<![CDATA[PeopleStories Charity - Blog - School for Life Post]]>

<![CDATA[PeopleStories Charity - Blog - School for Life Post]]>Sun, 03 May 2026 14:25:51 +0800Weebly<![CDATA[We Have Changed!]]>Mon, 16 Oct 2023 16:00:00 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/we-have-changed

In the heart of rural Cambodia, our mission at PeopleStories is to empower deserving children to complete their education. Our quest is not an easy one, for it demands the most precious of all treasures: time and unwavering determination. Yet, with the benevolent support of our cherished patrons, we weave spells of change, transforming lives, one child at a time.

Our journey began in 2017, and with each passing day, the power of time reveals the wonder we create.

Our first group of scholarship recipients is about to graduate from high school, and we recently had the privilege of listening to their inspiring stories. We heard stories of how our School for Life scholarships have rippled through their lives, and we were humbled by the impact we have made.

Samkhan, one of our scholarship children, was just 13 years old when he embarked on his journey with us. Growing up in a family of six, with his father a farmer and his mother a fish seller, Samkhan knew the struggle of poverty.

Yet, with our support, Samkhan discovered the magic of education and shared, “Being a student who used to be lazy in studying, I now study harder. I can also take extra after-school classes like the other students, with the support of PeopleStories.”

PeopleStories is all about empowerment and pursuing one’s dreams takes the core of our spirit. After graduation, Samkhan (who is now 19 years old) plans on continuing to further his education at a university and he aspires to be an architect.

He is very grateful for the opportunity to receive a quality education and said, “If there was no PeopleStories scholarship, I would have definitely faced difficulties such as not being able to continue my studies, not having the chance to take extra classes, and I may have even dropped out of school so I could work and help support my family.”

Our founder, Victoria, established the School for Life scholarship with a powerful vision: “Education is power! Without education, it is very hard to get out of the poverty cycle. PeopleStories is about empowerment and we hope to enable these children to complete school and ultimately uplift themselves from their poverty cycle.”

Channa, another scholarship child, shares this vision. She lives with her grandmother for most of her growing up years as her parents have moved far away for work. Channa has four siblings, and without our scholarship, education would have been a distant dream.

Channa (who is now 18 years old) is very excited to be graduating from high school soon. Studying harder with more subjects than before, Channa is proud of this change she’s seen in herself, “I understand more about the importance of education and I think that poverty is not the obstacle which can limit my future, but the lack of an education is.” She continued, “I can know myself more clearly and my dreams are my goals.”

With so much sparks in her eyes, Channa proudly declared, “After graduating high school I plan to continue studying a skill that I like the most and it is my dream; that is to be a nurse.

We are honored to witness the transformation of these children, to see their dreams take flight, and to know that we have played a small role in their journey. We congratulate all the children graduating from high school this year and encourage them to continue dreaming big.

To our cherished supporters, we extend our deepest gratitude. Your generosity has made a difference, and we invite you to continue to weave spells of change with us.

Together, we can empower more children to complete their education and transform their lives. Donate to help a child goes to school now: https://bit.ly/PS_Donate2023

Story written by: Volunteer Kathy Aunkst

]]><![CDATA[Every problem has a solution]]>Fri, 26 Aug 2022 06:13:20 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/every-problem-has-a-solutionGiving women and young girls equal opportunity to pursue STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education as well as 'future of work' helps enhance inclusion and reduce gender inequality. PeopleStories believes in equality and has established the STEMforGirls Scholarship since late 2020. S4G is the top level of our School for Life program and it enables selected high potential girls to obtain STEM education.

PeopleStories Founder, Victoria, went down the memory lane and recited some of the precious moments, “Teacher Sarith was over the moon when we took him to visit a few STEM and Technology schools in Phnom Penh. And I will never forget how KongNov and SreyMey started their journey back in 2020.”

KongNov and SreyMey have been on S4G for almost 2 years now and PoKim started on this exciting journey earlier this year. Having the opportunity to learn with great teachers, highly motivated students, interesting new subjects and school semester 1 just being completed, we are curious to see how the 3 girls are.

