One of the most fulfilling things we experience at ISF is watching someone flourish as a benefit of our work, whether that’s a student, a football player, or a staff member. In the case of Sarim – it’s all three! With football matches restarting in Cambodia, Sarim is back at work as lead coach for the capital’s celebrated Boeung Ket Women’ Football Club. While there was a short lull in his busy schedule, we sat down with him to talk about his incredible journey from homelessness to professional success.
“I grew up in Kampong Speu, a rural part of Cambodia which is about 60 kilometres from Phnom Penh. I worked as a farmer all day, ploughing. It was very hard work and I never got to play at all, let alone play football. I only did a little bit of school. By the time I came to the city at 13, I hadn’t even finished first grade.

“My family were very poor, so my father went to Phnom Penh in 2005 to try to find work as a motorbike driver. One day, me and my older brother decided we would follow him. We didn’t tell anyone, we just got up and walked all the way to the city. We just wanted to eat, earn money and help our family. We’d heard people say the best place to get money was in the city. We didn’t have any money for a bus, so we just kept walking. It took three days.
“We knew our father was in the slums of Steung Meanchey, working somewhere near the old garbage dump. We looked for him during the day and slept on the streets at night. When we found him after a few days, he was driving his motorbike very late at night. About two weeks later, our mother arrived as well. She had been really worried about us. For a while we all lived like that. While my father worked as a motorcycle taxi driver, the rest of us were at the landfill picking up trash and selling it. We didn’t earn much money, but we survived.

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“But actually I had another reason for coming to the city. I wanted to get an education. So, after two years of living in Steung Meanchey, I became one of the very first kids to go to ISF’s first school. I was invited by one of their staff who I met near the garbage dump. Schooling turned out to be more difficult for me than I thought. The other kids had better clothes and were cleaner because they had more access to water than I did. But the teacher, Nary, was so nice and encouraging. She probably saved my education. Every day I would go out and collect trash and then go to school. I would leave my bag full of garbage at the front door, where I could keep an eye on it.

“ISF grew a lot over the next few years. The school moved buildings three times, always getting a bit better. At the same time, I was getting a bit better every year too; becoming more educated. Because of their catch up curriculum and the fact that I studied so hard, I did something I would never have dreamed possible. I actually finished high school. I was 24 years old, but I did it. There were ten children in my family and only two of us kept at school long enough to finish. I’m grateful to ISF and proud of myself for achieving that. But something else happened during those years too. I discovered football and I discovered my future.”

See part 2 of Sarim’s story to see his rise to footballing excellence.