Somaly

Somaly embodies the power of girls’ education and triumph over the most difficult circumstances.  Now 18 years old, she lives, studies and works in Phnom Penh at the People Improvement Organization (PIO), a Cambodian organization that rescued her from the hardship of the city dump.

Hers was a family of rice farmers. When her mother fell ill, Somaly’s father took his wife to seek medical care, leaving their ten children alone.  To keep from starving, they walked for days to the capital, where they hoped to find a better life.

“We walked and walked with no food, nothing to drink, and several times I thought we were going to die,” Somaly recalled with emotion.

In the city, things didn’t turn out as they had hoped.  Two of her brothers died very soon of  diseases and one of her sisters was sold into slavery by the man she expected to marry.  Somaly and the others ended up living in the city dump, scavenging for things to sell and living on less than a dollar per day.

“Five years ago, as I was walking in the trash dump, this emaciated girl came to me and asked me if I could help her go to school,” said Phymean Noun, 2008 CNN Hero and founder of PIO.  For the past eight years, this organization has rescued over 800 children from the dump, providing them with shelter, an education and vocational training. Phymean Noun spent $30,000 of her own money to build the first PIO school and Somaly now refers to her as “Mom”.

“The first day I went to school was the greatest day of my life,” she said in broken English.  She has made the most out of her opportunities, graduating among the first of her class every year and attending beauty-school.

For the past two years, Somaly has been painting recollections of their time at “The Mountain” – as she now refers to the dump. She is determined, though, to leave that part of her life behind, and she also paints lively and colorful visions of what she hopes to become: a teacher, a hair dresser, or a shop owner.

Somaly sells her paintings through the PIO store, which she helps operate, and uses the money she earns to care for her siblings.

(Photography by Martha Adams)