When it comes to favourite subjects, Pokim jumped straight into it and shared, “My favourite subject is Math. Because I like to calculate and one more, it's easy to think and I like to do exercises.” Whereas KongNov likes Biology and Physics the most as she can understand the concepts well. Now it is SreyMey’s turn and she enthused, “It’s Earth Science! I really like the way the teacher teaches us. I rarely feel bored while studying this, even if I didn't prepare the lesson before class, I still enjoy it. And Khmer too! It makes me know more about my country and love what I have. Especially, I feel like even if I don't really prepare for the exam, I can still get decent results.”

It is tough enough to pass the entrance exam to the STEM school. It is even tougher to study and stay afloat in the totally new curriculum. Coming from a rural village school, the girls are staying at the hostel with everyday chores looking after themselves, on top of studying a number of new subjects in English, a language that they are struggling with. It is just like sailing against the current. It takes a lot of grit, tenacity and resilience to go through the rigorous curriculum with not only new subjects taught in an unfamiliar language but also projects, competitions and surprise tests! All of that without the support of their family who are still back in Siem Reap.

Facing such strong currents, how did the girls feel about their Semester 1? Sreymey thought she was going to fail a Computational Thinking subject. Unexpectedly, she has passed all her subjects! It was not an easy journey for her though.

Sreymey confessed, “It's quite difficult for me, because in the Semester, we have many surprise tests which means some subjects I didn't even prepare well for. Also, teachers give us many assignments to do. I really need to manage my time very well to complete all those tasks.”

When Sreymey found herself struggling with Math and Earth Science, she joined a club to study more, though her results in Semester 1 did not require her to do so. Even though Earth Science is her favourite subject, it is not an easy subject to understand and she really needs to be very attentive, do research and complete the assignments.

Sreymey shared joyfully, “I can complete all the assignments both individual and group. It was a difficult time, because the assignments were assigned to us while we were having exams. I'm so proud that I can do it, even if the results might not be really good.”

On the other hand, KongNov and Pokim have received some unsatisfactory results and they reflected on taking steps to make the much required improvements.

Pokim, the newly-minted STEM scholar, mused, “For Semester 1, I felt some sadness and some happiness. For all of the subjects, it's difficult for me because the exercises and questions that the teacher asks me need to think a lot like History and Earth Science.”

Pokim elaborated, “Subjects that I struggled with are History, Biology and Earth Science. I think it's difficult for me. I tried to research it. Sometimes I speak alone and try to explain to myself to understand these subjects.”

Pokim further revealed earnestly, “I tried to tell myself I must do it! And I gave myself a treat when I understood the lessons like milk or cake. I research on YouTube, Facebook and Google when I don't understand the lessons. Every problem has a solution, try and I will get everything that I tried.”

With Semester 2 going in full swing, the conversations shifted to looking into the present and the future. KongNov declared with determination, “I feel better and I can manage my time. My goal is to pass all subjects at least 60% for each subject. And understand more about concepts I mean apply in real life.”

Being more goal focused, Sreymey shared, “My goal is to have a great experience in grade 11, I'll complete those 3 projects well. So then in grade 12, I will have two choices to choose. First one, Just focus on studying, because I have tried many difficult times in grade 11 already. And the second and also the last one is also to join some projects in grade 12 but only one or two if I can...”

The 3 girls may continue to encounter stumbling blocks in their pursuit of their STEM dreams. With the mindset of ‘every problem has a solution’, they will surprise us with the hurdles they cleared.

Want to plod them on in their arduous yet meaningful journey? Follow their stories today: https://www.peoplestories.net/school-for-life.html

Story written by: Volunteer Bok Hoon Ong

]]><![CDATA[What Happened in Semester 1?]]>Fri, 26 Aug 2022 06:11:46 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/what-happened-in-semester-1When a school semester comes to an end there is the feeling of accomplishment and the feeling of looking ahead to what can be improved. Our scholarship children at PeopleStories recently completed School Semester 1 and for the first time in PeopleStories history, a semester analysis was performed to get a sense of oru children’s achievements, potential problems and risk of children dropping out of school.

