Meet Pavchhay

I am Pavchhay. This year was quite hard. I wasn’t happy when school closed because I couldn’t see my friends and it was hard to study. I don’t have a computer at home so I could only do a bit of online learning on a phone, and homework my teacher gave me. Then my grandfather died. I used to love to visit him and my grandmother. Now she has come to live with us in our little house because he is gone.

One thing I think about a lot is education. I love it but I worry that not enough Cambodian kids get to go to school. There are kids here in Ratanakiri who don’t have money to go. And I have a cousin in Kampong Cham who doesn’t go to school even though he’s only nine. That means they don’t get enough knowledge.

I’m luckier because my parents really encourage me to go to school. They dropped out before they were 13 and they both collect trash to recycle as a living. That work is really difficult and doesn’t pay well. They want me to do better so they support me in school. They tell me to work hard to get a good job. They want one member of the family to become rich, nobody has ever been rich in our family before.

I study hard so now I am very good at Khmer and English and especially Maths. But I don’t think there will be enough money for me to go to university. Still, I do want to be successful. I love to play games and use apps on smartphones. Not computers, I think they are old fashioned. So I will try and invent a really good Maths game on an app for a smartphone. I hope it might be successful, not just in Cambodia but across the world, because everyone uses Maths and it could help a lot of people, especially Cambodians. I’d like Cambodians to have more education. If I could make money with it I would try to grow a business and also put myself through university. I would also help my family so they don’t struggle so much.