As young girls growing up in Cambodia’s countryside, both Kimsrung
Lov and Rada Chhorn faced steep odds in obtaining a college education.
Lov’s father, a small business owner in a town 57 miles outside of
Phnom Penh, believed that because girls were only destined to become
housewives, it was a waste for them to receive an education.
Chhorn was raised on a small farm in a village with no electricity or
plumbing, and her family could not afford to pay for college.
Despite these obstacles, Lov and Chhorn not only earned undergraduate
degrees, but they became two of just a handful of Cambodian students to
study abroad in the United States.
Lov and Chhorn spent the past year at Bowdoin attending classes and
living on campus. They are the third and forth Cambodian women to study
at Bowdoin (following last year’s two students, Marady Kith and Kalyan Yim) through the Harpswell Foundation’s exchange program with the College.
The Harpswell Foundation, established in 2003 by physicist, novelist
and MIT professor Alan Lightman, helps young Cambodian women with great
potential but limited means earn an education. The foundation has built
two university dorms in the capital city of Phnom Penh to provide poor
female students, who are barred from living in Buddhist pagodas like
their male peers, with free room and board. The foundation also provides
its residents training in English, computer literacy, leadership and
critical thinking skills.
Lightman says the purpose behind his mission is to help Cambodia
recover from the crippling legacy of the Khmer Rouge. The most
effective way to do this, he argues, is to empower and educate its
people, particularly its women. The women who qualify to live at the
Harpswell Foundation are selected based on their intelligence and their
leadership potential. Lightman says his expectation is that in 20 years
these women will be leading the country as heads of hospitals,
businesses, NGOs, government agencies and entrepreneurs.
Recently, Lov and Chhorn gave talks at Bowdoin, recounting their
stories about how they ended up last fall in Brunswick, Maine. Macy
Galvan ’13 also spoke about her time last summer as a Leadership
Resident at one of the foundation’s dorms, where she taught English and
critical thinking classes to the students.
Lov first told her story of growing up in a family in which her
brothers were encouraged to pursue college while she and her sisters
were told to stay home and learn the family business.
But Lov said she aspired to do more than sell cement and boat
equipment. Eventually, she convinced her father to let her attend
university if she earned a scholarship. Because she graduated in the top
2 percent of high school students in her country, she had no problem
achieving this, and went on to get a degree in computer science.
While a university student, Lov lived in Harpswell Foundation’s dorms
for three years, forging bonds with the other young women there. “We
have the same goal, which is making a better future for Cambodia,” she
said.
After Bowdoin, Lov plans to return to Cambodia and work in
technology. She admitted, though, that while she finds computer science
classes fascinating, she was most affected by her education courses at
Bowdoin. “When I return to Cambodia I am not going to just make money
from [my] computer science major. I am going to integrate education with
technology, so the next generation of Cambodian people can make use of
technology,” she said.
Chhorn said that before she moved into one of Harpswell Foundation’s
dorm rooms, she had lived with her sister in the city. When Chhorn won a
scholarship to university, her sister volunteered to live with Chhorn
in the city and work to cover Chhorn’s university and living expenses.
But Chhorn said she couldn’t bear to see her sister toiling so much and
so took a job as a waitress, earning just $90 a month.
When Chhorn heard of the Harpswell Foundation, she applied and was
accepted as a resident. Once she graduated from university in Phnom
Penh, the foundation selected her, and Lov, to attend Bowdoin for a
year.
At Bowdoin, like many other students, Chhorn discovered a passion for
a new academic field. Although she had majored in psychology at home,
here she became fascinated with gender and women’s studies. Next year,
she plans to start a Ph.D. program at California’s Alliant International
University to study clinical psychology, after which she plans to
return to Cambodia to work for women’s rights.
Both she and Lov commented on the many differences between their
lives here and in Cambodia, specifically on the abundance of Bowdoin and
its academic offerings, such as the “countless books in the libraries,”
“the heaps of food,” “the faculty members who are always friendly and
helpful,” and the “small classes.”
In Cambodia, university professors are paid very little, so often
have to rush off to other jobs after they finish their lectures,
Lightman said. They have no extra time for students.
As she was thanking the many people who have helped her this year,
Lov added, “Thank you to the professors who allowed me to be in their
classes and to discover new things.” She said that she will take back
the knowledge she gleaned here to Cambodia to help the next generation.
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