Our Story.

“Sak Saum” is a verb in Khmer, the primary language of Cambodia, meaning to restore to original condition, to remake as new filled with dignity, value, and beauty. In 1999, Eric and Ginny Hanson, began working with YWAM (Youth with a Mission) in a local church and facilitating short term teams in Cambodia. While ministering in local orphanages, we realized that we needed to dig deeper to help to create change. We heard the cry of the children, “If my mom had a job, I would have my family.” No child should call this their reality! We were there to hear; face to face, heart to heart, mourning beside these little ones. Eric and Ginny founded In His Steps International in order to expand the work of the ministry in the community. We began visiting Karaoke Bars and talking with the women working there. We learned that many of their children were in orphanages. We asked why they had made the difficult decision to send their children to orphanages, the primary answer was they weren’t able to care for them and they thought that they would have a better life. Sak Saum was planted in our hearts!

In faith, we started with one woman, one sewing machine, and one precious baby who would grow into a bright future. Ginny shared the story of how she wanted to help and she sold the items that had been made. She brought the funds back to Cambodia and began helping 3 more women. During the same time, we started free English lessons and a safe house in our community. The local government authorized the care of 12 children who were orphans, victims of family exploitation and abuse or abandoned. We also built homes for several poverty stricken families in our community.

In 2007, we began working with survivors of human trafficking. Sak Saum was born in 2008. We opened a safe house with 12 women with the vision to help restore dignity. We began with 1 year program with a holistic model focusing on the mind, body, soul, spirit, social, vocational, and financial with the plan to reintegrate the women back to into the community and hopefully reunite families. During that same year we opened a storefront in Phnom Penh to sell the items that the women made. We also began sending the items to the U.S. to be sold in order to raise funds to pay for the programs. Between 2008 and 2017 over 100 women have participated in our program.

In 2010, we purchased a piece of land on Koh Kor Island in Saang and we built a safe house that could house women and their children and in 2011 we built the vocational training center in Saang to employ vulnerable men and women.

Between 2012 and 2017 we continued to work on restoration of lives, job and skills training and reintegrating women back into their communities as self employed artisans.

Since then, Sak Saum has come full circle with all of our program participants having been reintegrated into their communities and, by the hand of God, Sak Saum’s mission is to remain committed to empowering marginalized individuals and families through continued job creation through sustainable, ethical and eco-friendly fashion.