This story was submitted by a member of the Spiritual Changemakers Community.
Ms. Son Pisey was born into the poorest family in Siem Reap, Cambodia. She has eight siblings. Her parents had no land to build a house. They built a small hut on neighboring land. In 2009, Pisey applied for vocational training in Sewing School. At that time, I was also a member of the recruitment team to check the applications. We found Pisey completed junior high school and will upgrade to high school in the coming year. When we saw that, we had a short discussion with our director about moving her to another project that supports young female students in high school and beyond high school. Our director agreed with us, so we moved her to a project called Program Advancing Girls Education-PAGE to support her in higher education.
Back to her family, before we chose Pisey to PAGE, her father was a drunken man who always drank alcohol or beer every day, but not only a drunken man, he also committed domestic violence to his wife and children often. One elder sister and two younger brothers of Pisey dropped out of school because of poverty and no good care from parents due to parents being busy using intoxicants and not jobs that can make income to support a family. So, when we decided to take Pisey to PAGE, we went to meet them and put the contract with them to abidance drinking and domestic violence by try working hard to support family, and we promised to support Pisey to complete higher education, and they were agreed with us. From that time, her father started working with the carpenter in the village to build houses for villagers around his areas that can earn $10 per day, and her mother made kinds of Khmer cakes to sell at the local market there every morning that can earn between $25 - $30 per day, and two younger brothers worked as workers in cassava fields, earn $250 per month, and two younger sisters keep going to school.
Eight years later, Pisey graduated with a bachelor's degree in human resources management major at a private University in Siem Reap City named Build Bright University-BBU opened her own coffee shop that can generate appropriate income to support herself and her family. Two younger sisters completed high school, and they are now at university. Her parents made enough money to buy land of 8,000 square meters for building new big and good houses, including buying farmland of 40,000 square meters, and all brothers and sisters had
their own motors for transportation. The family has totally changed in eight years that we support Pisey to study in high school and University. Well, the attitude and character of Pisey incredibly affected her family, meaning that it changed from suffering to a happy family and from the poor to the rich once. Now, they all are living a happy life.
I absolutely feel delighted and proud of them that they got awake from the darkness of violence and intoxication and then made strong fighting to prove family happiness and welfare. Based on this change, we are truly aware that real change is change within everybody first, which means that change inside the person is to change the mindset of the people, like changing the mindset of Pisey's parents. When they started to change, everything started to change too. So, the spiritual changemaker to me means someone who can influence someone to change their mindset from a bad mindset to a good mindset. Change mindset, change life. In Pisey's story, I mainly focus on changing her parent's mindset and can change her family totally.