Discover what Yann Yon had to say; another winner of JWOC's International Women's Day competition

Let's discover what Yon, another of the winners, had to say in response to the question "What is it like to be a woman in Cambodia in 2012?"  The essays were not judged on the accuracy of the information, the grammatical structure or being inline with views held by JWOC or myself. I was simply looking for students who had tried really hard to express their views, whatever they were, which is not easy when learning a new language. Jackie, EVM, JWOC.

Winner of the male over 18 category

All women in the world want to live in a good condition and don’t want to be look down from the men. Especially women in Cambodia they really want to live in the same right as they men also. It means they want to get a right to protect themselves from looking down of societies and family fighting. 

One more thing the life for women in Cambodia before were very difficulty; especially the women who lived in the countryside most of them were farmers who worked very hard all days in the field and some women got widow of the war.  So they have to tried to work hard to earn money for their families. So some of their children have to drop out of school in order to find the jobs in the city and town or to worked at home for helped their families. Some of women were looked down by their husbands and some were hit by their husbands and other had HIV because of their husbands. However the women who lived in the city were very lucky they didn’t to work hard like women in countryside. That time ago the women lived bitterly with bad conditions for their live, they didn’t have equal right as men did. 

          However Cambodia in 2012 people live in the modern time. Women have changed their faces because they play in the important roles not only in the families but also in societies. According to my observation most women have become leader because they have had equal right to accept high education and have job to earn for their living. Moreover some Cambodian women have become doctor the member of parliament and leader and some have become manager of companies and some have done like men also. So in the name of I am one of the men and Cambodian we have to give the right chances for women and help them to live in the same equal right as men do. As a slogan said “Ladies are the mother of the world” So women themselves have to study hard to have enough abilities to work in modern societies in 2012.

By Yann Yon, aged 19

 Yon's classmates were very happy when he was presented with his prize

Find out what Heng Saki had to say; a winner of JWOC's International Women's day competition

 

 Let's find out what Saki, one of the winners, had to say in response to the question "What is it like to be a woman in Cambodia in 2012?"  The essays were not judged on the accuracy of the information, the grammatical structure or being inline with views held by JWOC or myself. I was simply looking for students who had tried really hard to express their views, whatever they were, which is not easy when learning a new language. Jackie, EVM, JWOC.


 Winner of the female aged over 18 category

Cambodia is an old country in Asia continent. This country is being developed all the sectors especially Human Resource.  The government tired to concentrate very hard on Cambodian people especially women. Now these day women and men have equal right. Women can get education, protection and have all rights like men. More over women is protected by International Organization and the organization made on rights called “Women’s right.” The most women have knowledge so they can flee from girl hunter. They are brave, clever, easy to find work than men. They have only two or three children. They know how to delay time for having children and how to care the health and hygiene and they know more that what is the problem when they don’t care about hygiene. 

But unfortunately it hasn’t only advantage. It also has Disadvantage. By the technology run fast so the women don’t think a lot about their tradition. Their attitude is similar to foreigner. They wear short, sexy, their style is really the same Europe or Korean and the color of hair sometime red, yellow, brown… Otherwise the most of like going for a walk at night a lot. All of these don’t follow the rule of Khmer tradition and they make plenty of back stories such as: they loved each other before they get married, become a lady joiner… at previous time women in Cambodia is really gentle, they always respect their parent and tried to help them a lot like house work, care the children. They tried to work hard and never lazy. They didn’t go for a walk a lot because they respected to the Khmer tradition etc.  All these reason is the good activities that we need to follow. But each society always have advantage and disadvantage so that time women were very sad they must work hard for their parent,  the most of them didn’t go to school and have a lot of children maybe eight to ten children for one women. They didn’t know how to care the health, they didn’t have enough right like the boy and only work in the kitchen or in the field. So if someone wants to make bad story with her it is very easy. 

All of these, women or girl in Cambodia in 2012 and at previous time is really different but both of them have advantages and disadvantages. So we must follow on what that good and throw on what make us crazy. It is very good for our country and we can care our culture or something that out hero saved it for us. 

by Heng Saki aged 19

 Saki was thrilled to receive a prize for her entry

Read Kao Seth Kosal's ideas; one of JWOC's International Women's Day competition winners

Let's read what Kosal, one of the winners, had to say in response to the question "What is it like to be a woman in Cambodia in 2012?"  The essays were not judged on the accuracy of the information, the grammatical structure or being inline with views held by JWOC or myself. I was simply looking for students who had tried really hard to express their views, whatever they were, which is not easy when learning a new language. Jackie, EVM, JWOC.

Winner of the male under age 18 category

In the year of 2012 Cambodia is a peaceful place with development on everything. So people in Cambodia might be happy and enjoy their living. And how about women and girls in Cambodia? Can they get what they want? 

Life of the women and girls in Cambodia are not the same. They live in their own family. So their lives are different. A girl or a woman in a rich family is so different from a girl or a woman in a poor family. A rich girl or rich woman lives with happiness they live in big houses with comfortable life. They have cars servants etc. but in a poor family woman and girl usually work hard. They have to be strong to help their family. In the countryside women and girls leave their villages to find jobs far away from their house sometimes they go abroad or any places in country. And a girl or woman in a simple family is easier than the poor. 

