by Vannak Lach
PEPY recently got a small grant from the NGO Education Partnership (NEP) to conduct research on how the rights of children can be promoted at schools in Cambodia. The NEP is working with the Right to Education Project and Action Aid on the Promoting Rights in Schools (PRS) initiative. Part of this initiative is a list of 10 Child Rights, which were inspired by international human rights treaties.
The research partnership with the NEP aims to figure out if the 10 Child Rights are being implemented in schools, how they are implemented, and how we can help promote these rights in school more effectively in the future. Twelve education-based NGOs from various provinces around Cambodia were chosen to participate in this project facilitated by the NEP. Each NGO was asked to implement this project at 5 randomly selected partner schools.
What are those 10 rights?
Before implementing this project, NEP provided a training workshop on the rights of children, how they can be implemented, and how to do a survey to collect information about promoting these rights at school. The Child Rights outlined in the Promoting Rights in Schools training are:
PEPY staff who attended the training include Sarrak Rith (Supplemental Program Manager), Em An (Education Program Officer), and Saly Hem (Community Development Officer). Mr. Hem explains, “It is really useful for me as I am working with children. I know very little about PRS before. But now I can explain you more about these rights.”
Why are we participating in this project?
PEPY is pleased to be working with NEP, an organization that shares a similar vision and mission with us. Senior Program Manager Samal Khath explains: “working with NEP is also a chance for us to connect with other NGOs all over Cambodia who are working on education issues to share our experiences, successes, and lessons learned.”
Now three of our staff are in the process of collecting information to assess how much these 10 rights have been promoted at PEPY’s partner schools so far. After collecting the information, they will send the information to NEP for further analysis to determine next steps to promote Child Rights .