Here Phallen, our third new scholarship recipient, talks about how her family have scrimped and saved to support her as best they could to study at university, despite not being able to afford clothes and other basics.
"My name is KUCH Phallen. I am 21 years old. I am from KompongCham province and I have four siblings. As a girl who come from a small-scale farming family, which is one of the worst-off familes in the community. I am the first child of six. My clothes were given to me by the neighbor and aunt.
Because of our rural area community, people do not value the education. When I nearly finished high school, my mother broke the bad news to me that I might not be able to study at university, because my mother and my father would not be able to support me. They wanted me to work as a tailor. I was concerned since I did not want to drop out of school, and promised myself that I would pursue to further my education.
Fortunately, when I finished high school in 2016, I passed the Chevening internship program, supported by the British Embassy of Cambodia. It gave me a chance to work as assistant legal and tax service in DFDL Company; through this I got the chance to study a bachelor’s degree at Royal University of law and Economic which majority is International relation. At that time, many of consequences were attend myself, because living in city it can be meet any problem all the time, and I was unsure with the situation.
Because of financial problem and lack of information I had drop out of university for one year after I finished my foundation year. Luckily, I was fortunate to be introduced to a scholarship program at Advanced Centre for Empowerment (ACE), in Phnom Penh that provides a free accommodation and leadership training skills for university students and also gave me great opportunity to study English at Australia Centre for Education which I could develop myself and got the chance to teach children who live in the slum, wait for my mum to help save up some money to afford my university. So every year, I am so worried about how I am getting on with the university fee without study one year and then stop one year to save, then study."
"My name is KUCH Phallen. I am 21 years old. I am from KompongCham province and I have four siblings. As a girl who come from a small-scale farming family, which is one of the worst-off familes in the community. I am the first child of six. My clothes were given to me by the neighbor and aunt.
Because of our rural area community, people do not value the education. When I nearly finished high school, my mother broke the bad news to me that I might not be able to study at university, because my mother and my father would not be able to support me. They wanted me to work as a tailor. I was concerned since I did not want to drop out of school, and promised myself that I would pursue to further my education.
Fortunately, when I finished high school in 2016, I passed the Chevening internship program, supported by the British Embassy of Cambodia. It gave me a chance to work as assistant legal and tax service in DFDL Company; through this I got the chance to study a bachelor’s degree at Royal University of law and Economic which majority is International relation. At that time, many of consequences were attend myself, because living in city it can be meet any problem all the time, and I was unsure with the situation.
Because of financial problem and lack of information I had drop out of university for one year after I finished my foundation year. Luckily, I was fortunate to be introduced to a scholarship program at Advanced Centre for Empowerment (ACE), in Phnom Penh that provides a free accommodation and leadership training skills for university students and also gave me great opportunity to study English at Australia Centre for Education which I could develop myself and got the chance to teach children who live in the slum, wait for my mum to help save up some money to afford my university. So every year, I am so worried about how I am getting on with the university fee without study one year and then stop one year to save, then study."
