Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 80 DECEMBER 2019 I N - D E P T H PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB DUFFY Blaine Duffy's first visit with an incredible group of girls in Cambodia started with an orthodontist appointment, a magazine article, and "thousands of whoopie pies." It ended with tears and a promise. "I'll never forget driving away in the tuk- tuk on the last night, sobbing, promising my- self and the girls that I would be back. I didn't know when, I didn't know how, but I knew that there was no way I could turn my back on these girls," remembers the now-21-year-old Northwestern University student and North Shore native. "They have had so many people in their lives turn their backs on them, and I was not going to be one of those people." Blaine was barely a teenager when she founded My Cambodian Sisters. The A young Andover teen reaches across continents to help her Cambodian sisters in need. BY ALEX ANDRA PECCI FAMILY TIES education-based nonprofit supports the Life and Hope Association, a non-governmental organization (NGO) committed to breaking the cycle of poverty in Cambodia, a country still recovering from war and genocide. Through fundraising and the sale of scarves and bags handmade by a women's consortium of Cambo- dian artisanal weavers, My Cambodian Sisters raises money for the Life and Hope Association's PAGE (Program Advancing Girls' Education) House, which educates, houses, feeds, clothes, and provides support and scholarships to girls and young women who otherwise would not have the chance to finish school. Blaine first visited Cambodia and met the girls she would come to regard as her sisters when she was just 13 years old. "Many of the My Cambodian Sisters raises funds for the Life and Hope Association. Blaine Duffy on a trip to Cambodia. girls don't really have strong family ties or fam- ily names, or even have families at all, so they consider PAGE to be their last name," Blaine says. "Due to this they consider themselves a family, and when I first started coming they welcomed me into this family." In fact, that's where the name "My Cambo- dian Sisters" came from. "They started calling me 'sister,' and it just took off from there," Blaine explains. Blaine was a sixth grader when she read a magazine article at her orthodontist's office about a group of monks in Cambodia trying to make a difference in the lives of the people in their community. She was so intrigued that she immediately messaged one of the monks online to learn more. "I didn't even know about it," says her mother, Lisa Duffy, who owns Savoir Faire Home, the interior design and home décor shop in Andover. "She went up to her room that night and wrote him an email." The monk sent Blaine a surprising reply. "He basically said, 'If you want to help, the best way is to come and see it for yourself and experi- ence what we are doing firsthand,'" she says. So she did. It's safe to say that most parents would deliver a swift "Sorry, no, honey" to their sixth grader's request to visit Cambodia. But Lisa Duffy isn't most parents. She herself had trav- eled all over the world, including watching her adventurous dad bungee jump in his 80s, and had raised Blaine and her older sister, Paige, with the same "carpe diem" philosopy about embracing adventure and challenges that her dad had instilled in her. "We really raised our girls to know that there's another world out