Deported Cambodian breakdancer makes a difference with at-risk kids

Tuy Sobil's Tiny Toones program has been helping at-risk kids stay out of trouble in Cambodia.

From Time.com, "Tuy Sobil, who goes by the street name K.K., joined the Crips in Long Beach, Calif., when he was 13, started smoking crack, and was in jail for armed robbery by the time he was 18. After serving two years in Taft Prison in California and another three years in an immigration detention facility, the U.S. deported him to Cambodia in 2004." That's quite a rap sheet, and at first glance his deportation is wholly defensible. Except that Tuy cleaned up his act after being released from prison and was deported anyway.

Tuy's story isn't new, and neither is the story of those summarily deported from the U.S.. What sets Tuy's story apart from the rest is what he's done with his life since being shipped back to Cambodia.

Tuy was a champion breakdancer in the U.S., and once he recognized that his talents could be put to good use in Cambodia, he started Tiny Toones and, "In less than five years, the organization has grown to reach more than 5,000 kids every year at its six sites, most in the heart of Phnom Penh's slums. Though Tiny Toones started off as a breakdancing group, it quickly expanded to include computer literacy, art, HIV/AIDS prevention, and lessons in English and Khmer, the local language." He even performed for President Bill Clinton in Hong Kong.

It's not hard to see how his non-profit group took off. Hip-hop music and dance in Asia have remained popular over the years with stories of breakdancing grannies in China, freesyle dancing Japanese rockabillies in Japan, and the influence of K-Pop, J-Pop and western music.