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 This vzw is based upon the lifestory of Ruan Hauchecorne.
Being a little Cambodian boy of about twelve years old, he was taken away from his parents – just like a lot of other Cambodian children – by the violent armed forces of the dictator Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge. The children were put on trucks and transported to distant regions. Ruan was transported from South Cambodia to North Cambodia. The children were inducted into the army and were forced to work in ricefields or industrial factories. They got very little to eat and were often beaten. Ruan has seen terrible things, images he will never forget.
When the era of the Khmer Rouge was drawing to an end and the chaos was enormous, Ruan escaped. During his escape he was following other people also getting away from there imprisonment and Ruan was staying with them for a while. But the last months he was all alone in the jungle. He lived off the land, eating what he could find even insects and leaves. A man from Thailand found him completely exhausted and unconscious at the border with Thailand. Completely undernourished and ill, Ruan was brought to the Bangkok General Hospital. In that hospital he met Hea, Ngeth and other Cambodian peers who would afterwards come over to Belgium together with Ruan himself.
In Belgium Ruan was adopted by the family Hauchecorne from Ruisbroek and has experienced a wonderful youth with six new brothers and sisters. Ruan always feared that his own family in Cambodia would be dead, but he was too afraid to go back to his country. The war was over but the perpetrators even nowadays are still roaming free. In some regions there are still landmines that kill and maim large numbers of people every year.
 Through the internet Ruan’s partner Katie made an appeal for information about his family in the “Phnom Penh Post”, a Cambodian journal. They were soon contacted by a Dutch NGO-worker, Edwin De Korte. He was cooperating in an agricultural project in the village where Ruan was born (Boeng Nimol) After 25 years Ruan finally found his family in Cambodia. He met his mother, two sisters, two brothers and a lot of nephews and nieces. Unfortunately his father has died from diabetes. Two younger brothers had died from malnutrition during the war. And two older brothers are still missing.
In February 2003 Ruan left for Cambodia to be finally reunited with his family. One of his first steps was learning his native language again. He stayed there for one year. In this period he built a new house for his mother and he helped construct seven wells for his village “Boeng Nimol” .
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