Support the futures of 3,000+ Youth in Cambodia

Hello PEPY friends and community,

We hope you are doing well and having a wonderful week so far! First and foremost, thank you so much for your continued support and dedication to Siem Reap youth. Your generosity enables us to run our projects and initiatives that give youth the opportunity to realize their potential, and this last quarter was certainly no exception! We are very excited to share some updates from our team and students with you!

General PEPY Updates:

• Last month, 10 PEPY team members participated in PEPY’s first Tour Guide Certification Workshop led by our Partnerships and Development Manager. All trainees got the opportunity to learn our tour standards and guidelines, and practice giving a tour of PEPY to enhance their confidence and public speaking skills. Going forward, all staff members who are Tour Guide certified will take turns leading school and visitor tours.
• We welcomed Van Leat, our new Incubator Officer. We are very pleased to bring an officer on board with a wealth of experience in participating in and supporting an incubator prior to joining PEPY. 

Dream Management Project:  Sen Sok High School conducted its first-ever Sharing Event with 300 participants! Kralanh High School also held a Sharing Event this quarter with 400 participants. A Sharing Event is where key speakers and leaders come to our partner high schools to share inspiring stories and lessons learned through adversity. They help youth identify role models in Cambodia that encourage them to stay in school and pursue their dreams. 

Scholarship Project:  We held our first Scholarship Graduation Recognition Ceremony for all 113 former scholarship students who successfully graduated from their chosen university or vocational institution. Pha Phon, a 2017 scholarship student and event speaker highlighted the importance of this event, sharing, “I am the only person in my family and one of the very few in my community to have the opportunity to continue higher education, so the scholarship means a lot to me. I can become the person I am today because of PEPY, and without PEPY, I would probably migrate to work in Thailand or somewhere else to earn money just like my siblings.”

In addition, 91% of eligible scholars have found employment! 

Learning Center Program: The Learning Center team had some exciting developments this quarter with the return of our Cambodia Ireland Exchange Program! The Learning Center Program Manager, Channa, traveled to Ireland for 3 weeks with two former students and PEPY’s Dream Officer, Mara. While in Ireland, they visited schools and organizations to share Cambodia’s culture with the Irish community as well as share updates about PEPY and our work. This is the first exchange since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreaks so everyone was thrilled that we were able to finally make it happen! We are looking forward to Irish teachers coming to Siem Reap in July for conclude the 2022 exchange and share their culture and lessons with our Learning Center students. 

Youth Innovators' Space and Incubator (YISI) Program:  Since adding the additional online course and short-term professionals’ course, the YISI Program has expanded quickly with 39 regular participants! In addition to the courses, the YISI events are becoming more popular and well known in the community. On March 26th, 2022, the team conducted the first We Business Talk in 2022 on the topic of “Role Model Leaders in Business’’ by Mr. Ieng Sotheara. Mr. Sotheara is a very successful businessman and is the founder of several local businesses. He offered advice, experiences, and recommendations in starting and operating a business to the 56 participants. The event was so well received it was extended for an additional hour so the participants could continue asking him questions. We look forward to providing another successful We Business Talk soon!

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We hope you enjoyed reading some quick updates from our team and youth! None of these activities/achievements would have been possible without you, so, again, thank you so much! 

If you would like to know more about our projects or have some questions after reading this update, feel free to reach out to us anytime!

Sincerely,

Kathryn McDaniel | Partnerships and Development Manager 

kathryn@pepyempoweringyouth.org

Hello PEPY friends and community, 

Cambodia has officially reopened and our PEPY scholars and team are breathing a sigh of relief to see youth returning to schools and tourism reinvigorating the Siem Reap community. Now that the town is more lively, scholars are finding work opportunities in schools and in local businesses and our unemployment rate has shrunk to just 11%! In the coming months, we predict that our scholars will achieve an employment rate above 90%, the highest it has been since the first COVID outbreaks. 

As we begin to feel more optimistic in 2022, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting our scholars and our team, in a time when crises after crises were and continue to impact communities around the world. Without you, our scholars would have had to drop out of school and move back into their hometowns, as they would have been unable to afford their living expenses, while their family members were facing food insecurity. By funding PEPY and our Scholarship for Higher Education project, students and their families were provided food and extra support, enabling our scholars to continue their studies and their job searches within the city. If the scholars were forced to give up on their dreams and drop out, they would likely be doing construction work or farming to try to help their families and very few of them would have returned to school. Thank you, for helping us end the cycle of poverty in our communities! 

Quick Updates: 

• LinkedIn Training: In February, the PEPY Communications Team provided an introductory workshop on LinkedIn to help our team become more engaged with job networking, career research, and lectures/career-building events. Our goal by the end of the session was for all PEPY team members to have a polished LinkedIn page that they use as a tool to help our students, support other NGOs, and develop themselves. We are pleased to have the entire team join and our Communications Team will be following up by providing one on one sessions for every staff member. Find us and friend us next time you are on LinkedIn! 
• Team4Tech 2nd Round: We are so thrilled to receive another $15,000 from Team4Tech to support our team and participants' IT training needs. We plan to use the funds to give our team members better quality computers, to cover workshops and courses for our staff, purchase more computers for our IT library, and put some money toward our Public Community Lab and Coworking Space in the YISI office. 
• New Volunteers: 8 Learning Center graduates received SE Asia Foundation scholarships this quarter! This fund will cover their studies and the purchase of a computer for them to perform well in school. We are so proud of them for their hard work and determination to complete their higher education degrees. As SE Asia Foundation scholars, they must complete 2000 hours of community service with their sponsoring organization (which would be PEPY in this case). Right now, the scholars are divided into different departments including Operations and HR, Admin, Learning Center Program, and YISI Program. We think it is wonderful that they will be able to intern with us and increase their professional skills. We thank SE Asia Foundation for providing us and our Learning Center graduates with this incredible opportunity!

If you want to follow the activities and updates from PEPY more closely, we would encourage you to sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter! We also have quarterly reports for each program that we would be happy to send you that you can request by emailing us.

Sincerely,

Kathryn, PEPY's Partnerships and Development Manager | kathryn@pepyempoweringyouth.org

Links:

• Welcoming our 8 New Volunteers
• Learning Center Classes back in Action!
• Dream Class Enrollment and Highlights