By: Chea Socheata
PHNOM PENH – Lina, a young girl from Poipet, Banteay Meanchey province, once had to beg on the street after her family fell into financial hardship. Now back in school, she has become one of the top students in her class and dreams of becoming a classical dancer.
Lina was a regular student at a public school before her family faced a financial crisis. When she was 11 years old, her father, the head of the family, fell ill. Her mother, Sam Boray, had to seek help and borrow money from others to pay for his treatment.
Meanwhile, Lina was asked to beg on the street temporarily, forcing her to drop out of school and pause her education.
After her mother found a job, Lina returned to school. She is currently in Grade 5, with mathematics and social studies among her strongest subjects.
Lina says she loves attending school because it provides the supplies she needs for her classes. Beyond that, it gives her a place to expand her knowledge and helps her build confidence in her studies.
Besides education, Lina also has an artistic dream: to stand brightly on stage and perform Khmer traditional dance.
“I want to be a classical dancer,” she said. “When I see people dance, I want to dance, too. I want to dance artistically like them.”
The force behind Lina’s return to education is her mother’s relentless effort to ensure her children have opportunities she never had. While supporting four children, Boray has to shoulder multiple responsibilities, including debt, illness and unstable finances.
Even when her husband’s hospitalization forced her to shoulder these burdens alone, her determination to send her children to school never wavered.
Having had no opportunity to learn herself, she makes their education deeply personal to her. And she regularly tells her daughter to study hard.
“I’m willing to be tired, but I won’t stop working so my children can study, even if their father is sick,” said Boray. “I’m happy that my child can read letters and read things.”
Every evening after her long day working as a dishwasher, Boray would ask Lina to read to her, whether a poem or lessons from a book. Sometimes, Boray listens until he drifts off to sleep. For a mother who never had the chance to learn to read or write, this brief moment carries deep meaning.
Lina’s path back to education is supported by the Education Above All Foundation project, which reaches highly marginalized students.
The organization aims to transform lives and foster sustainable, inclusive change by ensuring vulnerable and marginalized populations have equal access to quality lifelong education and employment opportunities.
Through its Educate A Child programme, Education Above All Foundation cooperates with Action Education on the Cambodia Consortium for Out of School Children (OOSC) Phase II project.
By addressing key obstacles such as poverty, child labor, geographic isolation and climate change across all 25 provinces, the initiative works to expand access to quality primary education for 116,396 out-of-school children in Cambodia.
Working with these vulnerable children requires flexibility, said Phouy Phalla, a team leader with Damnok Toek’s non-formal education project. Students can attend school even without a proper birth certificate or family book.
As of 8 July 2026, more than 20,900 people were still unable to return home because of damage to homes and villages and continuing conditions in affected border areas. Photo Credit Action Education, EAA Foundation)
Disclaimer: This article was first published on the Cambodianess News website and is reproduced here with permission. Click here to access the original post.
