PEPY
Annual Report 2010
who we are
Chanleas Dai
(Cambodian context) PEPYis an educational development organization focusing on rural Cambodia.
We believe that education is the key to sustainable change. PEPY is committed to a holistic developmental approach that empowers children, parents, teachers, and communities to make the positive changes they want to see in their lives.
Chanleas Dai commune is a rural area in the district of Kralanh, about 65K outside of Siem Reap city.
PEPY works in 11 villages in Chanleas Dai commune.
There are 1700 families in these villages - approximately 10,000 people. Half of these individuals are under 18.
PEPY is registered as an international non-governmental organization in Cambodia and the USA (501(c) 3 number 20-4739485). We are based in Siem Reap province in northwestern Cambodia and our educational programs are in Chanleas Dai commune in the district of Kralanh, a rural area about 65km outside the city of the town of Siem Reap.
our Mission
Siem Reap
PEPY’s mission is to aid rural communities in improving their own standards of living, with a focus on increased access to quality education.
PEPY’s Values PEPY invests time and resources in people, because we believe that improving education, providing training, and stimulating ideas builds capacity for people to better solve their own problems.
Our development philosophy is based on a few key principles: Build capacity in people Partner with other organizations Share the lessons we have learned
Allow flexibility in our programs Work with local government
our reach For PEPY, “scaling” to reach the whole country is not our goal. That said, we do want our work to have nationwide and even global impact. Our system for reaching more people through our work is not to try to take this all on ourselves. Instead, we are working to create models, share our work and our lessons learned, and partner with other community-based projects that have the understanding and flexibility to learn from other models and tailor their offerings to local needs. We choose this approach because the solutions we have found to be most successful are the ones based most strongly in local knowledge, leadership, and collaboration. When trying to replicate a successful program, it is not always the solution which can be scaled, but rather the process. We believe that it is possible to have a more positive and widespread impact if we start with successful localized projects. Once we have created successful models, we can support others to spread their impact while keeping the programs tailored to local needs.
Population: 171,800
Percentage of the population living in rural areas: 93.3%
Percentage of the population living below the poverty line 36.6% (less than $0.45 per day)
Cambodia Population: 14,805,358 Expenditure on education: 1.6% (%GDP) Comparable to 5.95% and 7% in UK and US
Percentage of the population over 25 who completed primary school: 46%
Percentage of Cambodian children who continue from primary school to secondary school: 34% Percentage of literate, rural Cambodian women: 56.3%
what we do
(2010 overview)
2010 was a time of overall growth at PEPY, during which our work expanded, formalized, and improved across a range of areas. Even though we had already realized that “Schools don’t teach kids. People do,” the circumstances in 2009 gave us the opportunity to focus on school buildings in areas of Chanleas Dai where that was a real need. In 2010 we focused on our commitment to investing time in people over things. Our Child-toChild program expanded to offer leadership camps for over 294 students during the school break. Our school partnership program developed a new name and the “Saw Aw Saw” program was born. Our English and computer classes stopped being about English and computers and began to focus on fostering critical thinking and creative learning skills - and now this program even includes an Engineering Club. 2010 also saw perhaps the greatest improvement we have seen since we first started working in Chanleas Dai: students started their own organization called Volunteer for Community Development (VCD) and are taking the initiative to improve their communities. With nearly 50 staff on the PEPY team by the end of 2010, we recognized the importance of formalizing our structure to preserve our organizational culture and focus on a positive impact. As a result, we focused on building more structure and systems into PEPY’s work. We researched and restructured our salary scale, created a 360° review system, expanded our capacitybuilding support for staff, and formalized job roles.
PEPY Programs Our educational programs focus on four areas:
• Literacy
Khmer classes, literacy camps, and classroom and community libraries
• Partnering with schools
Sahakoom Apeewaht Sala (“Communities Developing Schools” or SAS
• Supplemental education
Creative Learning Class (CLC), English classes, Traveling Teacher Support program, Bike-to-School, Teacher Assistance Program
• Child-to-Child program
By investing in this new generation of educated Cambodians and connecting them with opportunities to continue to support the educational programs in their community, we believe we will continue to grow our impact on the quality of education available to young people in rural Cambodia. Read on to learn more about the programs PEPY focused on in 2010 and the lessons we have learned along the way.
