2011 Fourth Quarter Report

PEPY’s Programs Quarterly Update October 1st –December 31st, 2011 Community Development Program / Supplemental Program / Sahakoom Apeewaht Sala (SAS) Program

Thank you for your continued support!

Community Development Program The Community Development Program consists of both Child-toChild and Young Leader Clubs Child-to-Child Using an active learning approach, the Child-to-Child (CtC) initiative encourages children to identify the most pressing problems in their communities, by working with other members of their Child Club.

Currently, there are 6 Youth, and 5 educators to facilitate these clubs.

and inspiration necessary to achieve their goals, raise standards of living, and improve the quality of education in their communities.

Child-to-Child activities This year, both students and facilitators in Child Clubs have been focusing on the importance of water cleanliness, hair and oral hygiene, and clean clothes to improve health. The facilitators saw steady improvements over the quarter as the children practiced what they learned.

each village. These boards are essential for sharing and distributing information about health and human rights within rural communities with little access to the Internet and/or newspapers.

Statistics in target areas: Child-to-Child Commune

Chanleas Dai

Run

Preah Lean

Rolom Svay

This project was completed in November, and educators have been monitoring the information on the boards and contributing health information to link to topics being covered in Child Clubs.

Young Leader Club The Young Leader program was initiated Through topic-based problem solving in 2011, and supports clubs in rural around health, environmental, and Club members also encouraged other Cambodia for youths aged 15-25 years human rights subjects, the Child Clubs students to practice healthy habits as well. old. The clubs are voluntary action-based learn about important issues while aiming This particular project is now moving groups, where young people seek to to build life skills such as leadership, into the fifth and sixth stages of the identify, learn about, and solve tangible communication, teamwork, critical Child-to-Child methodology. The students problems in their own communities, thus thinking, and decision-making. have shown initiative in speaking with building life skills, leadership, and community members and encouraging self-confidence.

By building these critical skills among them to practice hygienic techniques to children in Chanleas Dai, we hope prevent illness.

The purpose behind the project is to to further PEPY’s general mission: provide a youth development model expanding the opportunities available for Care and maintenance of community appropriate for young adults, based on Cambodian youth by working with young signboards the success of PEPY’s Child-to-Child people, and investing time and resources The Child Clubs have also decided to fix initiative. Currently, there are 6 Youth, to connect them with the skills, systems, or replace all of the broken signboards in and 5 educators to facilitate these clubs.

Village

Khnar Joh

Damreay Slap

Koukpouch

Chanleas Dai

15

20

24

7

8

Hem Saly

Riem Bon

Riem Bon

Khean Sak

Seurng Sinath

Seurng Sinath

Yong Mary

15

Yong Mary

Tram Kong

20

Chok Srey Mao

Kok Tnaut

Chuk Rath

Tram Kong

Kambor

Snoul

34

15

Club Educator

Don Kais

Kok Tnaut

2 communes

# of Children per Club

Tahmeak

Sam Rowng

14 villages

7

15

20

20

15

10

16

261 children

Chok Srey Mao

Chok Srey Mao

Chork SreyVoun

Chork SreyVoun

Ry Romdos

Ry Romdos

Ry Romdos

8 facilitators

Statistics in target areas: Young Leaders Commune

Chanleas Dai

Village

Run

Preah Lean

Chanleas Dai

Tram Kong

Snoul

2 communes

Tahmeak

Sam Rowng

6 villages

# of Youths per Club

18

7

12

13

2

15

67 youths

Club Educator

Hem Saly

Riem Bon

Khean Sak

Chok Srey Mao

Chok Srey Mao

Chum Lout

5 facilitators

Fourth quarter updates

During this quarter, some of the major challenges faced by our staff involved the logistics of harvest season. Some of our students were required to stay home and help in the fields rather than go to school, which has impacted attendance rates.

Other students have migrated to Thailand for work, and this has also negatively affected attendance rates. As a result, participation in some Child-to-Child and Youth Leadership Clubs has decreased, and one club had to be disbanded due to a lack of students.

Child-to-Child methodology After many trials, assessments, and evaluations, our CtC educators developed 6 steps to help children easily identify and resolve the most pressing issues in their communities.