A recent report in the Phnom Penh Post stresses the need for change and improvement to education in the rural areas of Cambodia. It has been 5 years since we started our core program School for Life to help the deserving children complete school. In that time, we have gone from 21 scholarships in 2017 to 150 scholarships this year. It has been amazing to see this program grow in such a short amount of time

PeopleStories Founder, Victoria, shared with much excitement, “I am over the moon that we are able to help more and more children who are in great need. I often think about these children we care so much for and want to find ways to help them better.”

Victoria had an “ah-ha” moment and thought, in addition to being more in touch with how the children are doing in school, we need to look at their life more holistically and in particular understand their family situation at home. She shared, “Building on my little ‘ah-ha moment’ with our team, we expanded the performance review of semester 1 and to supplement this with home visits.”

When looking at the children’s school performance there are bound to be some surprises. Victoria compares it to standing in front of the mirror (*gasp*) and seeing things you like to see but there are always some aspects that make you go ‘oops!’.

Victoria proudly shared, “31 of our scholarship children have achieved their ‘Top 10’ positions in their rather large class (average 50 students). This truly proves that many of our deserving children can go the extra mile!”

Unfortunately, 7 of our children have dropped out of school and 1 of them is now an under-aged mother and a widow, too. Victoria said with a shaken voice, “My heart goes out to these children as their life journey may become more challenging as soon as they leave school.”

Teacher Sarith led our local team to conduct more than 50 home visits in a 2-week period. Sarith reflected on the experiences and shared, “I believe these home visits are very important to our children. Knowing someone out there cares about their future makes a huge difference. These visits also help us to detect if the children are likely dropping out of school or not?”

Sarith continued, “At one of the home visits, the mother was crying so much because her daughter had run away from home. After the visit, we further tracked down where the daughter is and was able to understand how we can help her better.”

“As I continue to witness how little these children and their families have, it is a constant reminder for me how important our work is for these children.” Sarith shared with much emotion.

It’s all too obvious how challenging life and school are for the children in Cambodia. We’re not looking the other way and PeopleStories is committed to helping these deserving children learn how to make the necessary changes to give themselves a brighter future. Assuring they have access to quality education is both the obstacle and the answer. Education is the key to change. We celebrate our successes and we learn where we can improve.

PeopleStories continues to grow and learn and we look forward to Semester 2 with our children and would love for you to come along with us! Please consider helping a child complete school. PeopleStories SchoolForLife 2022

Story written by: Volunteer Kathy Aunkst

]]><![CDATA[Rockstar I-Grow!]]>Mon, 27 Jun 2022 08:55:01 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/rockstar-i-growOver the past month, our Founder Victoria has been busy conducting problem solving workshops for both students and teachers in Cambodia. We have named this program: I-Grow. I-Grow is an active-based learning experience focusing on life skills. The first ever I-Grow was for problem solving and we shared it with 150 deserving children in our district of Bakong.

With the overwhelmingly positive feedback about the workshop and its experience, the Ministry has requested PeopleStories to train their school directors too! We were pleasantly surprised and pleased to be able to share the power of I-Grow.

Another exciting experience is to upskill a group of passionate teachers to become facilitators! This really shifted the paradigm from teaching to learning! And we are pleased to see a new group of facilitators are so ready to take on I-Grow and have the opportunity to showcase their facilitation skills in front of their senior colleagues in the educational field..

Teacher Pich who is currently a primary school teacher at our partner school was one of the +facilitators for I-Grow. When asked about how he felt about taking part in I-Grow and becoming a facilitator, Teacher Pich replied “I initially was not confident in my abilities as a facilitator, but some discussion and experience, I enjoyed the process as one. Being a facilitator helped me interact more with the school directors and I learn a lot from them. I also became much more courageous through this!”

“The most memorable part of the experience was about working in a team with the school director. As a team, we had to learn how to work well together and be receptive to the opinions and suggestions of all members.” Teacher Pich shared. “Hence, it was a good project that encouraged self-improvement and helped develop my knowledge and skills.”

School Director Huok Sokhann at Trapeang Po primary school located in Bakong district, Siem Reap province, shared with so much enthusiastic, “One thing that I enjoyed the most from the workshop today is about the way how to prepare the process of the program especially the materials used for this learning. It is like a new knowledge for me to learn and share this to my teachers at the school I think it is also very useful for us to resolve every problem we face at the workplace and also in living. I really like the workshop today so much if there is any of it next time, I will join again.”

