University Education for Young Women in Cambodia

This report explores the success of Lotus Outreach’s GATEway program which supports women with adverse backgrounds through college and towards a desired profession. This project enables 100 promising young women to complete a baccalaureate degree. In a country like Cambodia where rates of gender discrimination and poverty are unbearably high, programs such as this one work to break the relentless cycle.

Living in a poor and separated family since she was young, Chanthoeun has been at risk of dropping out of school for a long time. Chanthoeun, a 23 years old girl who has been in Lotus Outreach’s ‘Higher Education for Impoverished Cambodian Girls’ was born in Svay Pork village, in the Siem Reap province. She has 5 siblings, 3 brothers and 2 sisters. She’s the third daughter in her family.

Chanthoeun’s parents were separated when she was in secondary school—her father left her mother for another wife. Chanthoeun has faced many hurdles in her life, coming from a separated family, living in poverty and being subjected to domestic violence from her father. “During my secondary life, my family faced a lot of problems. We lived in a poor family; my father committed domestic violent after drinking palm wine. Now he has step wife and left my mom and me”, she said. Due to these problems she faced, Chanthoeun wanted to drop out school many times. “I felt disappointed and ashamed that my father has a step wife, so I didn’t go to school and missed class for several times. However, because of the encouragement from my friends, teachers and the scholarship opportunity from Lotus Outreach through CWCC, I could finish high school successfully”, exppressed Chanthoeun .

After graduating from high school, Chanthoeun’s family could not continue to support her at university. Other obstacles arose; her mother started to abuse alcohol and was aggressive towards Chanthoeun, blaming her for being selfish. Chanthoeun’s mother was never encouraging of her studies and wanted her to stop going to school and find a job to support the family.

Due to this discouragement, Chantoeun never expected that she would have a chance to study at university and felt frustrated, so she decided to find a job to do to support her family. “The difficult thing for me during that time was that my mother drank alcohol and she always blamed me and wanted me to quit my study at just grade 12 as she wanted me to work”, Chantheoun added.

Chanthoeun found a job as a housekeeper with a monthly salary of $50. However, her job could not support her family because she was paid a small salary. She got very sick from over working and had to stay in the hospital for one week. After that, she decided to resign from work in order to take care of her health. She understood that she would not be able to get a well-paid job unless she pursued higher education, so she convinced her mother to let her continue her studies at a university. Her mother finally could see the importance of acquiring a higher education, so she agreed and took out loans from her relatives to help Chanthoeun continue her study at South-East Asia University.

However, when Chanthoeun’s relatives went into debt, they could no longer support Chanthoeun. Fortunately, CWCC received news from Lotus Outreach that they were going to support Chanthoeun in her studies and keep her from dropping out. “I thought that I may have to quit my study again like my older brothers and sisters to farm with mother at my hometown or migrate to other areas to be a blue collar worker. However, my life has changed after I received the scholarship. I feel excited and very happy because I think I will have a good future after I finish from university”, Chanthoeun expressed her feeling.

Nowadays Chanthoeun is studying accounting at South-East Asia University with the support from GATEways program. Chanthoeun has received a monthly stipend, rice support of 15kg per month, accommodation fee, extra-course fee (English), computer course and utilities support (water and electricity). The rice support not only helps Chanthoeun, but also helps her family because she can send some rice to her mother when her mom doesn’t get enough rice from farming. “I sometimes send some of my rice support to my mother when she needs rice, so it’s good for my family and me that this rice support can help us”, she added.

After passing the primary teacher entrance exam, Chanthoeun is now attending pedagogy at Provincial Teacher Training College for a 2-year program. Chanthoeun is busy with her pedagogy course, but she still continues her accounting courses at the university in the evening after she finishes class. “For my future, I want to be a primary school teacher and also a civil servant in district hall as an accountant in my community because I want to help back to my community and teach the poor children. This is my dream, so I will live it and make it happen!” Chanthoeun exclaimed.

Chanthoeun final words, “I would like to thank to CWCC, the GATEway program, and the donors that always help me and encourage me to study at university. I promise that I will try hard in studying and will make my dream come true.”