High School – so what’s next?

With the success of the sharing event held at the Chanleas Dai Junior High School in 2012, PEPY decided to host a larger event at the Kralanh High School in Kralanh District, Siem Reap on Sun 10th of March 2013.
After talking to the grade 9 and 12 students, the PEPY team realized that most students didn’t know what opportunities were available to them once they completed high school or what steps they needed to follow in order to achieve their dreams.
As a result, the team decided to host the pilot event to motivate the students to stay in school and to give them the opportunity to hear from successful Khmer individuals whom they could relate to and with whom they would be comfortable asking questions about their future. Four speakers were invited to share their life experiences at this event where they covered various topics such as; The steps you need to follow in order to become a medical professional, Dreams: Why is it important to dream, Preparing for the future and Problem Solving.
Sor Srurn, is a facilitator for the NGO ROCK (Rainbow Community Kampuchea) and is a consultant for UNAID. Sor kicked off the event by informing the students on how to solve problems in their lives. He used the famous Ishikawa diagram (also known as fishbone diagram or cause-and-effect diagram) to elucidate his point.
Limdy Pao, is a second year nursing student and a resident of Kralanh and advised the students on the steps they need to follow in order to become a medical professional in Cambodia and also the challenges they would face along the way.
Saryroth Chan, didn’t finish high school but rose through the ranks to become the general manager of Angkor Group of Restaurants and is currently the owner of the Selantor restaurant. She was the ideal person to talk to the students about the importance of having dreams and what you have to do in order to achieve them.
Piseth Has is a project manager at CEDF-Opportunity Cambodia and an English instructor at Pannasastra University of Cambodia, Siem Reap and he talked to the students about being prepared and how to make the right decisions in life.
After each speaker had finished their presentation there was a small Q & A session where the students were encouraged to interact with the speakers. The students loved the event and they wanted to have such an event once every two months. They also felt that the event would be more useful to them if it were more interactive and if they were divided into smaller groups to have a more informal discussion with the speakers.
PEPY’s Lida Loem who helped organize this event had this to say “The event was a success because we were expecting 150 students to turn up but we ended up with 245 students. The students were thrilled because they never had an event like this in the past and we also had a lot of support from the school principal.”