We are so glad to hear how Teacher Pich, Director Sokhann and so many others have benefitted from I-Grow! We can’t wait to provide more teachers and students with this valuable experience.

If you would like to support our cause and help to improve education for both our students and teachers in Cambodia, you can donate here! Otherwise, we wish all our supporters a fantastic month ahead!

Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen

]]><![CDATA[Pokim is back!]]>Sat, 23 Apr 2022 08:16:02 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/pokim-is-backPokim is one latest scholar of STEM4Girls scholarship program who has moved to Phnom Penh for her studies 4 months ago. This year, Pokim is studying in grade 11 and has just reached home for some school holidays. As someone who likes studying science and IT topics, let’s find out how the new school has been for her so far and what she has planned for this school break!

Pokim shared, “ I feel happy and excited because I learnt new topics in my first semester. With the change of school to study in Phnom Penh, I had found it difficult at first however I was able to slowly adapt to the new school environment and demands.”

We are definitely glad to hear how she has grown to fit into her new school environment. We also hope that she will be able to receive the support she needs from her teachers and peers, especially after hearing that there were a few subjects in school that she did not do well in.

When asked if she found anything challenging for her, Pokim said, “ I found that studying this new subject: Computational Thinking was difficult for me. It was something that I have never heard about before. However I overcame this by studying more about this topic on my own through YouTube or by asking students who are good at it.”

Pokim certainly is shining with her resilience and resourcefulness in her studies. There is no doubt that she will be able to overcome future challenges with her positive attitude!

Pokim conveyed that she missed her family a lot because she wasn’t able to see them for 4 months and hence is very enthusiastic about this holiday break. “ I am very happy and excited! I look forward to travelling and eating with my family when I am home!” We wish that her dreams were fulfilled and she was able to enjoy some amazing delicacies with her family.

As for the next school semester, Pokim declared, ”I look forward to the next semester and I anticipate doing better than this semester. I plan on learning the lessons for all subjects before my teacher teaches them.”

We are amazed by Pokim’s tenacity and perseverance. She shared, “I also want to do more research on school subjects in English than in Khmer, I haven’t had the opportunity to do it much and have realized that I found it difficult to do hence I hope to make do this more often to improve on my English.”

Hearing this, we definitely wish Pokim all the best for her studies. And that is all for the adventures of Pokim thus far!

If you’d like to support girls like Pokim to complete school, you can donate here, thank you for all your support and happy April!

Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen Thum

]]><![CDATA[I Learn, I Grow.]]>Sat, 23 Apr 2022 08:09:33 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/i-learn-i-growPeopleStories achieved its new milestone on 19 April 2022 by organising the I-Grow Holiday Learning Program for its 150 scholarship children. I-Grow is designed to empower the rural community, including children, teachers and their families with greater life skills to make sustainable change.

I-Grow is a newly established interactive learning program and this time we are focusing on Problem Solving skills. In a constantly changing environment and with the dramatic impact from the pandemic, life skills are an essential part of being able to meet the challenges of everyday life.

Our Founder & CEO Victoria shared, "We're chuffed to host our first ever I-Grow on April 19 with 150 of our scholarship children! Even more excited to train 12 teachers to become facilitators whom will be supporting I-Grow!"

The success of I-Grow comes from a teaching community aboard as well as in Cambodia. As one of the designers, a virtual volunteer to PeopleStories and works as an educational programme developer at McGill University (Canada), Maria Orjuela shared, “Volunteering with PeopleStories for the children in rural Cambodia is definitely something new for me”.

Maria shared her feeling throughout the program development journey, “It has been an absolute pleasure. Victoria empowers me to get my imagination and creativity growing without losing perspective on what is realistic and what is not.”

When talking about the challenges, Maria said that not being familiar with the context nor the language is a challenge. “It is difficult to plan without too much knowledge of the context and I constantly questioned if the activities were at the level of the learners, but Victoria and Pheak Heng (also a virtual volunteer of PeopleStories) were fantastic in helping answer all the questions.”