Communities with literacy camps:
where we work
1
7
Creative Learning Class/XO laptops/Engineering Club (only junior high school):
communities 17
16 7 14
12 13
4
1
15
11 5
10
6 8 9
2
3
siem
reap
60k
m
1
Chanleas Dai
2
Run
3
Tram Kong
4
Preah Lean
5
Tahmeak
6
Khnar Joh
7
Prasat Knar
8
Kok Tnaut
9
Chuk Rath
10
Damreay Slap
11
Koukpouch
12
Rolom Svay
13
Kambor
14
Don Kais
15
Sam Rowng
16
Smach
17
Sela Romdoul
1 Primary schools working with PEPY’S SAS program: 1
2
7
Villages which support Bike-to-School (every primary school in the commune that has grade 6): 1
2
13
Schools with Traveling Teacher Support (only primary schools): 1
2
3
4
7
13
Schools with classroom libraries (8 primary schools): 1
2
3
4
6
16
17
Primary school with community library: 1 Communities with Child Clubs: 1
2
3
4
5
6
8
10
11
12
13
14
Supplementary junior high school level English classes: 1
how we’ve been evolving SAS has expanded from 2 to 3 partner schools. Literacy Camp has grown from over 45 teachers and 400 students
in 2009 to over 70 teachers and 600 students in 2010.
Volunteers for Community Development (VCD)
Students from Chanleas Dai who had been through PEPY’s programs formed their own organization, Volunteers for Community Development (VCD) and have been given office space by the Chanleas Dai commune chief. PEPY offered training opportunities to the VCD students in a number of ways, such as informally through a “Leadership for Literacy” program training 8th and 9th graders in Chanleas Dai Junior High School how to support Khmer literacy education of younger members of their community, and as a formal training opportunity alongside Chanleas Dai teachers at the 2010 Literacy Camp. The VCD students went on to create their own education programs in more than 20 locations in Chanleas Dai offering classes to more than 750 students 5 nights per week.
Child-to-Child provided a new summer program to 294 students, offering
32 days of life skills training to Child Club members, which focused on developing critical thinking, leadership, team building, and communication.
Bike-to-School shifted from giving bikes away to a scholarship program
and drop-out monitoring program based on need. In 2010 we provided bike scholarships to students who enrolled in grade 7, lived outside a certain radius of the junior high school, and had no transportation because their families could not support them. After home visits, the scholarship committee decided to award need-based scholarships to 33 students who each received a bike and signed a contract agreeing to exhibit good attendance, keep grades high, and stay in school.
The Teacher Assistance Program, in its fourth and final year,
adapted this year to incentivize Chanleas Dai Primary School teachers not only to be on-time to class, but also to improve the quality of their teaching. Each month, the Chanleas Dai principal and PEPY staff conduct in-classroom evaluations, awarding rice and cooking oil to top-performing teachers. The result has been improved quality of classroom instruction.
“Bike-to-School gained a new, more sustainable focus, shifting from giving bikes away to a scholarship program based on need.”
How we’ve been experimenting with new ideas in... our programs Engineering Club is one of the exciting new programs started at Chanleas Dai Junior High School. Students learned how to use LEGO’s innovative WeDo robots in our Creative Learning classes during a three-day workshop led by volunteers from National Instruments. Since that initial training, students engaged in a variety of engineering and computer science learning projects such as working with Google Sketch to get a feel for the basic laws of architecture, learned the basics of computer repair to keep their XO laptops in good working order, and experimented with building structures out of various materials.
in... the way we engage others in discussion We try to find new ways to produce the best content for our monthly newsletters (now with over 5,700 subscribers). Our goal this year was to fill this publication with more discussions about both our successes and lessons learned. By pushing for more transparency around failures and sharing lessons, we aim to influence other organizations to follow this trend. We have 2,597 Facebook fans and 1,098 Twitter followers with is a 47.6% increase and a 22.8% increase respectively from 2009 to 2010. We’ve actively used social media to generate discussion and feedback about PEPY programs and activities and have produced more of our own original videos to give supporters and partners a better view into our work.
