Cambodia is a third world country in Southeast Asia that has a corrupt government affecting many lives. Aside from my own family, the rest of my entire family lives in Cambodia. Socheata Ouk is my cousin, 26 years old and is a very hard working individual. She supports her mother and herself with the little money that she makes monthly. She wishes that there could be a change in the school system and the process of getting a good job over there, “paying for school with the money I make to keep up with my electricity bills, food, and to help mother and aunts is hard but I love how I have a job because there are many people here that don’t have a job” (Ouk). Socheata loves to fantasize about living in America with the many opportunities we have along with freedom. She told me, “you are very lucky to be living out there, take every opportunity you can” (Ouk). I asked Socheata why does she think that is happening in Cambodia, she responds, “the prime minister, the government, they don’t want to help us” (Ouk). This drew my attention in because I can’t stand the fact my family has to go through those hardships working 10x harder than I am.
They need help from us. If this issue gets more attention from people outside of Cambodia, then people will know that Cambodians …show more content…
Socheata told me that it was hard to go to school because she needed to work at the same time to pay for school but was lucky enough to be able to pay for school (Ouk). Empowering Youth had an article called, “Unemployment in Cambodia” that had said, “Literacy rates are good indicators for access to employment and higher incomes. According to UNESCO, only 1.6% of Cambodia’s GDP is spent on education – ranking around 170th in the world” (Sandberg). So how are they able to get a well paying job if they can’t even get a good education? They need help and they expect the government to help because it is their duty to keep Cambodia in the right