It takes the teaching community to make I-Grow a reality. After attending the Facilitation Training, newly trained facilitator Tip shared, “I really enjoyed the Facilitation Training. I believe it can help me to enhance the quality of learning with our students very much."

Teaching is not always equal to Learning. PeopleStories sincerely wishes I-Grow can uplift learning experiences and achieve greater outcomes. With much excitement, Maria further shared, “First and foremost I hope they have a wonderful day. That at the end of the day they feel energized and happy to have attended. I also hope not only they learn about problem solving, but also that they value the importance of constantly learning - learning not only happens at school - I hope we can create more spaces for them to grow as learners!”

Maria, who dedicated her life to education said: “I have been working in supporting professors at the university level in enhancing their teaching. I have also been working with students in creating spaces for them to learn how to become lifelong learners. I hope we get to run many more iterations of I-Grow and provide PeopleStories children the skills needed in their near future.”

With full endorsement, Director Reangsey from the Ministry shared at his closing remarks, "I am delighted to see the active participation to all the learning activities from our students and teachers. Thank you PeopleStories for bringing the power of education to Bakong, especially the important life skill like problem solving."

Would you want to help us expand I-Grow with the deserving children in rural Cambodia? Join us as a virtual volunteer now: https://bit.ly/Join_PS

Story written by: Volunteer Pei Khoek

]]><![CDATA[School For Life 2022 Celebrations]]>Wed, 09 Feb 2022 16:00:00 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/school-for-life-2022-celebrations

After of two years of only zoom video of the ceremony, Founder Victoria finally returned to Cambodia to attend the School for Life Scholarship ceremony in person. With high spirits, Victoria got to witness the arrival of the bikes, setting up of the tentage for the ceremony and follow the teachers on their home visits to deeply understand how the children's family situation is.

As Victoria gave out the scholarship and took photographs with the awardees, the act of gifting dreams to these children brought great happiness. The vibrant performance by the children and the earnest speech of the parents all culminated in a dream come true for the children, parents and the community.

These were made possible not only by the kind donation from you, but also the hard work by the teachers, who tirelessly visited every eligible child. Teacher Kimsong shared of his home visits for the selectin of the scholarship awardees, “I am sad because my students are poor.”

Some of these students have no parents; some have parents who have gone far away for work and others have ailing parents. Hence, these students live with their grandmother or grandfather. Despite their difficult situation, these students have a common wish which is to go to school.

This is exactly what PeopleStories aims to do: to provide an opportunity for deserving children to receive quality education. PeopleStories goes beyond just providing school fees and books. We gifted bicycles, extra classes for Math, Physics, Khmer and Chemistry. With these aspects taken care of, the willing students have a fighting chance to go as far as they strive for.

‘I love going to school because I can learn many things. I like learning Khmer because it is a very easy subject for me to learn,” said a new scholarship student earnestly. His home has no door nor flooring. Everything he has can be seen in a glance. His mother has passed away from Aids and his ailing father is suffering from Aids. Sadly, he is also infected with Aids from birth. Yet, he remains hopeful and has the wish of becoming a teacher one day. These students love their village and aspire to improve the housing and transport of their village.

The returning scholarship awardees are, too, assessed to ensure that they are deserving of another year of scholarship. After receiving the benefits of the scholarships, they have developed the good habit of attending both school and extra classes regularly. When they met with difficulties in their studies, they looked to their teachers and parents for inspiration. They kept in mind the words of the parents, “Change life, have to study hard’.

‘Education is the great equalizer of our time. It gives hope to the hopeless and creates chances for those without.’ These words of Kofi Annan resonate with our purpose. Despite Cambodia’s 20% average school dropout rate, through our scholarship program, PeopleStories maintains its average dropout rate at less than 5% since 2017.

Want to create chances for those without? Please donate at:
https://ps-schoolforlife2022.raisely.com

Story written by: volunteer Bok Hoon Ong

]]><![CDATA[No more “Moo”!]]>Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:00:00 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/no-more-mooHappy 2022! Entering the new year, there are so many new and exciting projects that PeopleStories team is working on and we are looking forward to sharing with you!

