Dream Management Project First Quarterly Updates

Having dreams are very important to us at PEPY Empowering Youth. Many of the students we work with are only exposed to a small range of possible future. We believe it is important for young people to dream big and see how they can make their dreams a reality.
PEPY’s Dream Management Project established in 2012 in Kralanh District to help students pursuing their dreams, building confidence, accessing to information needed and increasing the percentage of students continue for higher education.
With the great support from Child’s Dream Organization for 2017-2018 academic year, Dream Management Project is able to expand its target to 28 January High School in Srei Snam District which is around 100 Km from Siem Reap Province. Our former scholarship graduate, Be Dena, is in charge of the project there.
At the beginning of the year, PEPY signed a collaboration agreement with the Directors of both schools, Kralanh and 28 January high schools which clearly outlined what Dream Management activities will be implement at each school.
Srei Snam District is a new target area, so on the 1st of November 2017, the first day of new academic year, PEPY team took the chance to introduce ourselves to more than 700 students, teachers, DoEYS, local authorities, schools support committee and to also launch Dream Project on that day. We urged for good collaboration and let them know that PEPY is open to feedback in order to improve our program.
It has been three months since we started running the project in the new school. There are 307 students registered to study Dream Classes in Kralanh and 129 students registered in 28 January High School. More than 80 percent of the students is female and the average attendance is 78 percent. During this period, 26 topics were provided to different classes base on their grade syllabus. Four speakers were invited to share their experience related to life and careers with the students. The students also get opportunity to ask questions related to their dreams and the speakers’ lives.
One of the noticeable impact that Dream Classes have was an increase in number of students joining the project. They change their behavior by turning their focus on studying, instead of wasting their time on unimportant things. Dream Classes also allow the students to build good relationship, look out for each other and boosting their self-esteem.
At the same time, we also face challenges with students attendance as Dream Classes clashed with English Classes that PEPY piloted this year and their extra private classes. Some classes, there are more than 30 students which is very hard to manage. Dream officers also find it challenging to manage time and write report in English. The new target area, the school does not have a separate space to run our project. We currently shared room with students committee which is sometimes very loud to teach the students.
In the next quarter, we will organize a few events. The first Skills Fair event will be held in 28 January High School which different companies, schools, and organizations will be invited to display their works, services and different opportunities for the students. The second sharing event will also be held in the next few months where inspiring speakers share their stories with the students. Dream Classes will be run as usual.
We would not have achieved this much and this far without your support and guidance. Thank you for allowing us to move forward to make PEPY Empowering Youth an effective organization.