Everyone Has a Story
In 1980 Arn Chorn was adopted by a minister from the United States and brought to New Hampshire. He was fourteen. Most of his family had been killed during the Cambodian genocide. At age ten he had slaved in a work camp, witnessing wide-scale starvation and murder. When the North Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge forced him to become a soldier until he escaped on foot through the jungle to Thailand.
Coming to New Hampshire as a refugee, Arn was one of the first non-white students to attend White Mountain Regional High School. In the US, he faced a host of challenges: How was he accepted into his new community? What obstacles did he have to overcome? What did he learn from his new peers? What did he teach them?
Today Arn Chorn Pond travels between the United States and Cambodia working on a number of projects with the hope of rebuilding civic life in Cambodia. His work has earned him numerous humanitarian awards including the Spirit of Anne Frank Award and the Reebok Human Rights Award.
Timeline
Arn Chorn Pond -- Timeline
1974: Eight-year old Arn Chorn lives with his family in Battambang, Cambodia. His family cannot afford to send him to regular school, so he serves a Buddhist monk in exchange for attending a temple school.
1975: Arn's family, along with hundreds of thousands of other city-dwellers, are forced by the Khmer Rouge to evacuate to the countryside. Arn is separated from his family and placed in a work camp where he witnesses the murder of thousands of children.
1979: The North Vietnamese invade Cambodia and Arn is forced to become a child soldier. He flees and makes his way through the jungle to a UN refugee camp on the Thai border. There he is befriended by Peter Pond, a minister from the United States.
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1980: Arn and two other boys from the camp are adopted by Peter and Shirley Pond and brought to their home in New Hampshire. Eventually the Ponds adopt fourteen more Cambodian children.
1980 - 1986: Arn and his brothers are enrolled at White Mountain Regional High School. He transfers to Gould Academy and then graduates from Northfield Mount Herman School.
1980’s: Arn speaks out in support of Cambodian refugees and others displaced by war. He tells his story at the UN, before Congress, and across the nation and the world. He founds Children of War, Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development, and Peace Makers, an American-based gang-intervention project for Southeast Asian youths.
1988: In recognition of his humanitarian work he receives the Reebok Human Rights Award; the Kohl Foundation International Peace Prize (1993) and the Spirit of Anne Frank Award (1997).
1990's to today: Arn returns to Cambodia to work on humanitarian projects. In 1996 he establishes Cambodian Living Arts, an ambitious program to preserve traditional Cambodian Arts nearly exterminated by the Khmer Rouge.