【814-815】柬埔寨与泰国边境地区学生辍学率较高&传统的巴勒斯坦服饰成为政治抗议的手段
AS IT IS
Higher Student Dropout Rates Along Cambodia's Border with Thailand
February 19, 2019
ILE - Education Minister Hangchuon Naron checks exam sheet during high school national exam at Sisowath Highschool on Mondya , August 22, 2016. ( Leng Len/VOA Khmer)
A Cambodian official reported last week that about 23 percent of children in three provinces along the border with Thailand have stopped attending school.
Cambodian Education Minister Hangchuon Naron spoke at a conference about the student dropout rate. He said that the rate in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey and Oddor Meanchey provinces was much higher than in other areas, where rates are 18 to 19 percent.
The education minister blamed poverty and parents who move to Thailand for work as the main reasons for the problem.
Cambodia’s education ministry has begun training teachers to advise students to stay in school, while letting them choose their own study subjects. Teachers are also to advise students whose parents work overseas about the importance of education.
Hangchuon Naron said, “So if teachers advise the students [to stay in school] that will help them to make the right decision. They could explain to those students that they need to pursue their studies successfully and then find local jobs [afterward] as well.”
But critics have expressed concern about the education ministry’s plan.
Ouk Chay Vy is president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association. She said the plan fails to deal with the issues that cause students to drop out of school.
She says those reasons are poverty resulting from unemployment and a lack of land for farming. She noted that, in Cambodia, many students stop going to school because they need to work to support their families.
Ouk Chay Vy said a better plan would be for the government to try to increase the number of jobs so that citizens could have better living conditions.
“If the government could give them help, it would still not be enough,” she added.
Suon Sinuon is a farmer from Banteay Meanchey. She said that three of her children dropped out of school while they were in the sixth and ninth grades. They went to Thailand to work and help support the family.
She said that the children did not want to stop going to school, but had no other choice because of the family’s needs. She added, “Others who have enough money don’t let their children migrate, but me, I am so poor that I had to let them go work in Thailand.”
Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor reports that more than one million Cambodians are working in Thailand. The education minister said that most of them come from the provinces along the Thai border.
I’m Jonathan Evans.
Radio Free Asia reported this story. Jonathan Evans adapted the report for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
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Words in This Story
province – n. any one of the large parts that some countries are divided into
migrate – v. to move from one country or place to live or work in another
pursue – v. to follow and try to catch or capture someone or something for usually a long distance or time
AS IT IS
Traditional Palestinian Dress Becomes Means of Political Protest
February 19, 2019
In this Monday, January 28, 2019 photo, Samiha Jeheshat, displays a handmade embroidered Palestinian thobe at her showroom in the West Bank village of Idna, north of Hebron.
A traditional dress worn by Palestinian women was not the kind of clothing one would expect to become a sign of political expression.
The brightly colored, embroidered woman’s dress is known as a “thobe,” notes the Associated Press.
Now the thobe is gaining popularity as a softer means of identifying with the fight for the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is even competing with the keffiyeh – the head covering worn by Palestinian men protesting Israel’s occupation of land they call their home.
The thobe is covered with complex, colorful embroidery, all put together by hand. It requires months of hard work to make. Some thobes have been sold to buyers for thousands of dollars.
The use of traditional cloth is a celebration of simpler times, when poor Palestinian women would make thobes while resting from a hard day’s work in the fields.
Rashida Tlaib is the first female Palestinian American member of the United States Congress. Last month she wore her mother’s thobe at her official swearing-in ceremony.
The move has led women around the world, especially in Palestinian territories, to publish pictures of themselves in traditional dress on the Twitter social networking service.
Rachel Dedman organized a recent exhibit at the Palestinian Museum in the town of Birzeit in the West Bank. The show centered on the changes to Palestinian embroidery throughout history. Dedman told the Associated Press the thobe is such a powerful sign of political expression because it is more directly linked to culture and history, not politics.
