Heam Keang is 24 years old.  She is from the city of Siem Reap and not from the countryside, like many of the other scholarship applicants.  Her parents do not have jobs because they are too old to work.  She has three brothers and five sisters.  They work at a range of different places, ranging from motorcycle repair to restaurants and hotels.  As a child, Keang helped her older sister sell vegetables in the market, but when she stated 9th grade her father forbid her to continue working at the market so that she could focus on her studies.  After she graduated high school, she got a job at an internet shop.  A few months later, she moved on to work at a pharmacy store as a marketing and sales representative, where she stayed for one year.  She now works at a handicraft company called Basket of Cambodia, (BOC), where she is an accountant and assistant to the general manager. 

            She found out about the JWOC scholarship from a friend, and although she did not think she would get it, she applied anyway.  To her surprise, she did earn a scholarship, and began and Build Bright University in March where she studies accounting.  She is now working fulltime and attending BBU in the evenings.  She cannot afford to quit her job and study full time because her family needs the money.  Despite the difficulties of working and studying, she keeps doing it because she knows that a university degree is the key to having a better job that will support herself and her family.  After graduating university, she hopes to either work at a bank as an accountant, or to get a higher paying job within BOC.  While doing this, she wants to save enough money to open her own business later on.  She is interested in starting either an internet shop or a supermarket. 

            At JWOC, she helps with the Microfinance project, where loans of $100 re given to villagers who have a good idea for a business but lack the access to credit that would allow them to start it on their own.  Usually, Keang aids in collecting loan payments.  She also helps villagers to improve their business plans.  She likes Siem Reap because the tourism industry has allowed people here to have a chance to start their own successful businesses. 

            Keang sees the lack of good roads as Cambodia’s biggest problem.  If she could change one thing, she would improve the country’s roads, particularly the ones leading to the border with Thailand.  She also believes it is important to build schools for the poorer provinces.