By Nicholas Kristof, New York Times
THU THUA, Vietnam — In 2011, a malnourished 14-year-old Vietnamese village girl named Phung arose in the wee hours each morning in a herculean struggle to get an education. After I wrote about her, readers responded with a torrent of $750,000 in donations to Room to Read, the aid organization helping her.
Phung, 16, says education is her priority, even when that means getting up before sunrise, traveling an hour each way to school and washing her one and only uniform every night. Thanks to Room to Read and Times readers, her dreams of continuing to college and studying economics are not far-fetched. Credit Quinn Ryan Mattingly for The New York Times
So I decided to drop in and see what had become of this inspiring girl.
The question seemed particularly relevant after the kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls, for Phung’s tribulations underscore that the challenges of girls’ education are global. Here in rural Vietnam, girls aren’t kidnapped because they want to study and learn, but they face more banal challenges — above all, poverty and pressure to quit school at 15 and start working. Poverty holds far more girls hostage worldwide than any warlord.
Phung, whose full name is Dao Ngoc Phung, is from an impoverished and landless family, and, five years ago, her mother was diagnosed with cancer. After she died, leaving the family with large medical debts, the father moved to Saigon, where pay is higher, so that he could keep his children in school. He returned only on weekends.
So Phung on weekdays became, at 14, the head of the household. She did the chores and spanked her younger brother when he hung out with the naughty boys (she said she cried as she did so).
School was possible because Room to Read paid for school fees, books, a uniform, school bag and bicycle, while also providing a broad range of counseling and training.
Room to Read was founded in 2000 by John Wood, a former Microsoft marketing executive who has now built more libraries worldwide than Andrew Carnegie did. A donation of $40,000 to Room to Read sponsors a school, $5,000 a library, and $250 keeps a child in high school for a year. Room to Read has touched some 8 million children in 10 countries, including 3,000 girls sponsored by Times readers who were inspired by Phung.
On this trip, I found Phung, now 16, at her new high school, where she is ranked near the top of her 11th-grade class of 191. She sets her alarm for 3:30 each morning, reviews her homework and then commutes an hour each way to school. She washes her only school uniform — a white dress — in a bucket each evening and hopes it will dry overnight.
“Phung is very poor, but she is also very tough and is making an incredible effort to succeed,” said Le Thi Thanh Giang, a school administrator. “She will be successful.”
Indeed, Phung is planning to continue to university, to study economics. As it often does with its high school graduates, Room to Read hopes to find her a scholarship.
Read the full article by Nicholas Kristof from New York Times.
