Lina Can Read
In Poipet, Cambodia, Lina’s journey from family hardship to the classroom shows how the right support can give children the chance to learn, dream, and build for the future.
At the end of a long workday, Sam Boray asks her daughter Lina to read to her. Boray earns a living, washing dishes and helping in a restaurant kitchen. By the time she returns to the family’s rented home, she is exhausted.
But there remains something she wants to hear. “Read to mum or recite a poem to mum a little, since you go to school every day,” she tells Lina. Her daughter begins to read. Sometimes, Boray listens until she falls asleep. For a mother who never learned to read or write, it is a small moment with enormous significance.
“I’m happy that my child can read letters and read things,” she says. Lina’s journey, however, has not been straightforward.
Her family moved from Bavel to Poipet after her parents struggled to make ends meet from their small business. In Bavel, Lina did not attend school. After the move, she enrolled in Grade 1 at a school near Palilai Pagoda, but her education was stopped again. At home, there was always work to be done. Lina washed dishes and clothes, and helped care for her younger siblings. Her family faced a series of health and financial crises as well. Her father became ill. Then one of her younger siblings fell sick. As household expenses mounted, Boray borrowed money to keep the family afloat.
For a time, when the family had little income and no money to spare, Lina was sent out to beg. “When I went to beg from people, it was because my father was sick and my mother had borrowed money,” Lina recalls. When Boray eventually found work, she no longer wanted her daughter begging for money. She wanted her in education.
A pathway back to the classroom
Lina’s return is part of an education project designed to reach some of the most marginalised children.
Through its Educate A Child programme, Education Above All Foundation partners with Aide et Action on the Cambodia Consortium for Out of School Children Phase II project, an initiative working to increase access to quality primary education for vulnerable out of school children (OOSC) across Cambodia. The project aims to reach 116,396 OOSC and operates across all 25 provinces, responding to barriers, including poverty, migration, child labour, overage status, geographic isolation and climate change.
The Cambodian Consortium for Out of School Children brings together national and international organisations working with communities to increase education opportunity. Among them is Damnok Toek, which runs the Non-Formal Education programme Lina attends in Poipet.
For children like Lina, that partnership becomes tangible in the mundane, making 
regular school attendance possible: a seat in a classroom, learning materials, food assistance and practical support for families under financial pressure.
Phouy Phalla, a team leader with Damnok Toek’s non-formal education project, says flexibility is particularly important when working with vulnerable children. To that end, he explains that incomplete documentation does not automatically mean a child is turned away.
“Even without a birth certificate, we can allow them to attend school…. without a family book, they can still attend school,” Phalla asserts.
For the young girl on the margins, this approach and support are critical. She speaks happily about receiving books, pens, pencils, erasers and rulers. Yet perhaps most importantly, she thinks differently about the future.
“I come to study here to gain knowledge,” she says. “I know more. I’m better than before.”
Today, Lina is in Grade 5. Mathematics and social studies are her strongest subjects. But she dreams of a future on stage, as a traditional performing artist specialising in Cambodian dance. “When I see people dance, I want to dance too,” she says. “I want to dance artistically like them.”
Phalla has watched her progress over the years. “Lina is a child who strives hard in her studies,” he says. Her effort has been visible from the beginning. By Grade 4, she was an outstanding student.
“I won’t stop working so my children can study”
Behind Lina’s progress, though, is a mother determined to ensure her children have the opportunities denied her. Boray has four children. Supporting them while dealing with debt, illness and unstable finances has meant managing multiple responsibilities at once. When her husband was hospitalised, she had to carry the family’s burdens alone. Still, she remained clear: her children should continue learning. Her own experience has made education deeply personal.
“I’m willing to be tired, but I won’t stop working so my children can study, even if their father is sick,” she says. Boray tells her children, “Mum doesn’t know how to read or write, so you must study hard.”
Furthermore, literacy is not an abstract achievement for her. She explains that because she cannot read, even travelling somewhere unfamiliar can be difficult. There may be signs in front of her, but she cannot understand what they say. Yet today, the change in her home is palpable. Gone are the days when Boray worried that Lina was attending school without learning to read or write. Her children read to her. They write things down for her and bring lessons home that she had never had.
That is why, after a long, gruelling day, Boray asks Lina to read aloud.