One of them is the construction of fences around Chea Smonn Secondary School! There isn’t any boundary around the school. Instead, the school compound is directly connected to a few neighbouring farms. Hence, every so often, there are animals like cows wandering into the school compound, and at times, into the classrooms! Occasionally, farming machines (such as tractors) will also come into the school grounds where students are running and playing. This peculiar phenomenon compromises the safety of our students.

As such, PeopleStories started discussion with the locals about the school fence some time ago, but Covid-19 has shifted much of our focus. Since school is now closed for holidays, we seize the opportunity to get on with this important construction project to keep our students safe when they return to school in 2022. The project started in beginning of December and we hope to complete everything before the new school year starts on Jan 10, 2022.

PeopleStories is not only funding this important construction project but also mentoring teacher Kimsong to be the project manager. Due to the pandemic, many families are struggling to put food on the table. Hence, we have decided to offer employment to some of the local families especially the ones from our scholarship programme. We strongly believe it will be a win-win solution - Empowering Khmer to help Khmer.

PeopleStories believes in encouraging the locals and communities to get involved in community changes for sustainable positive changes. Many older students and their families are dropping in whenever they have time to give a helping hand, we are so excited to see the strong community spirit!

School Director Nika of Chea Smonn Secondary School said excitedly, “I envision more order in school with the building of the fences. Students will be more attentive during lessons. I imagine the school to have good aesthetics and campus, safe with space to grow vegetables. The building of this fence will definitely help with this goal!”

Director Nika also believe that this project will minimise the damage of school property and materials. We can definitely see how it may happen if buffaloes and cows invite themselves there freely!

She also shared that many parents were happy to hear about the construction of the fence and her vision for her students and the school, “Our vision for our students is for them to strengthen their discipline and learning, reduce the number of drop out students, as well as developing students’ information technology knowledge and skills. As for the school, I wish to create a conducive school and classroom environment for my students and teachers, install computers and wifi to support IT learning and to also train my teachers on how to use internet for research to teach students during their lessons.”

Like Director Nika, we look forward to the improved school and learning environment for our students! We truly hope that this fence project will bring about positive changes in their school experience!

If you want to support our cause and more projects like this, head over to our fundraising page here to donate! This year we are aiming to give out 150 scholarships to our students!

Wishing you an amazing start to 2022!

Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen Thum

]]><![CDATA[Reaching for the Stars]]>Wed, 15 Dec 2021 02:32:05 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/reaching-for-the-starsIt is a dream come true for Pokim when she heard the news about her STEM4Girls scholarship! Pokim said resolutely, “I am so happy to be selected for STEM4Girls scholarship. I will put in extra efforts to improve my spoken English and computer skills.”

If you remember, Pokim is one of the students, who has contributed time and efforts in the preparation of the “Zero Waste” competition. She has just relocated to the capital city of Phnom Penh for this life changing opportunity. We are thrilled to see her taking yet another step closer to reach her dreams.

So, why STEM? And why girls?

While Cambodia has made major progress in offering equal access to education for boys and girls, the country still suffers from a great gender disparity. Based on data collected yearly by international organizations and the Cambodian Ministry of Education, the dropout rate among female students starts to go up as they move up in level, particularly when female students reach the secondary level.

Then, what is preventing girls from attending school? 72% of the population lived on less than $3 per day, according to the Asian Development Bank in 2011. In 2011, 91% of poor households lived in rural areas, and about 80% of the population lives in rural areas. Poverty is one of the reasons for girls not receiving education.

In fact, a survey conducted by the UNICEF in 2012 shows that 36.1% of children in the country aged between 5 and 17 work as labourers, with more than 5 percent engaged in hazardous labouring tasks.

In the Cambodian society, customarily, boys are considered more important than girls. This belief is taught from one generation to another and has been largely shaped by the ‘Chbab Srey’ – sort of Code of Conduct for women – in which, basically, women are taught to be “worthless”.

Poverty, stereotypes and distance to school also are the main reasons that keep girls out of school (instead of complete school). Additional factors also include lack of career opportunities, corruption, the lack of latrines and sanitary facilities and the lack of female teacher (or even female school directors).

With this in mind, PeopleStories decided to uplift girls via our STEM4Girls Scholarship.  With now 3 girls in the program, we hope that more girls will be inspired to reach for the stars.