1/ Discuss and identify the most prominent issues plaguing the community via a Town Hall meeting.

and involve the community. In the past, students have used presentations, plays, and campaigns.

6/ Evaluate the process to make sure the problem has been resolved, and identify steps to mitigate the problem in the future.

Collaboration with Child Rights NGO This quarter, the PEPY team had a 2/ Investigate the factors and causes chance to share the Child-to-Child sixof the problem: CtC students and step approach with Child Rights, an NGO educators work together to identify and currently working in Phnom Penh. The understand who or what is involved in two organizations met in Siem Reap, and the problem. discussed the success PEPY has seen through Child-to-Child work in sanitation 3/ Gather information and reach an and hygiene. understanding: Our educators help empower the students to teach each However, due to logistics and scheduling, other about their circumstances and we were unable to show first hand the how they can make a positive change. work that we are doing with CtC in 4/ Work together to find the best and most Chanleas Dai. Child educators hope simple way to address the problem. to take Child Rights on site to observe program work first-hand at a later date.

5/ Execute the resolution: CtC educators help students understand the pros and cons of each proposed solution; then the children create a plan to inform

we hope to further pepy’s general mission: expanding the opportunities available for cambodian youth by working with young people

Youth Leadership Program (YLP) Updates Attendance and participation challenges As with our Child-to-Child clubs, keeping participation and attendance has been one of the main challenges facing the YLP this academic year.

Unfortunately, the Tahmeak YLP club, which was originally founded with only five members, had to be disbanded this quarter. Gradually, week after week, Tahmeak club members stopped participating in lessons and were often absent on Sundays.

In order to assess potential causes of declining participation rates, an assessment was conducted to determine what youth in this community need, would like to learn, and what they disliked about past YLP programming.

However after conducting the club for one more month after this assessment, club members were still reluctant to participate, so the club was disbanded.

Assessment and evaluation The educators spent a great deal of time this quarter creating evaluation tools in order to further improve the effectiveness of the lessons we teach our Young Leaders participants.

these communities. Parents are friendlier and more willing to work with the YLP team. The YLP team has not yet reached all of the families in the target areas, but progress is steadily being made.

Developing presentation skills In doing so we hope to measure how well During this quarter, Youth Leadership members in Chanleas Dai exchanged they understand the lessons taught and ideas with students from an international if the lessons are being applied in their school in Kuala Lumpur on youthdaily lives. These assessment tools will also help us get a sense of what the kids based leadership in their respective communities. In order to give some like to learn, and the methods that help insight into the projects and works that them retain information the best. the clubs do, the YLP members created presentations. This opportunity inspired Home visits to prioritize education educators and the Young Leader Clubs to In addition to assessing the efficacy of lessons taught in YLP clubs, the staff has work on their presentation skills. been making home visits in each of the Developing these skills allows the club villages. The purpose of these visits is members to share their knowledge to create relationships with the parents, and experiences with others in a so that we can help them encourage their children to attend school, as well as comprehensive format. After a workshop on how to give an effective presentation, Youth Leadership clubs. many students demonstrated an increased aptitude for this type of talk Already we have received a positive response, and the YLP team has started and better understood the value it has for their professional development. to build relationships and trust within

Supplemental Programs PEPY’s Supplemental Programs are designed to enhance the Cambodian government curriculum by providing extra learning opportunities for students as well as teacher training in Khmer Literacy and English.

As part of our policy, we also held meetings – Engineering club welcomed 10 new students from Grade 7 this quarter. with all of the students and parents Their first project involves building and to clearly explain our CLC standards programming Lego “WeDo” Robots. regarding participation and attendance.

So far students have been following the explicit instructions from a manual, The following are a selection of this but as the school year progresses, we quarter’s CLC activities: PEPY’s Creative Learning Classes, hope to be able to encourage more Engineering Club, English Classes, Exam Grade 7 creative freedom.

Support, and Dream Management sessions – Students used the Paint function on Grades 8 and 9 are resources available to Chanleas Dai the XO laptops, which enabled them Junior High School students. In addition, – Students used the XO laptops to learn to brainstorm creative ideas, draw about the Solar System and present their primary school teachers working in our them, and present their artwork to the target area can receive Literacy and findings to their peers. class. This activity allowed students English teacher training with our Library to practice using the XO laptops and – The students learned about Word- and and Travelling Teacher Support programs. become familiar with the XO software.

