Six journeys from Cambodia to America (2/4)

How Cambodian staff went from a country office to Washington, DC - Episode 2: a country in reconstruction, new opportunities

By the end of the 1990s, Cambodia was relatively stable, and investors were scouting opportunities. More than 600 NGOs, international organizations were operating in the country. All six cross the path of organizations or people who change their life. Sidet’s commitment to her new faith led her to serve her church in Minnesota in 2002, where she remained for 18 months. She could have extended her stay in the US to work as an accountant. However, she returned to Cambodia to be with her family. After UNTAC ended, Soneath worked for several NGOs before securing a full scholarship in 1997 to attend Berea College in Kentucky. He graduated magna cum laude in business administration, and pursued a master’s degree in Economics at Fordham University in New York City.

The same year, Hourn was sent to France for a 3-month language improvement program as part of his BSc in Physics—an opportunity he could never have imagined. This experience convinced him that he could achieve whatever he wanted as long as he worked hard enough. In France, however, he was shocked to discover that after three years in a Cambodian university he knew less than the French students who were graduating from high school. Hourn thought there was no way he could work for NASA and switched his degree from physics to business administration in Phnom Penh’s Faculty of Law and Economic Sciences. Benefiting from the French cooperation, he was selected to pursue a master’s degree in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, one France’s top business schools.

After she finished high school, Sophoin worked as a receptionist in a phone shop, and studied part time at night because her family could not afford to send her to university. After a few years, she changed jobs and her employer paid the costs for her associate degree at a better-quality university. Kheang added skills in finances and accounting from the private school he worked for. Amara started working for an international NGO right after she graduated from university. (to be continued)