Happy International Women's Day: Meet Keo Savon

Happy International Women’s Day!  It is a major day of global celebration of women. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women’s economic, political and social achievements.
Tom Watson has written about a remarkable woman in Cambodia,  Mu Sochu.   My tribute is to a Cambodian woman leader of the future.   I’d like to  introduce you to Keo Savon, an orphan from Cambodia from the same orphanage as our daughter.  My family is sponsoring her college education through the work of the Sharing Foundation.

Long time readers of this blog will remember Leng Sopharath who I sponsored for college with early experiments in fundraising on Twitter and creating case studies of social fundraising.    Through the Sharing Foundation’s college sponsorship program and our support, Leng was able to go the University to study accounting.  Her education was interrupted by a serious medical problem, but she recovered.  She graduated this year.
Keo Savon has grown up in the Kampong Speu Orphanage where my daughter spent the first year of her life.   Keo Savon graduated from the local high school, steadily holding #3 and #5 in her class of 65 students.    She will study chemistry, math, physics, biology, and Khmer literature at the University where she hopes to major in architecture.
Education is the path out of poverty in Cambodia.    To sponsor a college student through the Sharing Foundation is $1,000.   But it is more than the money, sponsors and students also write letters to one another for support.    If you’d like to help me send this young woman college, please consider a small gift to the Sharing Foundation in honor for Women’s Day.
Other International Women’s Day coverage:  The Guardian asked women leaders to share their life experiences and The Daily Beast and Newsweek marked the day with a list of 150 remarkable women around the world.   On International Women’s Day, Egyptian women contemplate being overlooked in the formation of a post-Mubarak