Excel-based programs called Abiword As an extension of this activity, and Spreadsheet, which have enabled Creative Learning Classes students created and presented family them to create more comprehensive At the beginning of the school year, the tree diagrams to show their classmates. projects than before. staff advertised our Creative Learning – All 22 participants of the Engineering Classes and left applications for the – Our staff taught the students Scratch Club are working with students in students to take home in order to get programming, to enable them to create Grade 7 to build Lego “Wedo” Robots. consent from their parents. Our team more advanced projects for future then started to collect all of the names of lessons. The students have showed a prospective applicants and enter the data voracious appetite for each new lesson Our CLC staff was able to provide individual XO laptops for 80% of our CLC students, into a computer. and the new topics they learn. and the rest were able to share XO laptops with friends who live in the same community.

Pepy’s supplemental programs are designed to enhance the cambodian government curriculum

Statistics for CLC program Grade

7A

7B 8A

8B 9A

Total

Total in Average % # of each class absence students who dropped out 47

4.82

5

34

4.22

1

44

33

33

191

3.36

3.82 3.4

3.92

6

2

3

17

Many students are pulled out of school at this time of year to help their families during harvest season, to immigrate to Thailand in order to find work, or to attend weddings during the height of the wedding season.

In light of these challenges, the attendance of our students was about average for this time of year, when compared to last year’s attendance numbers.

English classes in Chanleas Dai Junior High School We’ve been promoting English classes at Chanleas Dai Junior High School for the 2011-2012. Our team interviewed all prospective applicants in Grades 8 and 9 to determine the availability and commitment to fully participate in English classes. Rules and expectations were then laid out for accepted students: – Students who are absent more than 3 times in a month without an excuse are required to meet with the teachers.

– Six absences in a month results in a parent / teacher meeting.

Students who fail to adhere to these guidelines will be asked to leave the class. In order to establish a baseline for English skills, we did a pre-test for each class to measure how much English they already know. We will conduct another test at the end of the year to see how much progress the students have made.

Dream Management and Junior High School support The Dream Management program offers support to 9th graders and creates a space where they can take steps towards achieving their dreams and goals for the future, and discuss any challenges that may need to be overcome. The Dream Management team has been working to create tools and methods for recording each student’s dreams in an electronic format. The staff hopes that by compiling these profiles, they will have an archive of examples for future Dream Management programs.

Classroom Library This quarter we worked closely with PEPY’s Literacy Technical Officer, Smin Soe, in order to prepare some training documents for new government teachers, involving how to incorporate the classroom libraries into daily lessons.

Through this initiative, the teaching staff also came up with pre-test and post-test in order to better measure the progress of student literacy by the end of the year.

A pre-test was administered to students in Grades 1-6 in the beginning of October at Prasart Knar elementary, with plans to conduct pre-tests at all 8 schools in PEPY’s Classroom Library program.

Our staff also conducted a training session for teachers focused on the methodology of using books in order to improve students’ Khmer literacy. This training is designed to improve the capacity of our teachers as well as the quality of the lessons being taught. In addition, we conducted a training session on the methodology of facilitation.

This workshop was focused around teachers of Grade 6, and we were able to observe them apply the skills our staff taught them in actual classes. Teachers at 4 elementary schools participated in the skills observation: Chanleas Dai, Run, Prasat Knar, and Tram Kong.

Traveling Teacher Support Since it was the beginning of a new academic year in October, our staff made an effort to go to each school with Grades 5 and 6 to share our goals for this year with them. Our Teacher Training Staff conducted training for government teachers and established a baseline of their English abilities.

Every other Thursday we provide training for the government teachers who are involved in our Traveling Teacher Support project. The PEPY team taught new classroom words and phrases in English and shared new lessons that teachers will be able to use with their students after the training sessions.

Library Our head librarian met with all teachers in Chanleas Dai Primary School and involved the principal about this year’s agenda for library/literacy programs.

