Meas Sreipech is a twenty year old scholarship student of the non-profit organization Journey’s Within.  She currently attends Build Bright University (BBU) and is originally from the Kralgn District of Cambodia, which remains an extremely poor suburban area just outside of Siem Reap.  Sreipech is a freshman at BBU and majors in Financial Banking. 

               After reaching the eighth grade, Sreipech moved to Siem Reap with her siblings in order to learn English and pursue better opportunities.  Her oldest sibling is her sister, who is twenty-five years old and works at Apsala Authority (an agricultural agency responsible for dispensing insecticides).  Her older brother is twenty-three years old and is currently a junior at BBU.  Her younger sister is thirteen years old and is in the seventh grade.  Sreipech’s parents currently sell chicken hen bags on the streets of Siem Reap in order to make money and support their family.  Her parents did not move to Siem Reap until Sreipech was in the eleventh grade.  Shortly after Sreipech and her siblings moved to Siem Reap, their mother became sick and could not provide any financial assistance.  They lived in Siem Reap independently, made extreme cutbacks, and took care of each other.  Although Sreipech valued education, she could not afford to take extra classes such as math, physics, or science.

            As a scholarship student of Journey’s Within, Sreipech works with the microeconomics loan project.  This project provides $100 loans at 2% interest to extremely poor villagers that either have a business or establish a legitimate business idea.  The average interest rates for a loan of this amount in Cambodia range between 150% and 200%.  Sreipech volunteered for this project because of its relevance to her major and the satisfaction of witnessing poor villagers improve financially.

            Sreipech’s favorite parts about Siem Reap are the greater job and language opportunities compared to the countryside.  She strives to help develop the community financially as a means to reduce poverty.  One of Sreipech’s long-term goals is to reform the Cambodian public school system so that everyone receives a basic level of quality education regardless of financial status.  When Sreipech graduates, she plans to find a job with a bank in order to gain experience. Eventually, she wants to open her own supermarket.