Davy Thor / Physical education teacher and Football referee
Among all my families, nobody graduated from high school, especially my mother didn’t understand how important education is. She just wanted me to stop studying and wanted me to work for supporting family. I fought against her so many times in the past. “I can do anything” I tried to prove that, so I got up early in the morning and went to the market to sell small stuff after that I went to the school to study. After school, I went back to work again and at night I studied again everyday from 11 years old until 21 years old.
One day, I joined one long running competition at high school and I got champion. I joined the national competition as a representative team of Phnom Penh. And we got No.1 in the country. After the competition, one coach from Human Resource University invited me to join the university. I got full scholarship and could study English. I got No.1 at the half marathon competition in the country at the 1st grade, but I trained too much, got injured my knee. I stopped running and focused on studying English. University gave me another chance to be a football referee under FFC. I tried the exam to be a referee and passed. At the beginning I didn’t have much confidence, but studied and experienced more, I didn’t worry any more. At the same time, I studied to be a physical education teacher for 2 years. I finally graduated from NIPES and now I’m teaching physical education at Takeo. I proved I can do anything what I want to do even though there are strong pressure from my family.
All my actions changed my mother. She supports me everything now. I know many women in Cambodia face that kind of traditional thinking. But I would like to tell all the women that if you want to do something, please keep on trying and don’t give up your life. My IKIGAI right now is to keep on challenging to be an international football referee.