A donation to ignite change
This last week over 250 copies of Thavry Thon's book were donated from a kind supporter through a local bookstore. The donor had been following Free To Shine for many years and after meeting the author of "A Proper Woman," was inspired to provide copies of her book in Khmer to every girl in our program, ages 14 and above.To say we were extremely excited by this news is an understatement. The team at Free To Shine was blown away by the supporter's generosity and is thankful to have made the connection with both the supporter and author.Below is a brief introduction to the book, "A Proper Woman":
This is the true story of a young Cambodian woman who has challenged her country’s social and cultural norms throughout her life and as a consequence has become an ambassador for female empowerment.Growing up on an island in the Bassac River, removed from many of the conveniences of modern life and surrounded by traditional customs and thought, Thavry’s story is one of inspiration to females around the world.As Cambodia slowly recovers from the great turmoil and destruction of civil war and the Khmer Rouge, rural life largely returned to familiar, century-old ways. For women, this meant marrying young, bearing children and working on the family farm, with little say in anything.But with support from her parents, whose own childhood experiences had been greatly shaped by the four years of Khmer Rouge rule, Thavry was taught to value education as a means of breaking from the confines of the village and to forge her own independent future.Her inspiring story shows that encouraging young women to believe in their dreams – and supporting them to do so – can lead to a freedom to learn and grow unknown to earlier generations.
Free To Shine is so excited to provide a book so applicable to the older girls in our program. Thavry's brave story of overcoming difficult life scenarios and setbacks in order to attain an education and become a successful author is truly inspirational, and she is a great role model for the girls in our program.Since we found Thavry so inspirational, we invited her to be featured in our Future Goals documentary, and she was eager to participate. We are thrilled for her story to be included in this documentary, which features interviews with other successful women in Cambodia that have achieved success in less common career paths. The Future Goals documentary is in it's last stage of editing and will be screened in villages throughout Siem Reap in the coming months!If you're interested in reading Thavry Thon's book, "A Proper Woman" in English, you can purchase it here: https://www.amazon.com/Proper-Woman-Thavry-Thon-ebook/dp/B01NAS5PP4 To read The Khmer Time's article about Thavry Thon follow this link