There are still many mentally ill patients in rural Cambodia who have been locked up at home– chained to the house or a tree by desperate family members. This happens in communities around the country because family members do not know how to deal with the patient’s condition. In addition, the poverty in families and the lack of mental health services available in their community, and the lack of understanding about mental health impede the family from seeking help or to even taking care of the mentally ill relatives.

During TPO’s 20th Anniversary Celebration on Feb 20^th, 2015, His Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni of Cambodia kindly donated US$ 5,000 to TPO Cambodia for mental health work. With this donation, the TPO team set up this charity project called the ‘Operation Unchain’ to raise awareness of mental health issues in rural Cambodian communities, and to treat and eventually unchain mentally ill patients. This demonstrates that there are alternatives to chaining up family members struggling with mental illness.

Our team travels anywhere in Cambodia with the aim to treat and unchain as many patients as possible and we plan to continue this job until there are no more mentally ill patients chained in Cambodia.