Penhleak ‘Pinkie’ Chan
Penhleak ‘Pinkie’ Chan is one of many young Cambodian patriots working tirelessly to further the country. Pinkie had the opportunity to work abroad but chose to declare her love for her homeland by empowering it’s citizens with what she feels is the most important tool — knowledge.
Penhleak ‘Pinkie’ Chan is one of many young Cambodian patriots working tirelessly to further the country. Pinkie had the opportunity to work abroad but chose to declare her love for her homeland by empowering it’s citizens with what she feels is the most important tool — knowledge.
Q: Now, I understand that you grew up in a refugee camp. Can you tell us a little bit about how that was like and how has that made you the person that you are today?
A: I don’t remember very much because I was about maybe four, four and a half when I came back. But I do remember bits and pieces of memories. What I saw is that a community of people who very much care about others and are involved in helping others. And I do want to be able to do something when I grow up. You know, to give back and to be helpful to someone.
Q: Now I know that you fought very hard for your education. Tell us a little bit about that
A: My father and my mother are very big into education. They had to fight for their own education formally or informally, mostly informally and that’s how they taught us to be. You work for an organisation called Open Development Cambodia.
Q: Tell us a little bit about your work with them
A: It is sort of a cutting edge between an open data platform and a data journalism platform. The only difference is that we don’t make commentaries, we don’t draw conclusions. We leave that to the user, to our readers to draw conclusions.
Q: What is empowerment to you?
A: Empowerment to me is a combination of three things. It’s opportunity, it’s trust and it’s support. And in the centre of all those three things, I think education must be the central point.
For Pinkie’s full video:
Check out Open Development Cambodia here:
http://www.opendevelopmentcambodia.net/