Trainings planned for the coming year include:

Our library staff provides many activities to keep the students engaged, including book reports, quizzes, story telling, story reading, poster making, alphabet games, matching games, reading corners, and story ordering. Students have the opportunity to learn different lessons every time they come into our – Teaching all of our librarians about proper library. This quarter 3,326 books were procedures for working in the library borrowed by 443 students, with an average of 7.5 books/student read over – Training teachers in each grade how the past 3 months. to facilitate activities with their students when they come to the library. This We also set up check-out cards for takes some of the workload off our only each student, so that each time a librarian and also enables the teachers student borrows a book from the library, to lead activities. they write the book name on the card.

Each card can hold about 20 book titles, We have created schedules for each and when a student completes a card of the classes in Chanleas Dai Primary they receive a prize recognizing their School, so that each class is able to achievement. visit the library everyday. Our library staff has started working with the The reward system provides incentives government librarian and is currently for students to read books, which in turn sharing information about the Chanleas adds to their vocabulary, comprehension, Dai library policies and procedures. All and writing skills. librarians take one hour every day to work with the government library and share our methodologies.

This quarter 3326 books were borrowed by 443 students

New This Quarter This quarter, PEPY piloted a Scholarship Program to offer access to further educational opportunities for students graduating from Kralanh district high schools. Nine students graduated from the high school last academic year and were interested in a variety of options to further their education, including teacher training programs.

PEPY proposed supporting the studies of one or two candidates through provision of laptops, bicycles, and financial support. Unfortunately none of the students passed the necessary exams or met the requirements for teacher training programs or other university study. As such, PEPY has realized that more comprehensive support must be given earlier in the year to high school students who are interested in pursuing higher education.

As a result, this year PEPY did not offer scholarships to any students and has instead decided to revise the Scholarship Program. As part of this program redevelopment, we have offered an internship to one of the Kralanh High School graduates to assist our staff in conducting a needs assessment of the young people at the school.

Our intern will be working with PEPY staff to develop the Scholarship Program for the next academic year and ensure that it is designed to better meet the needs of graduating students.

Sahakoom Apeewaht Sala (SAS) Sahakoom Apeewaht Sala (SAS) – literally translated to “communities developing schools” – is a holistic approach to providing and improving access to a quality education through community engagement. SAS empowers communities to develop sustainable schools that provide all children with a quality education. The SAS team and the School Support Committees (SSCs) of Chanleas Dai, Prasat Knar, and Run Primary Schools bring you these latest updates from Cambodia.

This year SSCs, school heads, teachers, and the SAS team worked together to make development plans that promote more transparency, in which each school also agrees to have only one school development plan.

This means not only that school heads will be able to gather information on government budgeting plans and send them to the District Education Office for approval, but also that activities arranged as part of PEPY’s SAS program will be included in these plans and not form separate documentation.

The District Office of Education has now officially approved school development plans for three schools, Chanleas Dai, Prasat Knar, and Run Primary Schools, for the upcoming 20112012 school year. Currently each activity in the plan has one person to over see its implementation and take responsibility for its completion.

Chanleas Dai Primary School updates School snapshot – Student enrollment: 508 –G rade levels: Kindergarten to Grade 6 (10 classes) – Teachers/administrators: 10 –S chool Support Committee members: 9 Latest activities: 1/ S ustainable enterprise – Mushroom Spore Production One of SAS’s goals is to support SSCs in the implementation of projects that will generate a source of income to sustain the development of their school.

This quarter, Chanleas Dai Primary School has decided to try growing mushrooms again, despite previous challenges they have faced in this pursuit. SSC members are now working on growing spores as a stepping-stone to mushroom production. By learning from previous mistakes and pursuing additional agricultural knowledge and plant nursery skills, they hope to successfully cultivate mushrooms.

2/ Fundraising

Chanleas Dai Primary School conducted a fundraising activity this quarter along with teachers and the SSC team. The group went door-to-door to raise both funds and support from the community. This was an important step towards maintaining the school, as well as renewing support from students’ parents to encourage the education of their children.

The total amount raised was 500,000Riel (Approx. US$125). The SSC has used 303,700Riel (Approx.

US$75) to reimburse PEPY for supporting previous SSC activities, and the rest will be use to fund the school development plan.