in... the way we experience “learning” All of Chanleas Dai’s 9th grade students joined our team for a field trip and environmental lesson about the Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, which is an essential part of the livelihoods of many Cambodians. The Tonle Sap is often referred to as “the heartbeat of Cambodia,” and an estimated 8% of the country’s population relies directly on the lake for their livelihoods.
in... they way we share our resources We are constantly seeking to educate ourselves about issues that are important to us, such as social entrepreneurship, Cambodian current events, responsible travel, and sustainable development. This year we launched a new website, The PEPY Reader, where we post articles, videos, and other media that we are reading, watching, and discussing. It’s a great way to stay keyed into what’s being shared and talked about, in real time, here in Cambodia. (Plus, you can subscribe to the site if you want to get this information in your inbox!)
in... the way we raise awareness about the work that we’re doing The Power of 10 campaign focused on raising funds and awareness about the work that PEPY is doing by creating a global network of informed, engaged, and active citizens. It not only highlighted how far an individual’s money can go, but how far an individual’s impact can reach. Time frame: Oct 10 – Dec 20, 2010 Funds raised: $200,000 Global participation: 721 donors from 25 different countries
programs literacy Literacy initiatives increase students’ access to books, provide librarian training, work with administrators to integrate library time into the curriculum, and encourage teachers to incorporate more books into their classes.
Spotlight on Literacy Camp This year we held our third annual Literacy Camp and expanded the event from one to two locations. This year’s camp differed from 2009 in that it incorporated more strategies from the government curriculum for “Child Friendly Schools” (CFS), a strategy of Ministry of Education. Some of the CFS strategies incorporated at camp this year by the teacher trainers included:
Conserving money and resources by using found materials for lessons, such as seeds, rocks, and empty water bottles
Teaching educators at the primary level how to make and implement a lesson plan More techniques for how to add games into studies
Program components Khmer Literacy & Summer Literacy Camp:
PEPY works to promote Khmer literacy by creating libraries, providing librarian training, working with administrators to integrate library time into the curriculum, and encouraging teachers to incorporate more books into their classes. In 2008, PEPY held its inaugural literacy camp, bringing together teachers, students, and parents to participate in activities that promote reading in the community.
Classroom Libraries:
Working with local partners, PEPY has created libraries inside 50 classrooms that are stocked with Khmer early literacy reading material and children’s literature. Divided by grade levels, each library is supplemented with classroom activities that focus on early literacy and foster the enjoyment of reading at a young age. PEPY has also hired top-performing teachers to lead monthly trainings and monitor their peers at nearby schools to expand and promote best practices in literacy education.
PEPY Books:
PEPY Books are printed in response to the need for early reader material in Khmer. These books are designed to be reading tools for those learning to read the Khmer script with images and repetition for easy word recognition.
Parents demonstrated their support of the Literacy Camps by attending the graduation ceremony where more than 300 community members turned out to support the students. Parents described their children as more confident and inquisitive after attending the camp. Witnessing these sorts of results first-hand helps parents realize the importance of education.
At a glance
75 teachers and 700 students participated in PEPY’s Literacy Camp in 2010.
Over 28 classrooms in Chanleas Dai commune now offer Khmer reading material and children’s books through the Classroom Library Program.
This year, an average of 1,793 books were checked out of the Chanleas Dai Primary School Library each month. Students and community members came to the library 9,271 times per month. Students from kindergarten to grade 6 met twice a week in the library to work on book reports, making posters, quizzes, reading and studying in the learning corner, and alphabet games.
Literacy Camp successes
Unlike the previous year, in 2010 only interested teachers were asked to apply for positions at the camp. This approach avoided involving facilitators out of duty. The resulting organizers were much more enthusiastic and involved in this year’s activities.
In 2009, students entering grades 1-5 were invited to participate in the camp. However Grade 1 students were not quite ready yet for literacy activities. In 2010, the camp focused only on Grades 2 -5, which more successfully involved all participants.