Now the women and girls are offered the rights for good living in society. They can go to study at school they can work like a man they can share the ideas, they can make decisions etc. It’s better than before that girls and women were just kept as housekeeper. But women and girls still have problems in the society or in the family like violence.  The violence usually suffer the woman and children in the family some girls were deceived by dishonest people by many ways. However woman can live better than man if she’s smarter and she can find a good job when she finished school like a man in Cambodia. When we look at the jobs in Cambodia we can see it’s easier than before.  Now the number of woman at work is increasing in Cambodia and also there are many kinds of work that women can do such as work in the hotel, restaurant, organization, company, enterprise, or in government too. And we can see that women are very important in each country in development, politics, economy and education. 

by Kao Seth Kosal, aged 15

Kosal proudly holding his prize

Meet Kheurndiya, one of JWOC's International Women's Day competition winners

Let's meet Kheurndiya, one of the winners and see what she had to say in response to the question "What is it like to be a woman in Cambodia in 2012?"  The essays were not judged on the accuracy of the information, the grammatical structure or being inline with views held by JWOC or myself. I was simply looking for students who had tried really hard to express their views, whatever they were, which is not easy when learning a new language. Jackie, EVM, JWOC.

Winner of the female aged under 18 category

Women play important role in Cambodia. They are the main people in their families and communities. In the past our society seem to be injustice between men and women. In their opinion women’s obligations are stay at home and look after children. Specially most people during that time thought women had no abilities to work out like the men. In the same way, some parents did not allow their daughters to go to school, in the opposite way they gave the chance to their sons, because they thought men with good educate would have a good job in the future.  For women, even they get high education they won’t get the better job than being a house wife. 

But nowadays everything has been change. Specially in the recently. Women has transformed their faces. They run away from the old thing the old costume. They are a good mother. They work hard all day even at home and at work place. They care, love, worry about the member in family in particularly their children.  They have to make sure if their child have enough food to eat if they happy be healthy sometime, they also forget to look after themselves because of her worried about her family. For community, she join in government role. In order to developed their country. To sum up women is very active in our country.

by Kheurndiya, aged 15

Kheurndiya being presented with her prize.

Announcing the International Women's Day competition winners

To support International Women's Day in 2012 not only did we focus on women in our lives, I ran a writing competition for our students. The topic was "What is it like to be a woman in Cambodia in 2012?". Students were asked to write a short essay setting out their own opinions, experiences and ideas.

I was very excited to receive 26 essays as the students already have many commitments so time is precious. The content of the essays varied greatly and included comparisons with the past, ideas about the future, women's rights, equality and the abuse of women. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the essays and gaining an insight into perceptions about society and everyday life for Cambodian women.

It was difficult to select only 4 winners as all the students did so well. The essays were not judged on the accuracy of the information, the grammatical structure or being inline with views held by JWOC or myself. I was simply looking for students who had tried really hard to express their views, whatever they were, which is not easy when learning a new language.

I am very proud to announce that the winners were:

Female under 18 years old student - Kheurndiya , aged 15
Male under 18 years old student - Kao Seth Kosal, aged 15
Female over 18 years old student - Heng Saki, aged 19
Male over 18 years old student - Yann Yon, aged 19

All students were presented with a pamper pack of products. They were delighted with their prizes and it was lovely to see the pride on their classmates faces when a winner was chosen from their class. Congratulations to all students who participated in this competition, I was very impressed.

by Jackie Wall, Education and Volunteer Manager, JWOC

Find out more about Somit and the Free Classes Project

Many of you may already know Somit as he has been with JWOC since 2006 but for new supporters this post is an excellent opportunity to get to know him and learn more about the project he manages- Free Classes.

My name is Somit. I am JWOC Free Class Project Manager. I am not originally from Siem Reap, I am from Kompong Thom province, a central province of Cambodia, but I moved to Siem Reap in 2005 to start my university course. I started working as a full time staff at JWOC in October 2009 but before that I was also a JWOC scholarship student; I got the scholarship in late 2006 and I graduated in 2009.

So far I have been doing well with the the manager job and I’m going to keep my work going well a in order to benefit all those involved in JWOC Free Classes project.

The following paragraphs are an introduction to the Free Classes Project and what we are doing:

Since this project was started until now, it has helped hundreds of people who cannot afford to pay for private school to access to extra classes and vocational skills. Our classes are run during the week and at the weekend and most of the classes are run by our scholarship students studying English major at university and the rest are run by our full time English Teacher and other staff members. Currently we have 35 classes including 9 children’s English classes, a Computer Lab with 7 classes, a conversation class, an art class, a sewing class and 16 adults’ English classes.

We also have a library for children and young adults with many monolingual and bilingual books, which allows students to have reading opportunities and play time. In total we serve around 700 students, so it, of course, makes JWOC very busy, especially at the weekend. The students we help are range from 3 to 30 years old from the villages around JWOC and surrounding districts. Before attending the class, each student is required to pass the ‘poor test’ and level placement test.

JWOC Free Classes Project gives students different opportunities and skills to help with building their future. English regular classes’ students have opportunity to learn English from different books. Pre-intermediate level is the highest English level at JWOC. After they graduate from this level they are able to use their English for English speaking environment job and they have enough English for attending local university. Conversation Class offers free opportunities to everybody who wants to improve communicative English, especially speaking skills, benefiting for their job and career.

Sunday Art Class provides children chances to have fun and create art things so that they can develop their creative ideas. Computer course offers students to learn basic computer skills including English and Khmer typing, MS. Word, Excel and PowerPoint, internet and email. They are able to use these skills in their work and school assignment. The sewing course gives students basic to intermediate sewing skills for their tailoring job and career. This class is for older students and it is usually for men or women who do not currently have a specific skill to support their life or family.

I want to say thank you to all the donors to Free Classes Project, we cannot work without your support.

If you would like to donate to the Free Classes Project,please click here.