Provide women and girls education in Cambodia

In this update, we would like you to meet Kunthea, a girl we met during one of our workshops and als we would like to introduce our new campaign to you.

Meet Kunthea

In one of our School Workshops held earlier this year, we met Kunthea (not real name).

“I am 15 years old. I study at Hun Sen Kruos Secondary school in grade 8. I am the youngest daughter of 4 children. At my school I was given the opportunity to attend a workshop from the Women's resource Center.

The things I learned helped me to reflect on my own family and how my parents treat and disrespect each other. After attending these workshops I have spoken to my mum and dad about how important the understanding of women’s rights is, to prevent domestic violence. Because it’s not just the impact to the family, children are also impacted from violence in their home. As well as others who live in the community. I talked to them about the importance of trusting each other, helping each other with the housework, managing anger and the effects of alcohol on anger and violence.

I have noticed a difference in my parents behavior towards each other. They talk more, try to understand and communicate in stead of fight. This makes me very happy. It makes me feel safer.

I would like this workshop to be delivered to other schools as well as it’s a very important topic for our country. Women and girls should know how to protect themselves from all kind of abuses and know their rights. And boys should learn how to respect girls."

Launch of a new campaign

Did you know that currently, 50% of women and 27% of men in Cambodia believe that a husband is justified to beat his wife in certain situations? Siem Reap holds the highest rates of domestic violence in the country, with almost 60% of women experiencing physical, emotional, sexual or economic violence from their husband or partner. Furthermore, alcohol and drug abuse is rampant throughout communities in Siem Reap with participants of our 2015 community survey identifying alcohol use and gender issues as root causes of violence.

One of the workshops the Women’s Resource Center (WRC) provides is the workshop we give at schools in local communities. We educate both girls and boys on topics such as Alcohol and Drug Awareness, Gender Equality & Equity and Domestic Violence as these are very current subjects in a life of a Cambodian.

At Women’s Resource Center we are always looking for new opportunities to get our message and workshops out there and we are looking forward to giving our workshops at more and more schools in the local communities. To make sure we are able to do that we’ve launched a new fundraising last week. You can read more information or donate here.