“The historic thobe conjures an ideal of pure and untouched Palestine, before the occupation,” she said.
The Palestinian thobe’s history dates back to the early 19th century, when embroidered goods were made mainly in villages.
Beautifully designed dresses marked major events in women’s lives: the beginning of puberty, marriage, motherhood.
Maha Saca is the director of the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem. She says the designs were different from one village to the next. In Bethlehem, for example, wealthier women sought special three-dimensional embroidery. Bedouin women, who would spend their lives in travelling communities, made their thobes with large pockets for carrying things. Women from Jaffa, a city famous for its fruit trees, wore orange tree designs.
Thobe designs also expressed women’s different social positions: red was the color for women about to be married, while blue was for women whose husbands had died. Blue with multi-colored embroidery was for women who were thinking about getting re-married after their husband’s death.
Arab women across the Middle East have worn hand-made dresses for hundreds of years. But the thobe has taken on a Palestinian quality, especially since the establishment of Israel in 1948. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either fled or were expelled from their homes during the war that led to Israel’s creation. Many took only their dresses with them, Saca added.
The war, which Palestinians call their “nakba,” or catastrophe, changed the thobe. Suddenly, making the dresses was seen as a way of protecting Palestinian culture, said Dedman.
Over years of fighting, Palestinian nationalism has taken on many forms. In the early days of Israel’s establishment, nationalism was linked with calls for Israel’s destruction and deadly attacks. Armed struggle later gave way to calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Israeli forces captured those areas in 1967.
Peace talks have been halted by periods of violence and, for the past 10 years, a suspension of negotiations.
Today, the internationally recognized autonomy government of the Palestinian Authority controls parts of the West Bank. It continues to seek a two-state solution with Israel. But the militant group Hamas, which seized Gaza in 2007, is still calling for Israel’s destruction. Many Palestinians, especially the younger generation, now talk of a single joined state with Israel in which they could enjoy full equal rights.
Along the way, the thobe has grown in popularity and changed.
During the first major Palestinian attempt to break free from Israel in the 1980s, guns and flowers were often part of thobe designs. Now, Palestinian women of all social classes wear thobes to show support for an independent nation at special events.
“It’s a way of defending our national identity,” Saca said.
The care, hard work and skill that go into making a thobe prevent it from becoming everyday clothing. But less costly, mass-produced versions of the dress have become popular.
Younger Palestinians, especially those spread far from their homeland, are changing the traditional dresses to modern tastes. Girls are asking for shorter and less embroidered versions, notes Rajaa Ghazawneh, a thobe designer in the West Bank.
Rashida Tlaib said her Palestinian thobe brought back memories of her mother’s West Bank village. The U.S congresswoman called her choice to wear the dress a demonstration of her love for the Palestinian people.
It has since increased interest in the dress worldwide.
I’m Dorothy Gundy.
And I’m Pete Musto.
Isabel Debre reported this story for the Associated Press. Pete Musto adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
We want to hear from you. What traditional clothing is very important to your nation’s identity? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.
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Words in This Story
dress – n. a piece of clothing for a woman or a girl that has a top part that covers the upper body and a skirt that hangs down to cover the legs
embroidered – adj. covered in special designs made using a small, very thin object that is used in sewing and that has a sharp point at one end and a hole for a long, thin piece of cotton, silk or other material
exhibit – n. an object or a collection of objects that have been put out in a public space for people to look at
conjure(s) – n. to make you think of something
puberty – n. the period of life when a person's sexual organs mature and he or she becomes able to have children
three-dimensional – adj. having or seeming to have length, width, and depth
pocket(s) – n. a usually small cloth bag that is connected to a piece of clothing that is open at the top or side so that you can put things into it
catastrophe – n. a terrible disaster
nationalism – n. a desire by a large group of people, such as people who share the same culture, history or language, to form a separate and independent nation of their own
autonomy – n. the power or right of a country or group to govern itself