works to foster self-respect and positive values among street children and, at the same time, provides them with skills so that they have future work opportunities.

M’Lop Tapang hopes that today’s street children will in the future become responsible parents and members of society, ensuring a safe childhood for their own children.

To achieve that vision, M’Lop Tapang operates a day centre where education and recreation activities are offered, together with medical care, meals, counselling and art activities; a night shelter for about 15 children who choose to use the facility; a drop-in centre for drug-abusing kids.

In its centres, as well as in the streets and slums of Sihanoukville, M’Lop Tapang strives to meet the children’s immediate needs:

Providing nutritional meals, shelter, a safe environment and medical care;

Providing education and reintegrating children into public school where possible;

Fighting all forms of abuse, including physical, sexual, family and emotional abuse;

Making the children aware of their responsibilities within the centres and the community; and finally

Reintegrating street children with their families and community.