Work or school?
Fury glints in Suan's wide, almond eyes.
"You buy from him, why you not buy from me?" she demands, standing rooted to the spot and glaring at the tourist as he moves quickly back to the safety of his vehicle. Opening her mouth wide, like a baby bird, Suan emits a torrent of abuse; she is nine years old and illiterate but can swear in seven languages.
As the tourist drives away she doesn't move, her eyes narrow as he disappears into the dazzling sunshine, and now they glint with tears.
At nine years old Suan works everyday in the shadow of the hulkingly beautiful Angkor Wat ruins, selling bracelets and postcards to the hoards of tourists who descend relentlessly upon the site. Competition here is fierce.
Suan lives with her mother, who is widowed and ill and too poor to send her children to school; she relies upon Suan's earnings to feed Suan and her four younger children. Like Suan she is uneducated and illiterate, she works long hours in a rickety hut behind the majestic Ta Prohm ruins making the jewellery that Suan's diminutive size and angelic face help her to sell. Suan says she would like to be a teacher or a "proper" shopkeeper, but because she doesn't have time for school she doesn't expect her life to be any different to her mother's.
This is Cambodia, but it could be anywhere in the developing world, because Suan and her family are trapped in an all too ubiquitous cycle: they are ensnared in a vicious circle in which poverty obstructs education, creating illiteracy and a lack of skills which, in turn, perpetuate poverty and so on ceaselessly until some external factor disrupts this pattern.
The second of the United Nation's eight Millennium Development Goals is to achieve universal primary education by 2015, however in South Asia alone the UN estimate that there are 16 million children out of school, globally this is close to 70 million. Among those in school many drop out prematurely or fail to achieve basic literacy and numeracy. Girls, like Suan, fare the worst.
In Cambodia, and many other countries, progress has been made in that education is now free, however this is not enough to allow Suan to attend school because she can't afford not to work, let alone compulsory school supplies and the 'gratitude fees' that must be paid to teachers each day.
The potential of education is immense. Nelson Mandela once said that "Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world" and its instrumental role in progressing towards the UN's seven other millennium development goals substantiates his claim. As UNICEF explains, "educating children helps reduce poverty and promotes gender equality"; in school children learn the skills necessary for employment alongside life skills that can help them prevent diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, and in turn, raise healthier children.
Education is especially inextricably linked to achieving gender equality: as UNICEF states, "universal primary education by definition requires gender parity". Educating girls is extremely effective because it has what UNICEF describes as a "multiplier effect"; educated women tend to marry later and have fewer children, these children are, in turn, more likely to survive and to be better nourished and educated.
However Suan's conundrum is currently voiding many advances in education in the developing world; whilst education has potential to be one of the greatest weapons for change in these areas its power is extremely limited if it is inaccessible to those most in need of change. If education is to become as instrumental as it has the potential to be, measures must be implemented to break the vicious circle restricting its reach.
Suan has a friend who has begun to attend school everyday, while her peers continue to flog trinkets in the searing heat; Teou has become a participant in a programme the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is funding to help children across Cambodia return to school. Through practical measures, such as providing school supplies or bicycles to help children commute from isolated areas, this programme is attempting to make education accessible to more children.
The ILO programme has been implemented in various forms in other countries, such as Nepal and Pakistan, and is one of many schemes pursuing the same objective; the World Food Programme, for example, offers "food scholarships" (30 kg of rice, 1 dozen cans of tuna, 5 litres of cooking oil, 7 kg of beans and 1 kg of salt per month) to poor families in the developing world on the condition that they keep their children in school. This scholarship is both an incentive to return children to school and a practical measure, enabling families to survive without their children's wages. In Cambodia 65,000 of these scholarships have been awarded to primary age children.
Elsewhere schemes helping impoverished pupils attend school have often been incredibly simple. In Uganda, for example, an initiative has created affordable, locally produced sanitary towels to allow girls who can't afford expensive imported tampons to attend school all month. This scheme is doubly beneficial because it returns girls to school and provides employment in the local area.
Schemes such as these demonstrate that it is possible to tackle the poverty related obstacles preventing many children in developing countries from attending school, however they are not yet encompassing enough to turn the potential of education into real power.
Whilst Teou attends school everyday, Suan and many other children continue to sell souvenirs in the dusty car parks of Angkor Wat. This scenario is reflected around the world; the UN do not expect to meet their goal of universal primary education by 2015.
Suan scuffs the ground and scowls, scouring the site for her next target. "Work is for adults" she says sulkily, kicking up a dust cloud. A second later she's disappeared, darting away to join the flurry as a group of cyclists disembark across the car park.
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