Past PEPY rider Véronique Smith was recently featured in Corporate Communications' Employee Spotlight. Based in San Diego, Véronique joined PEPY on February's Southern Cambodia Cycling Trip, on which she braved 400 km of dusty roads on the way to an entirely new perspective on life. One bike trip with well-traveled Véronique is enough for us to agree that "staying still has never been in Véronique's nature" - we wish her the best and congratulations on a well-deserved acknowledgment!

This piece was originally published in the April 24, 2008 edition of Corporate Communications.

Employee Spotlight: Véronique Smith
by Evan Reineking, Writer, Corporate Communications

Weaving through the streets of Phnom Penh on the back of a speeding motorcycle, Véronique Smith immediately knew she was a going to have the experience of a lifetime. That was an understatement. Before she knew it, the San Diego-based recruiting consultant was cycling down Cambodia's red dirt roads, immersed in the rich countryside of an amazingly exotic, interesting and challenging new land.

But Véronique did not come all this way to sightsee. She and a team of cyclists from Protect the Earth, Protect Yourself (PEPY) embarked on a 400-kilometer journey through Cambodia's rural villages to promote recycling and environmental care. PEPY's adventure tourism combines fun events with activities that make a difference to the country's remote communities.

By Maryann Bylander

If you've crossed paths with a newspaper in the past 2 weeks, you've probably seen that headlines around the world are talking about the price of rice and the rising cost of food globally. I'm not going to spend time talking about the ins and outs of why prices are going up (for more on this, stay tuned to our upcoming PEPY newsletter). Instead, I'd like to talk about the realities in Chanleas Dai, and our recent meeting with the World Food Program here in Phnom Penh.

The rising price of rice is very real, with effects that we are only beginning to see in communities across Cambodia. Over the course of the past several months, the price of rice has increased from 250 US dollars/metric ton to 650-700 US dollars/metric ton. This is a HUGE increase that is having repercussions from the wealthiest to the poorest of families. Daniela, Aline and I met with the World Food Programe this afternoon. We originally contacted them because our school in Chanleas Dai was once a part of their School Feeding Program, which we noticed had stopped there this year. Though students at some of the other schools nearby were still getting daily breakfast of rice, iodized salt, vitamin fortified oil and vegetables, our students were not. Last year it wouldn't have been such a big a problem, but this year, with drought, the school pond drying up for the first time ever, and families needing to buy rice who had always been able to provide enough for themselves in the past, it seemed the program was stopping just when people really needed it. We learned that based an assessment of the PEPY Ride School, the WFP to took them off their "most needy" list and abolished the school feeding program there. This was particularly troublesome to us. Based on rising educational indicators (building quality, attendance, teaching, retention), the students were no longer getting fed---something we think they need as much as (really, more than) an education.

We questioned our programs--- were we actually hurting these students and their families because our presence there made the WFP move? While we were increasing attendance and retention rates (and hopefully along with it, education) we were doing nothing to help feed kids -- still a HUGE problem in our communities. If WFP left because we were "doing good," weren't we actually harming the well-being of those students?

Earlier this year PEPY III Rider, Human Resources expert and all-around PEPY superstar Simone Aloe guided our staff through an appraisal of PEPY's strengths, needs, and opportunities to grow. One of the products of our brainstorming was a set of PEPY Powers - or core competencies - that we seek in anyone who decides to join us in Cambodia. (Click "read more" to see what we came up with!)

Intrigued? Visit our opportunities page to learn more about joining the PEPY team!