A summer without classes often leads to higher drop-out rates, as children leave school or migrate to Thailand for work opportunities. One of the main goals of Literacy Camp (in addition to developing reading skills) is to help reduce drop-out rates. The numbers collected by the school principals in Chanleas Dai commune support the theory that when school resumes after Literacy Camp, more students register for school.
Literacy Camp challenges
Several students who had not previously registered joined the camp on the second day when they found out how much fun their friends were having. We were thrilled that word of mouth encouraged more students to study literacy over the summer! However, we didn’t have the resources in place to assess the reading level of the late arrivals and consequently had difficulty placing them into the class that was best for their skill level.
The facilitators prepared a slew of literacy activities. This material was supposed to last for 5 days but some teachers covered it in only 3 and ran out of prepared literacy activities. While teachers were quick on their feet and improvised the new material, our plan for next year is to prepare a larger volume of activities for eager students to tackle during Literacy Camp. Year of PEPY’s Literacy Camp
School Year
Student at the age of school enrollment in Chanleas Dai
Enrollment
% Eligible students enrolled
N/A
2007-2008
512
485
94.7
1
2008-2009
492
487
99.0
2
2009-2010
492
492
100
3
2010-2011
500
500
100
supplemental education
PEPY’s Supplemental Programs are designed to enhance the government curriculum that is administered in every Cambodian government school. Our Supplemental Programs include Creative Learning Class (CLC), English classes, Traveling Teacher Support, Bike-to-School and Teacher Assistance Program. Classes involving children run in scheduled free periods during the school day.
At a glance
Creative Learning Class implemented new curricula in math, science, and social studies based on books written by PEPY staff members. The new curricula integrate the use of XO computers with cross-curricular, topic- based learning.
During summer break, PEPY’s CLC team organized a new art workshop. The workshop lasted for a month and involved 49 participants and a professional Cambodian artist and graphic designer as the instructor. Students learned about the science of mixing colors, the process of drawing pictures, and how to transform everyday items and items usually thrown away (like pencil shavings) into artwork.
This year, PEPY arranged for extra tutoring for 9th and 12th grade students taking their end of year exams, which determine if students continue on to the next tier of their schooling. Extra classes were provided in math, physics, chemistry, and the Khmer language.
Supplemental program successes
Program components
Creative Learning Classes are designed to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills and to allow students to express their ideas creatively and collaboratively. Students use computers and open-source programming software to create educational games, build robots, and conduct experiments in their communities.
Supplementary English classes, available to junior high school students in Chanleas Dai, give students a competitive advantage when pursuing their professional dreams for the future.
The Traveling Teacher Support (TTS) program provides supplementary training to primary school English teachers to help them excel in the classroom. This program expanded to one new school this year, bringing the total number of partner schools up to 6 for 2010. As some schools only have a few grades in them, PEPY now provides TTS programs to all schools in Chanleas Dai commune that have a 5th or 6th grade classroom thereby helping these schools achieve the otherwise ignored English curriculum component for these grades.
The Bike-to-School initiative offers bike scholarships to students who otherwise risk dropping out of school due to access issues.
The typical monthly salary of a full-time government teacher in Chanleas Dai is between $80- $100. The Teacher Assistance Program provides further incentives for teachers to arrive on time and improve the quality of their teaching.
The summer art workshop created a sense of commune-wide camaraderie and acted as an incubator for new student leadership groups, such as Volunteer for Community Development.
The extra tutoring classes organized by PEPY encouraged 39 junior high students and 8 high school students to take their graduation exams. 92% of the 9th graders and 75% of the 12th graders passed their exams.
Supplemental program challenges
A new curriculum for CLC means becoming familiar with new material! Teachers dedicated a great deal of time to testing out new ideas before they were able to incorporate the new curriculum into the classroom.
Additional lunchtime English classes were offered but had difficulty in holding students’ attention while their stomachs were rumbling. Plans are in the works to move these classes to a more student- friendly time.
partnering with schools: SAS Sahakoom Apeewaht Sala (or SAS, meaning “Communities Developing Schools”) centers around community-led solutions to school problems. SAS embodies PEPY’s commitment to engaging in sustainable educational development.
