A 55 year old trader in the Tieng Giang province, Vietnam, Phan Thi Kim Hoa, has decided to be back in school to get a law degree and help the poor people get justice. The lady who many called "lawyer" is a seller of banana and duck eggs, but she takes more time reading than selling in the market.
The woman had decided to study law after her brother was beaten to death and the attackers were not given due punishment for their crime. Hoa said the poor people in the rural areas lose legal cases unjustly because of their lack of knowledge of the law, and she earned the law degree to help them.
Hoa helped her parents in Tieng Giang,in their paddy field after she dropped out of school. But she had always wanted to be a lawyer after she was inspired by a lawyer act in folk opera.
Due to her dropping school, Hoa had slowly killed her lawyer's dream until her brother was assaulted in 2007, she heard the people responsible for the attack left with just a slap on the wrist.
In 2010, Hoa heard a good news that the province Education Center had teamed up with Can tho university to offer a Bachelor Degree in law, she signed up immediately for the program.
Hoa would leave her trade for class and ask neighbours to look after her trade, she also revealed her husband believes she doesn't need the degree as it is only something government employee use to get a raise at their workplace, he advised her to be like other women and go to the kitchen, because she won't be able to use it anyways.
The husband will later praise her so much for her courage in bringing home the degree, though Hoa is faced with the challenges of paying back the tuition and exam fee for the programme, as she had collected $1,000 from a friend and needs to pay the money back.
The money might be difficult to pay back as she is only using her degree to help poor people and not profit.