Tith Kimsor was born in Battambang province and is the daughter of a poor farming family. Because of poverty, she decided to quit school and leave home to stay with her uncle in Banteay Meanchey province, so that she could cross the Prey Kob checking point to do labor work in Thailand on a daily basis. She was referred to Girls’ Access To Education (GATE ) program by another program, Safe Migration And Reduction of Trafficking (SMART), supported by Lotus Outreach to educate community people and migrant workers about safe migration.

At the age of 19, she is now a tenth grader staying at a residential care facility. She would have been wasting her youth working as a laborer in Thailand if she was not given an opportunity to join scholarship program in Banteay Meanchey. No one can tell what could have happened to her while working in Thailand on her own, or what her future would have been like.

“Life of a Little Bird” is a short story written and drawn by her to describe how she found her way back into school after dropping out for one year, and how much it means to her having stayed in scholarship program supported by Lotus Outreach.

This story was written after Penelope, a Lotus Outreach board member, visited a GATE program in Banteay Meanchey in mid-January, 2009. Penelope was interested to learn more about how families in the scholarship program live day by day, as well as hearing anything that GATE girls would like to share to a foreigner like her who knows little about the lives of underprivileged children in Cambodia. She encouraged our scholarship recipients to draw or write something about themselves and send to her. She told them not to care much about quality of the drawing and/or story as long as it tells their real story. Below is the full story translated from what Kimsor wrote.

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There were a couple of birds who had seven children, and the living conditions for their family were miserable.

Seeing the difficult life of her family and feeling sympathy for her parents, the Little Bird who was the oldest child started to think a lot about how to help lighten this load. She thought that she might not be able to make her dream come true.

One day she questioned herself whether she should continue school or to help her family earn a living. She asked herself again and again many times. Eventually, she decided to drop out to work to support her family.

Then she asked her parents to leave the nest and flew a long way to the place where she thought she could earn income. But once she arrived at that place, she started to feel that she had made the wrong decision and it made her completely hopeless.

The Little Bird felt so lonely having to stay far from home and having no one who understood her. She told herself that she had to be strong and manage her own life by herself from that day on.

One day Little Bird met with an educator at the border she crossed to work everyday who was raising awareness about safe migration and informing people about referral services to formal education through scholarship programs, non-formal education, and skill training. Hearing that, the Little Bird rushed to talk to the educator to see if someone like her was qualified for the service. The educator who came from Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center (CWCC) interviewed her and then told her that she was eligible! She was so happy that she could continue school in 9th grade now.

On September 19th, 2008, it was the day the Little Bird had to sit in national exam to be able to go from lower secondary school to upper secondary school. She was very worried that she couldn’t pass because she had left school for one year to work.

The 17th of October, 2008, was the day that her exam result came out. The Little Bird successfully passed the national exam and was on her way to Upper Secondary School! She was excitedly delighted.

The little bird left the place where she was living on November 19th, 2008, to stay at a new place (residential home) where CWCC rented for students living far from school to stay. She was very happy that she could leave that lonely place and came to the new place she liked a lot. Since then, she told herself to do her best and study hard to achieve her goal and not to upset the donor (Lotus Outreach).

The Little Bird is very much grateful to the generous support of the donor and the hard work of CWCC.

Filed under: Uncategorized on May 26th, 2009