SAS is composed of 3 teams: An Effective Teaching and Learning (ETL) team that works with teachers to incorporate new teaching methods and processes into the classroom. School Support Committees (SSCs) that are made up of community members who are committed to education. These committees form what is effectively a local “school board”. These theoretically exist in every school, but in practice they are often in name only, ineffective, or rarely given real ownership or roles in improving schools. PEPY aims to support and empower these committees as they meet to discuss school improvement plans and select 3 to 5 issues that they want to tackle in their schools and communities. A group working with school principals to visit other schools for exposure to new ideas on effective management of their school and staff.
SAS focuses on actions instead of giving things away. Examples include providing life-skills training for students, creating resource workshops for teachers, and making child-friendly spaces for students to learn and play outside of class time. Communities are encouraged to fundraise to meet the needs for the projects they take on, and PEPY matches some, but not all, of the funding requirements.
At a glance
This year, SSCs are tackling problems such as a lack of water, poor literacy skills among students, and a lack of textbooks and resources.
In 2010, SAS began working with a new partner school, Run, which has demonstrated a strong community commitment to improving education.
SAS provided supplies to newly-started kindergarten classes, trained teachers to make and use teaching aids, and worked with the Siem Reap Provincial Teacher Training College to conduct a teacher training needs assessment.
Program components Income generating projects These projects help schools bridge the gap between program costs and the government educational budget allotted to each school. For some of these initiatives, an additional goal for these projects is to transfer life skills such as agricultural knowledge and entrepreneurial ideas to students. Ideas being tested in 2010 include growing mushrooms and raising fish.
School improvement projects Projects undertaken this year include planting gardens, constructing shade huts, filling in low areas on school property to reduce flooding, and digging out a school pond to create a much-needed water source for toilets and drinking water.
Increased access to training Teachers and school directors participated in two three-day ETL workshops, supported by PEPY and facilitated by trainers from Siem Reap’s Provincial Teacher Training College. These workshops were coupled with classroom observations and one-on-one feedback sessions and have helped teachers with classroom management and lesson preparation.
Increased access to new ideas SAS arranges field trips for school directors, teachers, and SSC members to “model” schools in other parts of Cambodia. These visits inspire SSCs with new dreams for their own schools. In addition, schools actively engage parents by inviting them to observe the classes. Seeing their children hard at work encourages parent engagement in students’ education.
SAS program successes
This year, an effort has been made to involve monks on School Support Committees. Participation from religious leaders in the community gives the SSC more credibility, and leads to more community involvement.
In 2010, the SSCs held regular meetings each month. In 2009, regular meetings were difficult because SSC responsibilities had not been clearly outlined ahead of time.
SAS program challenges
Plans for the SSCs to execute this year are too decentralized; moving forward, the SAS team is working to ensure that specific individuals have responsibility for executing plans.
Income generation teams need to seek out help from experts and more consistently apply the information learned in technical trainings.
SAS profile: A School Support Committee member’s perspective on community involvement in education. When talking with Mr. Smien Thol, the first thing you notice is how big his smile is. In addition to being cheerful and well-respected, Mr. Thol is also known in his community as a big advocate of education. He began teaching in 1979 at a primary school where he taught grades 1 through 4. Mr. Thol was forced to abandon the classroom when the country plummeted into chaos after the Khmer Rouge regime. Thirty years later, he is now involved and invested in education in his community again, this time as a member of the School Support Committee (SSC) at Chanleas Dai Primary School. At 56 years old, Mr. Thol has been a lifelong advocate of formal studies. With his characteristic and contagious smile, Smien explains, “I am a son of a farmer, farming is in my blood. But I want to see all the children in my village to go to school. Even if they become farmers like me, they will be smarter with their farming if they get educated.” Mr. Thol knows first-hand about the challenges of getting his neighbors involved in projects that benefit local schools. His method is to lead by example: he offered his tractor to take bricks to the local school for a maintenance project and is routinely the first one to start any school construction or improvement project, often without additional help. When Mr. Thol’s friends and neighbors see him working so hard by himself, they often mimic his initiative and perseverance and come to help him. Mr. Thol also understands the behavior of his friends and colleagues. He knows how difficult it can be to contribute money for a project when income is scarce but realizes that families are often more than happy to contribute their labor. He also brings parents on school visits to see their children studying in the classroom. When Mr. Thol introduces parents to the class, parents are proud to see their students hard at work. This drives home the importance of sending their kids to school more than any abstract campaign or conversation. Mr. Thol plans to lead the school development activities far into the future. He always advocates that people should create the change they want to see in their own communities. “Everyone focuses on betterment in the next life,” he tells us. “Why not build a road to improve your community now, rather than waiting for a better road in the next life?” We are proud to be working with Mr. Thol as he continues to champion improvements in education in Chanleas Dai.
