FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles Series
Distinguished Guest: Farina So, Principal Deputy Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) and author of “The Hijab of Cambodia: Memories of Cham Muslim Women after the Khmer Rouge
Host: Maung Zarni, FORSEA and DC-Cam
Watch LIVE: MONDAY 3rd OCTOBER
4pm Phnom Penh, Bangkok and Jakarta | 3:30 pm Yangon | 3pm Dhaka | 10am London | 11am Srebrenicia
L I V E
Speaker Bio:
Farina So is currently the Principal Deputy Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), responsible for overall management, evaluation, and fundraising for DC-Cam. In addition to monitoring DC-Cam’s overall projects, she is currently leading two main projects: 1) Advancing the Rights and Improving the Health Conditions for Khmer Rouge survivors and 2) Atrocity Crimes Prevention through Education in Southeast Asia. The first project which is supported by USAID is aimed at recording the oral histories of Khmer Rouge survivors and improving their health conditions. In collaboration with the United Nations, Office of Genocide Prevention and Responsibility to Protect, the second project enhances the capacity of ASEAN teachers, mainly from three countries (Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia) in atrocity crimes curriculum development and integration in their teaching.
Farina joined DC-Cam in 2003, progressing from volunteer to staff writer for the Center’s Searching for the Truth magazine, to team leader of the Cham Oral History project, which records the experience of the Cham Muslim community under the Khmer Rouge and ways of dealing with the genocide and engaged the community with the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)’s proceedings. In 2011, Farina published her first monograph,titled, The Hijab of Cambodia: Memories of Cham Muslim Women after the Khmer Rouge,which discusses different accounts of women’s experiences of mass atrocity and their coping strategies. Farina has published articles and chapters related to human rights, gender, and Islam, and has delivered presentations to local and international audiences on a wide range of topics from genocide, oral history and education, to gender-based violence. She has also appeared in both local and international news related to the above topics and recently in UN news on “Champions of Prevention” Photo Exhibition. Farina holds a Master’s Degree in Southeast Asian Studies and is currently pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Global Studies.
FORSEA
Farina So (in red shirt with a headscarf), with her support team and a small group of Survivors in Takeo, Cambodia
