Tola Yean

Hello! My name is Tola. I was born in 1989 in Banteay Mean Chey province, which is next to Battambang province. I have one brother and three sisters. I am the first child in the family. We were born into a poor family in the countryside. My father worked very hard as a worker to support the whole family, but my mom had to take care of us. Besides studying, my sisters and I went to find food in the field such as crabs, fish, frogs, snails, and leaves. Because the family was worse and worse and my parents could not afford to support us, my sisters had to drop out of school since they were in elementary school to look for a job. My little brother was a baby. I also dropped out of school in eighth grade. However, I was luckier than my siblings because my parents sent me to live with my grandfather in the pagoda, which is far from my house. (Pagoda is a place that allows poor children and orphans to stay and study, which is ruled by monks.) In the pagoda, I could learn Buddhist Dharma. A year later, because I had already learned some Dharma, and my grandfather and parents allowed me to become a Buddhist monk in April 2004. As a monk, I had a chance to study both Khmer and English again until I graduated from high school and university. In my family, I am the only one who graduated from college.

In 2015, after I had left monkhood, I got a job as a credit officer at a Microfinance institution in my province. It was the first time I could earn money and support my family. I had worked there for four years. In my dreams, I wanted to be a teacher and social worker since I was a monk because I thought these jobs could lead me to help poor children and villagers in my society. As a result, I quit my current job as a credit officer, and a few months later, I found TASSEL in November 2019.

Since I joined TASSEL, my life has changed a lot. I have met nice Khmer teachers and very kind foreigners from different countries. Furthermore, thanks to TASSEL, I can help many underprivileged children and people who live in rural areas. I can help them by giving them English knowledge or any other support. Moreover, I am happy to provide them with the general knowledge, which I have learned so far. I have to be working hard to help my society. Even though I cannot help all poor people in my country, at least, I can help poor people in a small part of my country (Battambang) by granting education to poor children. (If we do not have a property, we can find it, but if we do not have knowledge or education, we will get poor forever.) Not only does TASSEL provide English knowledge to children, but it also gives food and medicines to the poor elderly. Moreover, TASSEL is literally made to help and teach people to be kind, caring, loved, helpful, considerate, and active. It is not made to do business. That absolutely satisfies me to work with TASSEL so much. Until now, I have been working with TASSEL for five years, and I am now teaching in Jeepan village. I am very lucky to be a part of TASSEL.