In the rural village of Trea, located in Cambodia’s southeastern Kandal province, secondary school remained out of reach for many girls when Ros Daline was a young student. Daline dropped out of school after her primary education and began working at a garment factory to help support her family.
Being the eldest of the family and having a chronically-ill father, the responsibility of earning an income fell on her shoulders. However, without skills and experience, she earned a meagre $25 for the 72-hours she worked per week.
A new path
In 2017, after almost ten years working at the factory, Daline was approached by Aide et Action to see if she’d be interested in running a community preschool in her village. In partnership with the local authorities in the area, Aide et Action was building the first-ever preschool in the village to promote the importance of early childhood care and development – something that was often overlooked in rural Cambodia.
Without an education, Daline doubted her own abilities as did many of her neighbors but after participating in numerous training she began to find her feet and develop self-confidence. To gain the confidence of her community, she applied everything she learned with determination and created an attractive learning environment for the children, and worked closely with parents to understand their children’s needs. Within few months, her students demonstrated improved the knowledge, attitude and hygiene which led the parents to see the value of early childhood education.
The road to recognition
Daline’s determination and commitment did not go unnoticed and in late 2018, she was recognised by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport as a national standard preschool teacher. With her new title as a permanent state teacher, Daline saw student enrollments increase as her community respected and valued her work more.
“It’s easier to convince my community to send their children to school as well as to keep them in school”, says Daline. “I’m going to continue to work hard to prove that education can change our lives and society.”
Through our work providing teacher training to marginlaised women and our close collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport to support early childhood education care and education in Cambodia, we are proud to support women’s education and development across Kep and Kandal provinces and honored to work with women like Daline.