Organization
Reconnecting Cambodia
Reconnecting Cambodia is a family-tracing project that offers Cambodians free DNA tests to help them find lost relatives.[1] It works with families split apart by war, genocide, poverty, migration, displacement or adoption.[2] It runs as a charity based in the United Kingdom and works with Cambodian families around the world.[3][2]
History
The filmmaker Li-Da Kruger, one of its co-founders, was airlifted out of Phnom Penh as a baby in April 1975 and grew up in Britain as an adoptee.[3] She spent years looking for her birth family without success until commercial DNA testing led her to blood relatives.[4] Her search, and her 2020 documentary Prue Leith: Journey with My Daughter, shaped the project.[4][3] An adoptive mother named Meta, whose story the project also tells, began a Khmer-language Facebook page in 2016 to look for her daughter's birth relatives, and later set out to bring free DNA kits to Cambodia.[4]
Work
Any Cambodian may apply for a free test. The project's main matching database is MyHeritage, which also sponsors it, and it encourages participants to upload their results to other databases such as GEDmatch or FamilyTreeDNA to raise the chance of a close match.[1][5] By adding Cambodian profiles to the global commercial databases, it aims to make close matches more likely for everyone searching.[6] It also offers support and safeguarding to families during their search.[6] Its programs follow five parts it calls STEAR: science, testing, education, assistance and restoration.[5]
By the project's own count, as of March 2026 it had completed 287 DNA tests, with 18 more being processed. It reports participants from Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. It also reports 21 close DNA match pairs, including four immediate family matches such as parent and child, siblings or an aunt and nephew.[2]
In the media
Li-Da Kruger spoke about her life and her work with Reconnecting Cambodia on the podcast Death in Cambodia, Life in America.[7][8]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Reconnecting Cambodia, DNA testing (undated)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Reconnecting Cambodia, home page (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Li-Da Kruger (undated)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Reconnecting Cambodia, Our story (undated)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Reconnecting Cambodia, STEAR programming (undated)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Reconnecting Cambodia, Mission statement (undated)
- ↑ Death in Cambodia, Life in America, Li-Da Kruger: Cofounder of Reconnecting Cambodia (undated)
- ↑ Reconnecting Cambodia, Publicity (undated)