Education for 300 Urban Poor Children

“…Phall’s returning to school again.”

Phalla was born in March 2011, so now she is 14 years old. Currently, Phalla lives with her parents in a narrow and small house with a zinc roof of her elder sister in Krang Chen village, Sdao Korng Commune, Ba Phnom district, Prey Veng. She has 2 sisters, Sreyleak and Phalai, and one brother, Phy. They all got married and lived separately. Phalla is the youngest child in the family and is studying in grade 2 at Kdey Sangkhoem Primary School.

At the age of going to school, Phalla, 14, was very late to attend school, like other children in the community. Her family was very poor, and her parents also had a bank debt of 3,000. At that time, her parents strived to earn an income to pay for a bank loan, but they could not earn enough money for the monthly bank payments. Thus, Phalla’s parents decided to sell their cultivation and form land to pay for all bank loans. Due to this hard situation, they did not have land for doing agriculture anymore, so they both moved to work as construction workers in Phnom Penh and other provinces to earn income to support the family’s life. At that time, Phalla was just 8 months old, and her parents also always took her with them until she was 12 years old without enrolling. One day, in 2022, Phalla’s mother had high blood pressure, and she could not work as a construction worker anymore, so she returned to her homeland with Phalla. During that time, Phalla was 12 years old, and she had just had an opportunity to enroll in Grade 1 at Kdey Sangkhoem primary school, so she was very late to attend school like other children due to poverty. Two years ago, Phalla enrolled in a sponsorship project. As a registered child, Phalla and her family received a lot of support from the project, as well as food packages, milk, educational materials, hygiene materials, and water filters, etc. All of these support us. It was a good assistance and a big contribution to reducing the whole family's expenses, and it also helped and improved the family’s living conditions and Phall’s education as well. Phalla was a bit late in learning in Grade 1, but she was a clever and very diligent girl, so she could catch up on lessons well from one day to another day, and her study also improved from one month to another month as well. She studied hard at school, and she attended school regularly. "As a result, she passed to the next Grade 2…”, said Phalla’s teachers, smilingly.

Once upon a time, Phalla went to school every day. But her friends in the class often bullied and talked something bad about her-you were 14 years old, but just studying in Grade 2, and you are an adult, but studying with small children. All of these bullying words made Phalla very ashamed of her friends at school; she did not want to school anymore, so she decided to stop going to school for 3 months. Phalla just stayed at home to do house chores, such as cooking rice, food, and taking care of her nephew, etc. One day, project staff conducted school and home visits and found out that Phalla had stopped going to school for 3 months. At that time, the project team often conducted home visits and encouraged or shared with Phalla and her mother about the importance of education for future life, because only education could break the poverty cycle in the future. It doesn't mean that you can't learn at an older age. No matter how old you are, you can still learn anytime and age as the slogan is lifelong learning. One week later, Phalla returned to her school again, and she always attended school regularly with a high study commitment, and she did not care about any bullying and bad words from her friends, and she never gave up studying as before. She would like to become a police officer in the future. I am very grateful to the Sponsorship Project for its support. Now my daughter is happy to attend school regularly, and she also studies hard both at school and at home. As a result, she gets good study results. "I will commit to supporting my daughter’s education because I do not want my child to work hard like me, but I will provide education to ensure her a better future”, said Phalla’s mother with smiling.