Dany

Dany, 26, female, was born in Ty Trognorl village, Roarng Damrey Commune, Bar Phnom District, Prey Veng Province, Cambodia.

She was a deaf-mute at birth. Her family did not know that she had been a deaf-mute until she was four or five years old. When she was 6 years old, she attended an elementary school, and she could not learn anything, just only disturbed the students in the class, so her parents decided to stop her learning at school, and also she was born in the poorest family in the village; that’s why, her family could not afford to help her learn literacy in a private school. When she was adult, she was always angry with her parents and relatives. Whenever she was upset with anyone in her family, she always escaped from her family to live with her other relatives, and worked on breaking stones at the mountains to get the income to deal with her daily life, but not a long work or employment. She selected her work temporarily only, so she did not get any skill at all.

After her father, Sorn Vat, who was a farmer, died of high blood pressure in 2004, her mother, Moeung Ang, 67, who was a farmer in the same village, was worried about her, and tried to find the sign-language school in Phnom Penh, but Dany was rather old to learn sign language, and the director of the school did not accept her to attend the school because she was rather old, and he said that if he accepted her to attend the school, she would have to find out the place to stay outside the school; thus, she could not learn at that school. When she had no time to learn everything at other places in Phnom Penh, her mother came to CHA in 2013 to ask KIM THA, the director of CHA, to provide her with skills. 

First, he made a test for her to stay with CHA members temporarily so that she could practice for her study at CHA and how to live with the group in the premise of CHA program. In 2014, she decided to learn skills at CHA for sure and learns everything as much as she can catch up with everything concerned in tailoring subjects at CHA projects. Now, she knows how to bead on teddy animals and right now she learns how to sew on paper first before she starts on real materials. Up to now, she is very pleased to learn skill and live in CHA Program.