My name is Seila and I was born in 1997. There are 6 members in my family; my mom, older brother, older sister, my brother-in-law, and my nephew. I am the youngest daughter. I just graduated from college in 2023. In my family, I am the only one who had a chance to get higher education.

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In 2015 I had a chance to study English at TASSEL for free. I hoped that studying English could change my life to be better like other children in my village. When I was young, my parents got divorced. My mom wasn’t sad about her divorce, but she was worrying about feeding all the four kids. My father had a new wife and lived far away from my house. My three siblings and I had to live with my mother who worked very hard at a farm alone all day to earn money. During that time my mother could not support my siblings to continue their studies. So, my oldest sister and older brother had to quit school to help mom’s work as a farmer, but it wasn’t enough. So, they had to work in Thailand to earn more money to support me and my older sister’s studies. A few years later, my oldest sister got sick and either my brother moved back home. She died after getting heart injections. My mom was depressed. All the income that had been earnt for years had been spent for her treatment; therefore, the family situation became worse and worse. My entire family sometimes did not have enough rice to eat, but my mom often said she was full, and just left everything for all the children. Sometimes, we had only one egg and shared it with four people. Then, my older sister decided to quit school when she saw that our mom had been working so hard every day and night. Even though she had quit school, there was still not enough.

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I didn’t quit school until I was in 8th grade and then I decided to quit because of my family financial problem. I had no choice, and I wanted to help my mother’s work to support my family. After helping my mother for one month, I realized that education was very important for me plus my friends, Rathana and Da, who are TASSEL students, always motivated me to live with them so that I could continue my study. One day, I was allowed to live with them in order to continue my study, but I had to work hard to earn money by myself when I had free time after school. Sometimes I had to ask my teacher for permission for three or four days to pick up tamarind fruit or pick vegetables in the rice field. I became the slowest learner in my class. However, I tried until I finished in secondary school (9th grade). When I finished secondary school, I needed to continue to high school. The school was so far from Rathana’s house. So, I decided to stop living with Rathana’s family. I wanted to quit school again because studying in high school required me to study more. Eventually, I decided to continue my study and I begged my friend,Ly, to help me because he had a motorbike. I never had money for buying snacks at school, what I earned on the weekend and my free time as a tamarind and vegetable picker was for buying books, pens and school’s materials. I had a lot of difficulties with my study, I still had hope in my life. One day, Tassel needed a TA (Teacher Assistance) who can work half day. I took that opportunity immediately. I was extremely excited because I could continue my dream. Thankfully, TASSEL could pay me a little bit so that I could continue my study until I successfully finished high school. In 2020 I was promoted to be an intern. I have fully become a teacher since 2021. So, I have been working in TASSEL for 5 years. I really love TASSEL because they provide long term education, and most importantly, they help many children in my village. Thank you TASSEL for always helping a lot of Cambodian children with great education and serving real poor people.