School Support Committee meetings This quarter, SSC meeting topics included: – Revisiting the school development plan – Assigning ownership for upcoming activities – Preparing for mushroom spore growing – Brainstorming for future fundraising activities

Sahakoom Apeewaht Sala (SAS) literally translates to “communities developing schools”

Run Primary School updates School snapshot – Student enrollment: 352 –G rade levels: Kindergarten to Grade 6 (6 classes) – Teachers/administrators: 4 – School Support Committee members: 12 Latest activities 1/ School mapping activity As at Prasat Knar, Run Primary School also conducted a school-mapping project as part of a new Child Friendly Policy, which will be a useful tool for teachers to contact and connect with students’ families.

School Support Committee meetings: This quarter, SSC meeting topics included: – Plans to create a compost bin –P lans to invite parents to school to see the work of our staff –D iscussion of whether or not it is feasible to supply rice to teachers from other provinces who work for Run school – Setting up a student council

Prasat Knar Primary School updates School snapshot – Student enrollment: 599 –G rade levels: Kindergarten to Grade 6 (12 classes) – Teachers/administrators: 10 – School Support Committee members:

In December, parents, local authorities, teachers, and monks took this opportunity to share common ideas and goals to improve and support education in the community. The SSC raised 1,002,600Riel (Approx. US$250).

The SSC plans to use this money to support school development plans.

3/ School improvements – garbage kiln and information board

Prasat Knar has constructed a garbage Latest activities kiln for managing the school’s waste.

This activity was not included in the 1/ Fundraising – Back-to-School original school development plan for this On October 1, 2011, the SAS team and year, but SSC members agreed that it the SSC hosted a “Back-to-School” event was a necessary step to improve the to reinforce the importance of education school environment and make the area in the community. The event encouraged more hygienic. parents, teachers, and students to participate in school activities, and was In addition, the school headed a project also a good fundraising opportunity for to make an information board for the the SSC. The SSC succeeded in raising community. The board will be used to 400,000Riels (Approx. US$100), and promote and provide increased access to this money will be used for the school information on Child Rights. development plan.

2/ F undraising – Bon Phakar Bon Phakar, a religious ceremony, is traditionally used to bring together members of a community to raise funds to support religious functions. However at Prasat Knar, the money from Bon Phakar went towards school and community related activities.

4/ School mapping activity Prasat Knar Primary School conducted a school-mapping project as part of a new Child Friendly Policy. Now students and community members have a comprehensive map of both the school and surrounding community. This is also a useful tool for the teachers as it shows

where the majority of students live in the surrounding area, so they can easily contact the children’s families.

School Support Committee meetings This quarter, SSC meeting topics included: – Strengthening SSC roles and responsibilities – Community fundraising – Revisiting the school development plan – Monitoring finances – Planning additional fundraising activities – Brainstorming creative ways to share information with the school and community – Building relationships with local authorities

Strengthening capacity: teacher training workshops The SAS team conducted Teacher Training Workshops in Mathematics, Literacy, and Effective Teaching and Learning (ETL) techniques for instructors of Grades 1-6 who work at SAS target schools. The workshop involved two sets of 2-day trainings: one focusing on math/literacy in mid-November (34 participants) and one focusing on literacy/ETL techniques in mid-December (31 participants). Participants came from the communities of Chanleas Dai, Run, Prasat Knar, Preah Lean, Kambor, and Tram Kong.

Mathematics training This workshop focused on methods for teaching math that actively engage students and help them retain information. Participants honed their teaching methods for statistics, fractions, and geometry. The training also provided 606 textbooks for our teachers to use in classroom lessons.

Literacy training During this workshop, teachers focused on learning methods to help build relationships between individuals and the team, as well as students and teachers.

Participants were instructed in how to use a child-centered methodology, in which one can make connections through the use of games as teaching and learning devices. Instructors also helped participants make comprehensive lesson plans to insure that teachers utilize class time efficiently while maximizing the effectiveness of their lessons.

Effective Teaching and Learning (ETL) training This training focused on professional standards for teachers, with a focus on: – Classroom management –U sing the environment as a teaching resource –L earning how to deal with outstanding behavior problems

The training also covered Teacher Professional Standard Topics, including knowledge of professional standards, standard professional operations, standard morals for profession, and learning games to help build relationships between teachers and students.

In addition, instructors ran through classroom scenarios, and helped participants work through each situation as a lesson in classroom management.