profile from cambodia

rina can now dream of med school due to rice support

The story of 18 year-old Long Rina highlights the critical impact of the Girls’ Access to Education (GATE) scholarship program’s new rice support component sponsored by BGR.  While scholarships can nudge talented and ambitious girls into education, the omnipresence of poverty is a constant threat to their success.  By far, the most common menace is the lack of food.  Rina entered GATE in 2007 and quickly established herself as a bright and remarkable young woman.  Her vibrant spirit took in Program Director Raksmey Var, who hoped to help Rina achieve her dream of becoming a medical doctor.  She was so inspired by Rina’s drive and aptitude that she offered her a place to stay with her family in Phnom Penh if she is accepted into a medical program at the university.

These plans were put on hold when Rina’s widowed mother could no longer afford to put food on the table and keep her three younger daughters in school, despite seasonal work as a farm laborer and selling rice cakes.  For want of one dollar a day in school fees, Rina felt obligated to drop out to find work so that her sisters could continue to study.

Although she had learned through GATE about the elevated risk of trafficking for those who work abroad, a radio ad announcing jobs in Korea seemed to be Rina’s only option.  She was set to leave when GATE program staff intervened – not only with graphic warnings of the horrors that could easily befall her – but with rice support for her family so she could stay in school.  Rina was so relieved to be rescued that she cried in gratitude.

One of the lone pieces of furniture in Rina’s humble, one-room home is a small bookshelf lined with tattered textbooks that bear witness to her mother’s dream of a proper education for her daughters.  Now with a safe, stable ration of rice for the year, Rina and her family no longer begin and end each day with empty bellies and hunger pangs.  The assured source of basic sustenance enables the four daughters to focus on their lessons, bringing their mother’s greatest wish to fruition.