Career Choices

Ask some of the older Cambodian children what they want to do when they leave school and you will be blown away.  I am amazed and encouraged by their hopes and dreams and pray with all of my might that at least some of them will come true. 

There are dreams of scientists wanting to discover something incredible for mankind, of lawyers, doctors, and those who want to care for Cambodians, so they’re not so sick, poor and hungry.  When you see where these children live, when it’s dark at 6pm at night and there’s no electricity for them to study by and when they get up in the morning, they have to help their parents clean the house, cook or work themselves, or you question how the hell they will find $400 a year to pay for university, you begin to wonder how on earth they will achieve their dreams. 

But sometimes things just fall in place.  This week, Bon La, the 17 year-old whose family I sponsored returned from digging potatoes on the Cambodian / Thai border.  I’d funded her return trip ($30) and worked with Kemsour’s wife, Srey Mom, to find her a beauty traineeship, which she starts next Monday, and a guaranteed job at the end.  She’ll work from 08:00 – 17:00 each day and then study English at New Hope for an hour at 18:00 at night.

Srey Mom and I visited a local hairdresser / beautician owned by a woman called Theary who’d studied to be a beautician in Thailand.  (Check the photos of her training notes which she proudly showed me).  Srey Mom negotiated a six-month traineeship for Bon La which will train her in hairdressing, make-up and nail art.  There’s a huge demand for this here with all the weddings and other festive celebrations, the cost is ridiculously low.  (3,000 riel / US$0.75) to have your hair blow-dried / straightened and around the same for (pretty revolting) nail art.
 

At the end of her traineeship, Bon La will have the option of staying on to work for Theary or for New Hope, which is planning to open up its own beauty training business in the new school in late March next year.

I can’t believe how easily this came together.  One minute this beautiful girl was digging potatoes on the border, risking a life of rape, prostitution, of being kidnapped for body parts or shot by the border patrol.  The next she is ‘safely’ home, but her mother approached by a man offering to find her work in Malaysia, paying her mother $50 for her, and 80kg of rice.  And finally, because of New Hope, she has a new vocation and the opportunity to earn good money to support herself and her family well into the future. 

Meanwhile, we need to find funding for the traineeship ($80) and $60 a month plus 50kg of rice to (approximately $500) sustain Bon La’s family until she can start to earn a salary.