Hi! I’m Rina Rat. I was born in a rural area 32km from the town. I finished grade 12 from Dom Dek High School in 2021. During high school life, I was struggling and found this period challenging. I had to wake up early and sleep late at night to finish the exercises from school and review the lessons. During the daytime, I studied from 6am to 7pm every single day except Sunday. From my hard work and never giving up, I got very good grades. I was one of 5 students in my high school to receive a grade A, which made my parents and relatives so proud of me as I was the first to achieve this.
Growing up, my parents emphasized and prioritized education for me and my siblings, even though they didn’t have the chance to study themselves. We live in a very low-income family with 5 members, and I am the second child. My father works full days for only 5000 riels. Sometimes we ate rice without any other food or just with salt. However, my parents are trying so hard to give us the opportunity to study because they look back on their own lives and told me and my siblings that if we don’t study hard, we will not be able to work in a comfortable place with a high salary. You will work like a father and mother at the rice field under the sun every day. This advice really damaged my feelings. So, from then on, I have been trying very hard and don’t want them to be disappointed in me. Education has really changed my life a lot. I have been able to communicate and use English very well. I got a lot of opportunities to study at Pannasastra University, one of the top schools in Siem Reap. My older brother is a soldier, and my youngest brother is now in grade 8. I have to support my family and my youngest sibling as well.
Moving from my hometown to Siem Reap for university has been a new journey. At PUC, I am doing my bachelor’s degree in business administration. I face many challenges which I have never encountered before, and I experience something new every day. I have a big burden to help myself and my family as well. After completing the one-year English Program at PUC, I interned at the Front Desk office where I was responsible for providing information to the students and preparing their tests. In the next 2 months, I was promoted to a staff position as an HR Assistant at PUC. I also had a part-time job as a translator at the School for Field Studies Centre, which was a very new experience for me.
With these experiences and my abilities, I want to see myself growing more and more. I had applied and got an opportunity to work at REACH Siem Reap as the Communications Assistant, with the friendliest co-workers and amazing goals of the organization.
My goal in the future is to own my own business, and my biggest goal beyond that is to own an NGO that will help children from poor families have the opportunity to get an education. I want to be very helpful to my country to become a developed country in the future soon.
Working as a Communications Assistant at REACH is a great opportunity for me to help underprivileged families. I hope that this will be helpful for the children to get enough education and improve their family conditions in the future. I am sure that this position will enable me to be the best person who has the strong ability to own the organization by myself.