child-to-child program Child-to-Child (CtC) clubs encourage children between the ages of 10 and 16 to identify issues they encounter on a regular basis, such as dengue fever or pollution, and then plan a course of action to work for change within their own neighborhoods.
At a glance
Members of the Child-to-Child program are able to choose which topics they want to cover within their community. In 2010, Child Clubs members in Chanleas Dai covered a range of topics, such as campaigning about the importance of clean water. Students used hand-drawn brochures to communicate the importance of water filters and warned others of the health hazards of drinking directly from the fields. Child Club members then followed up to see the impact of their work and adjusted their strategies to encourage more people to make drinking clean water part of their daily routine.
Children organized a market in celebration of International Children’s Rights Day. Students practiced life skills and financial management by making and selling small products in their classes. After the market closed, the child clubs performed skits, game shows, and songs about child rights, child protection, and children’s needs.
2010 was the first year PEPY’s Child-to-Child facilitators organized summer camp programs for the Child-to-Child members, with over 290 students joining one-week programs over the course of two months.
Opposite: A Child-to-Child illustration contrasts actions that cause tooth decay with actions that promote healthy teeth.
Child-to-Child program challenges
Children who have been in CtC for many years have a good understanding of the CtC methodology and need to be further challenged. To address this need, PEPY is working to organize Youth Clubs in 2011, which will address new topics such as time management, emotional intelligence, and how to achieve goals for one’s future.
Through CtC, PEPY has covered many topics, but with limited documentation. Because of this, it’s been difficult for us to share what we have learned about the CtC program with other groups or for the clubs from different communities to help each other where there is topic overlap. Going forward, our team will be documenting topics discussed and methodologies used to provide materials to share with others.
Child-to-Child program successes
This year’s focus on environmental stewardship has had a visible effect: a majority of the communities where CtC operates are now visibly more clean, with less smell and pollution from garbage.
11 community center buildings have been constructed by CtC and community members in 2010, which now provide shelter from the wind, rain, and sun for children in all 11 villages to do CtC activities.
Opposite: “Drinking clean water and taking care of your teeth”
Child-to-child profile Cambodian leaders in the making Soun Seth is one of the success stories
of Child-to-Child. Seth dropped out of school to work in Thailand, and when he was back in Siem Reap province, he attended PEPY’s Child-to-Child club. He enjoyed it so much that, with some encouragement from his club educator, Miss Srey Mao, he returned to school. He’s now committed to finishing school and is a regular member of CtC. In CtC sessions, the students often develop plays and performances to communicate what they have learned to their parents and communities. Seth enjoyed this experience so much that acting is now his career ambition. He’s passionate about educating through performance and wants to use his newly developed skills and knowledge to share his learning with others.
Chhean Oy has just passed 11th grade and
attends school in Kralanh. His dream is to become an English teacher. In the evening he teaches English to small children in his community for free as part of “Volunteers for Community Development”, as he believes it’s important to share his skills. He wants to teach English because he believes if people can speak English well then they can communicate with people all over the world, learn from the cultures of others, and use these experiences and opinions and to develop their own country.
