Geraldine Cox reflects on life saving hundreds of children and handing over reins of Cambodian orphanage

When Geraldine Cox gave up her life in Australia to care for hundreds of children in Cambodia, she was living “a hedonistic, materialistic life in Sydney”. “I didn’t save the kids, they saved me, my life is so full of joy and love every day,” Ms Cox said. “I had catered for dinner parties, expensive jewellery, first-class flights. “I never gave to the Red Cross or Salvation Army, everything was about me.

“It wasn’t until I saw the plight of children – it was like a bullet to the head.” Now aged 77, Ms Cox – known as ‘big mum’ – is about to hand over the reins of her orphanage and welfare empire in Cambodia. She first visited Cambodia in the 1970s at the very beginning of the Vietnam War and was overwhelmed by the number of disadvantaged children.

Soon after she found out she could not conceive children, she returned to Cambodia to help as a volunteer in a children’s orphanage in the mid-1990s.

The centre, run by the royal family, was plunged into uncertainty after 1997. Ms Cox found herself looking after the orphanage alone and on the wrong side of a highly volatile political war.

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501152814/geraldine-cox-reflects-on-life-saving-hundreds-of-children-and-handing-over-reins-of-cambodian-orphanage/