Room to Read Blog

Hoeurn Him's Story: Paying it Forward in Cambodia

“When I got my first salary check, I went and placed the entire amount in my mother’s hand and said to her, ‘This is the power of education.’”

At 24 years old, Hoeurn Him is a natural leader with a warm smile and bright eyes. As a social mobilizer for Room to Read’s Girls’ Education program in Cambodia, she is currently responsible for monitoring the progress and development of 63 girls throughout the rural province of Kampong Cham. In this role, Hoeurn visits each girl’s home on a regular basis, helps facilitate life skills sessions and keeps a close eye on the academic performance of all her young students—providing support and encouragement along the way.

As the first person ever to graduate from secondary school in her village of 300 families, Hoeurn is particularly adept at understanding and navigating the challenges girls face in her community. “During my school days my parents were not at all concerned with my education,” she says frankly. “I finished school only because I wanted to have a better life and to not have to struggle for food.”

Her status as the village’s first-ever graduate has earned young Hoeurn a great deal of respect within her community and made her parents very proud. She says she will never forget that moment when she was able to share the fruits of her labor with them.

"When my first paycheck arrived, my father and mother were quiet for a long time and had tears in their eyes," she recalls. "Now they insist that my kid sister and brother stay in school, too.”

These days, Hoeurn is the primary breadwinner for her entire family, and plans to attend University within a few years. “I hope to receive a full scholarship, but my parents would still need a little bit of money to run the house,” she says. “Because of this, I set aside half of my salary each month to prepare for when I will be studying full-time and unable to earn for them.”

After university, Hoeurn has her sights set on becoming a teacher and returning to Kampong Cham to bring technology to the schools in her area. “I know from my own experience how much education can be empowering, so I must support all girls to see that as well,” she says.

Learn more about Room to Read’s Girls’ Education program.

Video Blog: Celebrating Mandela Day and the Power of Language in South Africa

July 18 is Mandela Day, a day aimed at inspiring individuals to take action to help change the world for the better. In addition to encouraging all people to spend 67 minutes of the day engaged in community service (one minute to mark each year Mr. Mandela spent in public service), it is about inspiring a global movement for good.

At Room to Read, we have seen firsthand the challenges South Africa's educational system has faced, not least of which is providing quality reading material in all 11 of the country's official languages. We launched our operations in South Africa six years ago to honor the country's rich linguistic diversity and cultural heritage in storybooks.

In honor of Mandela Day, we asked our South Africa team to reflect on the power of language, and how the availability of high-quality, locally-relevant children's books has affected the lives of the children served by our programs.

Take a look:

 

Lear more about our work in South Africa.

Guest Blog from John Wood: Catching Up with Phung from Vietnam

Last fall, Nicholas Kristof wrote about a Vietnamese girl, Dao Ngoc Phung, and her family. Her story inspired readers of The New York Times to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Room to Read's work around the globe, to support other children like Phung in achieving their dreams. This past month on a trip to Vietnam, John Wood had a chance to visit Phung and her family in the Mekong Delta to check on her progress and hear about what she has planned in the future. 

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For Phung and her family, life continues to present challenges, and yet they remain optimistic and resilient.  

Her father, Mr. Hiep, has realized his dream of running a small furniture assembly business close to home. This means that he is no longer working in Ho Chi Minh City, and is now able to be with his family seven nights a week. A neighbor loaned him a small piece of land, and he borrowed $2,000 from a relative and from the local veteran’s committee. He showed us his shop, where currently he is building a bed frame for a local newlywed couple along with a large cabinet for their living area. The work pays as well as a day’s labor in Ho Chi Minh City, so he is very happy. If he had more capital he could hire an assistant and do even more, but for now he is content. 

His four children are all so delighted to have their father home. Phung said that she feels more secure and added that she is no longer the one responsible for the morning wake up call for her younger siblings. “My father now wakes me up each morning.”

Mr. Hiep wakes up at 1:00 am to begin his day’s labor, having gone to bed between 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm most nights. There is a hammock in his work shed, leading me to believe that he must supplement his sleep with an afternoon siesta. I hope so, as he still has lingering effects from malaria contracted during the Vietnam War. 

Phung is fantastic. Her face lit up when I told her that as a result of the Times’ story about her, Room to Read raised enough funding to send an additional 3,000 girls to school. I told her this number rather than raw dollars raised, as I just don’t think she can contemplate a number like $750,000 (or, for that matter, 15 billion dong). Mr. Hiep chimed in to say that he is so proud that through the family’s story, “other girls in Vietnam and beyond” are being helped.

This year, Phung’s class sits for two exams: one to pass 9th grade and another to enter 10th grade. Phung already passed the former, as did the 144 girls in the Room to Read program who sat for the same test. I asked Phung if she thinks she’ll do well on the 10th grade entrance exam, which affects where she will attend upper secondary school. “Yes, of course,” she said, without hesitation. She described her physics homework as “easy.” I told her that I did terribly in physics class in school, which elicited a small smile.

Both of her younger siblings are also in school and doing well. During our conversation, they upgraded themselves to the main table with the adults, rather than sitting off to the side as they did when I visited in November. They paid attention the whole time and did not fidget at all despite a long conversation. They seem to be gaining self-confidence from their sister.

Mr. Hiep said that he still attends all the parent-teacher meetings and tries to encourage other parents to do the same. “If I were to give my children land, they could sell it and spend the money,” he said, adding: “But if I give them education, they will always have that.”

As for her future, Phung is most definitely on track to make it to university and said that is very much her plan. And thanks to Times’ readers, there is now money available to help make that dream a reality. 

This blog post was originally featured on Nicholas Kristof's blog from The New York Times, On the Ground.

Photo Blog from Vietnam: The Color Palette

Phong Le is Room to Read’s Country Director for Vietnam. Last week, in addition to his usual duties, this meant hosting our annual Country Management Conference (CMC), a time when our country, regional and global management teams gather to make decisions on strategic and operational matters affecting the organization as a whole. An avid photographer, Phong agreed to share some of his pictures and reflections from the event.

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I named this post “The Color Palette,” because that is the best way I can think of to describe Room to Read—different people from different continents, countries and cultures working together to provide better education for our children. After hosting the Country Management Conference this year, I see us as colors on a palette, and am more confident than ever that together we are painting a bright picture.

This year’s CMC was a long-awaited and very inspirational event for me, and for the rest of the Room to Read Vietnam staff. We have been hard at work preparing enthusiastically for the arrival of our colleagues from around the world, and the effort was well worth it.

The week began with a celebration of CEO Erin Ganju’s 10 years of service to the organization. We then continued the conference with many meetings, workshops and discussions around how to make our programs the best they can be, and how we can learn from each other’s successes. We ended the week with a farewell dinner that introduced Vietnamese culture to our guests, with traditional dance and music performed by our staff and their friends.

The cap on a truly inspirational week was a group site visit to see some of Room to Read Vietnam’s projects in the field. I was so touched to see our Girls’ Education program participants speaking confidently with our guests from other countries and hearing the young students in our libraries read aloud for us. I was reminded of the power education has to connect people, and to make distances—even between countries—seem shorter.

Lear more about our work in Vietnam.