Kor Saruo, Nha Srea’a and Noeub Sreytheang have been part
of PEPY’s Child-to-Child program for 3 years, and they all have ambitions to become doctors! They would like to help people who are sick, earn money to support their families, and also help their society. They have seen doctors in their community treat patients rudely and unfairly according to how much money they have, and also not encourage them as they recover. The girls want to be doctors who provide a different example—treating all people equally and supporting and encouraging people who are sick. The girls feel that CtC sessions have helped them develop their skills and gain extra knowledge before finishing school. They think the communication skills they learn are particularly important for their life goals, as they need to be able to build strong relationships with their community, learn how to relate to people of different ages, and be a confident speaker to encourage and support patients. They are all big believers in the power of positive thinking!
pepy tours Through originally founded as a “voluntourism” organization, PEPY Tours began to solidify its shift in focus in 2010 from “service learning” to “learning service.” The PEPY Tours team feels this term better highlights the main lesson we all have learned over the past six years: we have to learn before we can help. Whereas the tours used to be designed to make people feel like they could travel to Cambodia to “help” for 10 days, PEPY Tours’ current offerings are designed around the idea that there is a lot more impact to be made the other 355 days of the year and beyond.
more educational opportunities after the tours or even to those who will never visit Cambodia. The PEPY Reader, an online resource which features a continually updated selection of articles about education, Cambodia, social entrepreneurship, responsible tourism, development issues, and all things PEPY, was formalized in 2010 and is now available in both printed and online form. PEPY Tours is working towards being a leader in development education lessons and resources for people around the world.
Collaboration and learning from others are tenants of PEPY’s philosophies, and The main goals are two-fold: 1) to PEPY Tours built and expanded many generate support and awareness for the new partnerships in 2010 with those work PEPY is doing in Cambodia and goals in mind. PEPY Tours worked 2) to expose people to the complexity with Where There Be Dragons to of development work through firstdevelop their first annual Development hand meetings and visits with local Educators Course offered in Cambodia change makers where travelers tend in June 2010. The course has been to learn, get angry, get interested, and designed for North American teachers THEN bring that energy and knowledge to come to Cambodia and meet with home with them to begin to create non-governmental organizations and the changes they want to see in their local development projects. The goal communities and around the world. of these tours is to foster discussions about what is working and not working PEPY Tours also made a shift in 2010 in the aid sector and provide teachers to focus more on delivering tours with tools for facilitating these types of to school groups and organized discussions with their students when educational travel options. They now they return to America. Through these have educational tour partnerships efforts, PEPY Tours hopes to spread the with international schools in Asia impact of this work beyond Cambodia and welcomed groups of students and into many other parts of the globe. to Cambodia from across the US as well. With this development education goal came a focus on curriculum development. In 2010, PEPY Tours began focusing on documenting and generating training materials for tour leaders and development education resources for travelers to help offer
At a glance # of tour participants: .......................................................................................119 # of tour participants who were also students: ......................................59 Growth in participants from 2009: ........................................................... 18% Total fundraising: ....................................................................................$45,012* # of staff: ............................................................................................................... 4** # of tours: .................................................................................................................15 # of bike tours: ......................................................................................................... 1 *Fundraising from participants of official 2010 PEPY Tours. The majority of the rest of the fundraising for the non-profit arm of PEPY was from PEPY Tours past participants (not included in above figures). ** In addition to the 4 full-time staff members and other part-time staff specifically hired for trip facilitation purposes, we had one or two additional interns working on the team in 2010.
How we talked about our work PEPY’s debuted our annual campaign concept, The Power of 10, in 2010. It was a campaign aimed at raising funds and awareness about PEPY by creating a global network of informed, engaged, and active citizens. It was not only about highlighting how far $10 can go, but how far-reaching one’s impact can be. Creating awareness about the work that PEPY is doing with schools in Cambodia also draws attention to the bigger picture – quality education is critical in breaking a cycle of poverty. Only by investing in the next generation, by providing young Cambodians with valuable tools to be the change they wish to see, will the solution be long lasting. In addition to The Power of 10, we continue to reach out to our supporters to educate and raise awareness about education issues in Cambodia through our monthly newsletters, our blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube videos, and electronic/print media.
