Future goal

Everyone always has a dream in their life to become something and do what they love for the rest of their life. Some people just dream of becoming a teacher in their community to help other children with education, but some people dream big and want to become an astronaut​ to discover the other planets in the universe.

In a developing country like Cambodia, young people seem not to have wide ideas about the job they want to be in the future. They may never be seen or heard of people in Cambodia who have done it before or maybe they think that they can’t do it and no one supports their dream. Sometimes people say, “You are a girl, you can’t do that kind of a job,” and many more reasons that keep them out of dreams or jobs they want to achieve in the future.

We want to help our young people to open their mindset widely and to show that it’s possible and you can do it too even if you are a girl. So in 2019, we got permission from our partner Free To Shine to run their program called “Future Goals”.

Future Goals is a program that was created to encourage young girls to open their mindsets and start thinking about their careers that they want to do in the future and to show the jobs that they never heard of before in order to make the right decision for their interest. The program focuses on 12 successful Khmer women and their career journeys, mixed with fun activities and lots of space for reflection and planning.

In the past year, we have done four sessions with 103 girls at CFI including students at public school and we will do more than 60 girls in the other two public schools.

After the workshop, we interviewed a girl about what she learned.

“It’s helped me to start thinking about my future goal and what I need to learn in order to have the career I want in the future,” she said.

Because she wants to become a teacher and work with NGOs in the education program, she will continue to study until she gets her dream job. She keeps the job card that we provide in the workshop to look at every day to remind her of her dream.

“It also encourages me to continue studying until I finish high school and go to university to get the degrees in my field,” she said.