From student to staff – Savoeng

 

We recently shared with you news of scholarship student, Channa, becoming PEPY Empowering Youth’s Scholarship Officer. Fellow third year scholarship student, Savoeng, has also recently joined the PEPY staff team as our Dream Project Officer. Savoeng joined the PEPY scholarship program as a student in 2013, and is studying for a degree in Human Resource Management at Build Bright University.
In his role as Dream Project Officer, Savoeng is responsible for running PEPY Empowering Youth’s Dream Project at Kralanh High School. As such, he required to conduct activity plans, detailed reports, as well as organizing skills fairs and sharing events for the students from outside speakers. His new role and its responsibilities have been a big adjustment for Savoeng, ‘I think the most challenging aspect of the role is that everything is new to me, so at first it was a challenge to work independently’. However, Savoeng has settled into the role well and having the freedom to develop lesson plans for the classes is one of Savoeng’s favourite aspects; he enjoys working closely with the students and feels grateful to be involved in helping them to develop and pursue their dreams. The Dream Classes are designed as a forum through which the students can identify and explore their ambitions and dreams for the future. Savoeng says the role has offered the opportunity for him to utilize ‘some of the skills from the Learning Center, such as MS Word, Excel, Social Media, Internet and leadership, management and time management skills from Youth Empowerment’. He is hoping that in addition to using and building upon these skills, he will develop greater proposal writing and project management skills.
Having the experience as a PEPY Empowering Youth scholarship student means that Savoeng is in a great position to understand the students concerns and queries and he can mould the Dream Classes as such to address them. Savoeng’s experience as scholarship student is not only important in helping him to fulfil his role successfully, but his transition to a staff member is a respresentation of PEPY Empowering Youth’s vision, mission and goal under which young people from Kralanh are empowered to pursue careers and dreams to improve the quality of their lives, and those in their community.
Savoeng says of his employment, ‘after being a student at PEPY Empowering Youth, becoming a member of staff makes me feel very excited, because I always imagined myself working with, and for, PEPY in order to help my community’. Savoeng is a great inspiration to his peers and community, and his success provides a great source of encouragement for others to work hard and pursue their dreams. It is wonderful to see students, such as Savoeng, who have been exposed to PEPY opportunities, come full circle and support their communities through their jobs. We are proud of all that Savoeng has achieved till date, and have no doubt that his success will continue in the future. Everyone at PEPY Empowering Youth is delighted to have welcomed him to the staff team!