2009
2010
Facebook fans
1,759
2,597
Twitter followers
894
1,098
Video views on YouTube
57,723
86,903
# of videos on YouTube
30
47
Total # of newsletter subscribers
5046
5722
Phnom Penh Post, AME Info, UAE 7 Days, Forbes
CNN, Emirates Newspaper, Beyond Profit, Emirates Woman Magazine, Tonic.com
Media sources that covered PEPY
How we managed our finances 2008 (US$) 2009 (US$) 2010 (US$) Individual donors
625
532
974
Median donation amount
50
40
25
Donations
319,499
602,276
318,471
Fundraising
2,421
103
1,497
Other*
3,426
7,899
959
Total income
325,346
610,278**
320,927
Child to Child
15,303
31,586
38,535
Literacy
18,634
43,681
57,012
SAS
-
15,742
46,124
Supplemental programs
83,893
59,980
43,353
Capacity building
39,332
39,297
14,402
Partner support
20,553
Other Programs***
25,594
295,758
872
Management and general
34,837
27,767
48,862
Fundraising
10,702
14,646
17,490
Total expenditure
248,848
528,457
277,484
Income
Expenditure
10,834
* Refers to interest income and sale of fixed assets ** High figure reflects fundraising contributions from Dubai Cares for school building projects *** Refers to school building and sustainable tourism
For the third year in a row, PEPY opted to have a voluntary external audit of our financials. We have worked hard to hold ourselves to the highest standards for our accounting, and this effort by our CFO Kimline Nuch and her team paid off as our auditor noted their work as a model for others to learn from.
expenses, but they have the least impact if people are not invested in as well.
NGO taxes, besides being complicated to fill out, are often misunderstood. The general evaluative measure is program to overhead ratio, which not only disregards impact as a success factor, but is also a ratio which is often manipulated. Many organizations use their legal right to consider all expenses which are in their target area as program cost. Even though nearly all of our spending is in Siem Reap, we use what we consider best practices when listing our Management and General (M&G) costs. Much of our work with the highest impact costs the least amount of money. In fact, in some of our programs like the Child to Child program or the traveling English Teacher Training Program have direct costs which equate to little more than staffing costs. As there is still a management structure and associated office needs to keep these programs running, our program implementation cost may appear low in comparison to the costs to run the organization. This was offset in 2009 by the fact that we built four school buildings that year. As we all know though, schools do not teach kids. They might use the most program
M&G accounts for expenses such as our accounting team, $4000 in auditing costs, $2000 in financial loss from fund transfer fees, and general office overhead. Additionally, when Maryann Bylander, our Managing Director for three years, left in 2010, we hired our first two foreign staff to be directly placed into paid management roles (whereas previous foreign employees had first worked as volunteer interns). One managed our fundraising and the other supported our programmatic strategic planning and human resources. This meant that, in 2010, we had the most foreign paid staff we have ever had at PEPY. With these new staff came additional expenses such as travel costs and insurance coverage, and this amounts to the majority of our increased M&G and Fundraising costs for 2010. 2011 plans include transitioning to Cambodian leadership and relying less on consulting-style roles as the systems needed for PEPY’s continued growth and success take hold.
In 2010, our M&G was $17,560 more than the average of the last two years, and our fundraising expenses were 10% higher. That is a big increase for a small organization, and we feel that we need to address those numbers.
Where we’re going Khmer leadership
SAS development
We are looking forward to a future PEPY with increasingly Khmer leadership, as our foreign founding team transitions out of their full-time work in Cambodia.
We are looking to hire technical experts in math, Khmer literacy, kindergarten training, and other technical education areas for our SAS team. We’re excited to see this program expand and increase our internal capacity for teacher training and support.
Strategy Planning Now that PEPY is 5 years old, we want to be sure we take a moment to ask some important questions: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? How do we get there? How will we know when we reach success? In order to address all of these questions, we will be gathering together staff members, stakeholders, and board members from the PEPY family to assess, review, and plan for the future in 2011.
more Khmer language newsletters and reports We are committed to increasing access to our resources and materials for Khmer speakers.
A focus on youth leadership Rebranding, website redevelopment In parallel with our strategic planning, we look forward to updating and aligning the look and feel of PEPY to our vision of what we see for the future of our organization.
When students from Chanleas Dai, who had been a part of PEPY’s programs, started their own organization, “Volunteers for Community Development” (VCD), the PEPY team realized that the youth leadership programs we have invested in are paying off. We have plans to support the building of networks and skills of the VCD program as well as looking at ways to replicate and expand our youth leadership offerings.