In my last post, I outlined the new program we had started in partnership with the Nippon Foundation, to support young persons with disabilities through university over the next few years.
It is now approximately four months into the 2009 intake’s first year at university and from our contact with them during this period, they were settling in well. On 25 January, Ms Yokouchi Yoko from the Nippon Foundation was visiting Cambodia and we took the opportunity to meet up with the three CT clients studying at the Royal University of Law and Economics (RULE) in Phnom Penh to see how they are progressing for ourselves.
Also present was Ms Ngoun Sophak Kanika who is working with CT as a consultant. Kanika is a woman with disability who returned to Cambodia last year after completing a Masters at Washington State University in America. She is a leading disability rights advocate and is now lecturing in the newly formed social work department at the Royal University Phnom Penh. Without wishing to embarrass the modest Kanika, she is the most academically qualified woman with a disability in Cambodia and is an ideal role model for our present and future clients on this scholarship program.
The three students Sreyna, who is studying law, Sukonmony accountancy and Boreth banking and finance, looked like totally different people to those I first met in the summer of 2009 when they were applying for scholarship places. They looked and sounded so different to when I first met and where once they were your shy high school children, now they were more outgoing young adults.
All three have settled in and are enjoying their university experience. Their first year of study is a foundation year. Boreth and Sukonmony had taken exams just after Christmas and although they are awaiting their results, they certainly felt confident enough.
As it currently stands, not many people with disabilities go to university in Cambodia and potentially that could present challenges on so many levels for our clients. Thus we were keen to know if they had encountered any difficulties being a person with a disability on campus. It was tremendous news to hear that they had not and that they had been fully accepted without question by all.
There are of course some challenges and these are mainly down to issues of accessibility. For Boreth who uses crutches to get around, it means there is a real challenge to get to his classes on the top two floors of the campus. Sukonmony though not as mobility challenged, also has similar challenges as well. Other then this, they informed us that they were not encountering any other accessibility issues.
Because their enrolments were close to the start of the academic year, we were not in a position to speak on their behalves to university authorities about class scheduling to see if anything could be done. We did however, speak to one of the Vice-Rectors at the time and plan to do so now that we will have a bit more time on our hand to see if their classes could be scheduled for the ground floors. On the ‘accessibility’ front there was one noticeable positive on our visit to RULE; a wheelchair ramp was installed since our last visit which shows this particular university is thinking about the issue.
Our clients have also enrolled into extra English and computer classes which is an element that we will have to consider going forward with the scholarship program. The nine clients down in Prey Veng have also enrolled in similar classes and clearly these are seen as important skills for young people looking to develop themselves within the fast growing Cambodian economy.
When Ms Yokouchi was in Cambodia last, she sat in on a meeting we had with some clients who alas, did not pass their year 12 exams and with respect to those clients, they were extremely quiet and engaging in conversation with them was a challenge. When I first met Sreyna, Sukonmony and Boreth they were equally as quiet, but four months into their university life and it is noticeable that they have an air of confidence about them that was not there a short while ago. Whilst CT and the Nippon Foundation have given them this opportunity, full credit goes solely to them for making the progress they have made thus far and of course, it is up to them to keep it going.
One thing we have made a requirement of this program is that its beneficiaries must put something back. For this year we have asked them to write up some thoughts about their experiences thus far and to come and share them with those that we will soon be interviewing as part of the 2010 recruitment process.
But for now and without ignoring the fact that there is still an awful long way for these young people to go, it seems that we are at least on the right path.
John Honney, Disability Rights Adviser
February 2010, Phnom Penh
