A PROMISE ACROSS GENERATIONS
Cambodia
Since 2011, Cambodia has held a profound place in my life and work. It continually reminds me that talent and potential are found everywhere, while opportunity is not. The students I have met in rural Cambodia possess the same intelligence, imagination, and capacity as young people in the world’s most highly resourced schools. What differs is their access to the conditions that allow those gifts to flourish.
Cambodia's Future Foundation
In 2013, we founded Cambodia’s Future Foundation to support a cohort of students from Grade 10 through Cambodian university. One of those students, Sokvy Vin, later earned a SheCan scholarship and graduated with honors from the University of Portland. Her journey is a powerful example of what becomes possible when ability is met with opportunity.
The Commitment Continues
Opportunity Becomes Legacy
I continue to return to Cambodia twice each year. At a rural elementary school, our support has included bicycles, a basketball court funded by Sokvy Vin, and upcoming LCD projectors. I have also supported another young woman since she was eight years old. She will soon begin her senior year at university. These continuing relationships reflect something deeper than assistance: opportunity can travel across generations, and those who receive it can become the people who create it for others.
Why Cambodia Matters
Most of the schools I serve are highly resourced and already high functioning. Cambodia keeps a vital truth in view: young people in rural communities carry equal potential, while access to resources and opportunity remains profoundly unequal. This inequity is central to my understanding of ancestry and to the Guardian Project. Being a good ancestor means using the opportunities available to us to widen the possibilities available to those who follow.
