Reflections from Our First Staff Retreat in Four Years!
October 2, 2023
How to Celebrate Cambodia’s Water Festival Bon Oum Touk!
November 21, 2023
As we approach the end of 2023, we were thrilled to learn that we will be reaching a key milestone in our mission to support young people in our community. Through the generous support of our donors and stakeholders – especially iHerb Charitable Foundation, Phoenix Foundation, and DPETNS – we ar honored to share that, this fall, we are poised to surpass 300 scholars since initiating the Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) Program in 2012.
In recognition of this achievement, we wanted to reflect on the impact of the program so far and share our hopes for the program going forward.
What is the Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) Program?
When PEPY initiated the SHE Program over ten years ago, there were few to no options for rural Cambodian youth to access higher education. In our Dream Management Program, our officers work in rural and remote high schools, encouraging young people to stay in school and identify pathways to higher education and vocational training. It quickly became clear that the majority of scholarship programs did not provide enough financial or holistic support for rural and disadvantaged youth. Most traditional scholarships from institutions and nonprofits only offer to cover tuition and some training. We quickly realized that we needed to offer a comprehensive scholarship that would ensure that a dedicated student, no matter their financial background, would be able to successfully attend university or a vocational school in Siem Reap City.
With that in mind, we developed a scholarship that covers housing, health care, mental health care, tuition, transportation, living allowance, and additional school fees. We also worked to bridge the technical and social disadvantages that rural youth would face moving into the city by providing first-year scholars with vocational and soft skills development in our Learning Center.
During the first year, our scholarship officers guide the students in identifying the school or training center that best meets their needs while the Learning Center team capacitates the scholars to be confident project leaders and changemakers prepared to excel in the career field of their choice. Through our work, historically (apart from the pandemic economic crises from mid-2020 to mid-2022) over 99% of our scholars have accessed employment within six months of graduating from the Learning Center.
Impact of the Scholarship for Higher Education Program
After over a decade of helping young people identify their passions and lead transformative community development projects, the program has helped hundreds of rural community members begin to recognize and acknowledge the importance of education. For example, in this past year alone, our scholars, working alongside our additional Learning Center students, have enacted library development, health and sanitation, and waste management projects in partnership with local community leadership. Through their work, they have reached multiple middle schools, elementary schools, and district centers inspiring thousands to address challenges they see in their community and to continue their studies so that they may one day lead a transformative project.
Learn more about our recent library projects by watching out video below:
Furthermore, our scholars and alumni support the efforts of our dream officers by attending and speaking at high school events about how higher education and accessing a skilled career has changed their lives. One speaking event can motivate hundreds of students to prioritize their studies.
Lastly, the scholars and alumni we select have gone on to become crucial role models and success stories in their communities. Most of our PEPY scholars are the FIRST people in their households and villages to move on to higher education. In their village, they are pioneers and serve as a living success story for others to strive for and follow. Beyond securing sustainable employment, several of our alumni have even opted to return to their communities or serve in other underdeveloped regions as nonprofit leaders, educators, and even politicians! All our alumni remind community members that a better future is possible for rural youth outside of illegal labor, subsistence farming, and child marriage.
Now, many of our target areas have reduced dropout rates in high schools, reduced instances of child marriage, and increased health and education resources.
Our Plans for the Future
Going forward, we hope to strengthen and better support the PEPY scholarship community as many external and global forces continue to affect our scholar and alumni’s well-being and ability to study. Since nearly all of our scholars are from agrarian communities, their families face the brunt of global warming – and the health of their crops and live stocks have been greatly impacted. This results in increased financial strains for our scholars’ families. Convincing them to invest in their child’s education as opposed to sending them to work immediately or having them at home to help the family becomes increasingly difficult each year. Also, although the local economy has begun to rebound from the pandemic, we endured nearly three years of widespread unemployment – affecting families’ confidence in higher education and skilled employment. We are still doing considerable damage control and our scholars, alumni, and team are working hard to connect with communities to help people understand that despite periods of unemployment, a young person with an education would still be better off in the long term.
Beyond the global factors, young people in our programs face many personal and even medical challenges that can affect their grades and attendance. In recent years, our team has put significant emphasis on mental health care, increased dental services, and community building to help all scholars through whatever crises or challenges they have been contending with. Our efforts include launching social clubs, sport tournaments, a tutoring program, a mentorship program, and increased instances of employer visits.
Over the next few years, our team is focusing on building networks to develop sustained internship and career pipeline programs with several fantastic companies and organizations that align with our values in our region and in Phnom Penh. We are also working closely with our Alumni Association to better align our efforts to engage scholars and alumni and identify how we can work together to bolster the resources of our SHE Program so that it can evolve to meet the current needs of young people.
Closing Thoughts
In reflection, we are in awe of what our scholars and team have accomplished through the SHE Program. We would love to sincerely thank every donor, stakeholder, and community member who helped make us shape and develop a program that has enabled hundreds of young people to reach their potential and follow their dreams.
Every dollar that we are able to raise helps us shape a new future leader. In celebration of our community reaching 300 scholars, we would greatly appreciate a donation today that can help us continue our scholarship program and to support a future PEPY scholar!