When asked for their opinion about the biggest educational problem back in the village, the 5 girls who came to Phnom Penh for the STEM school entry exam were open with their thoughts.  Pokim shared, “There are many students who play games, use Facebook or TikTok instead of using technology to learn. I wish to tell their parents to teach these students the importance of education.”  She further shared, “I would love to start a study club in her village and buy books for the students to read.”

While in Phnom Penh, the 5 girls and our 2 teachers got to visit the University of Puthisastra, which is one of the leading medical science educational institutions.   It is an eye-opening and inspiring experience for all!  Teacher Kimsong said excitedly, “It was such a precious opportunity not only for the girls but for myself as a teacher to see a bigger world out there!”

Would you like to play a part in helping more girls gain access to STEM education? Wave your magic wand for the girls, make a donation today: https://ps-schoolforlife2022.raisely.com/

Source:
https://universelles.net/2017/09/08/girls-education-current-challenges-in-cambodia/

Story written by: Volunteer Bok Hoon Ong

]]><![CDATA[Winners of Zero Waste Competition 2021!]]>Mon, 15 Nov 2021 07:05:41 GMThttps://www.peoplestoriescharity.org/blog---school-for-life-post/winners-of-zero-waste-competition-2021We have our winners from our Zero Waste competition!

On 10th November, all the finalists gathered together for the final judging. Along with Teacher Sarith and Teacher Song, who helped to translate between the judges and the students, each finalist had a chance to pitch to the panel that their product deserves to win! It was heartwarming to see the local community wearing their PeopleStories uniform and talking to one another as they shared their creations.

Our judges included Mr. Reangsey Tann, the Director of Ministry of Education (Bakong District) and Victoria, our founder, Matt LeNevez, our charity ambassador, Pavlos Spyroupoulos, our corporate supporter and CEO of Llyod’s Asia and Ghada Turner, another one of our corporate supporters and CEO of Pantry to Plate.

During the event, our judges asked interesting questions to each of the finalists to get to know more about their creations and about them!

Our founder, Victoria said, “Honestly, I was a bit nervous as we have never done any live webinar event like this before. As technology is always a challenge in rural Cambodia, we really didn't know how it was going to be. I am glad everyone had a fun time, and the event was a success." We sure think that the event is a success too!

Let’s hear from the winners of the competition! One of them is Borey from the Individual Student Category who won first place with his upcycled luggage! When interviewed, Borey said, “I am very happy about winning the competition! I made a luggage because I thought it was very easy to make and I could use it too.”

How did the judges feel about Borey’s createion? “The judges and I were blown away by Borey’s creativity for designing the travel luggage. He is so resourceful by upcycling used milk cans as wheels and water pipes as handles. We were also inspired to hear about his dream for being a footballer and how this travel luggage will bring him overseas,” Victoria gushed. We certainly think that he is one amazing boy with incredible aspirations too!

Like Borey, another winner Solyn from the Student & Family Category, was ecstatic when she heard that she had won first place in the competition! She mused on how this competition has changed the way she now look at waste, “Before I think that waste can’t be reused but now, we can reuse and change it into other things that can use to decorate school or home.” We are truly happy to see that this competition has created a mindset shift in our participants.

On why Solyn’s and her family’s creation were Champions, Victoria raved, “Solyn’s pitch performance was one of the best! We were all very impressed not only by the items she made but by her enormous courage to speak up. We certainly heard her voice about sustainability loud and clear.” Hearing that, we sure think that she deserved to win!

Victoria summed up the thoughts of the judging panel, “The amount of creativity we saw is just tremendous. With such limited resources, the children have done so well by not only ideating but actually building items like travel luggage, flip flops...etc. I am delightfully surprised.”

We have received many positive feedback right after the event. Roberta, one of our supporters thanked us for creating and hosting such a wonderful event and that she thinks, “All the finalists were just amazing!"  We will absolutely host similar event again and boost quality education with our children in rural Cambodia.

When asked about how the prizes won will help our students, Victoria said, “During school closures due to COVID-19, 60% of our scholarship children have no digital asset to enable their online learning. Therefore, we have decided to provide 4 smart phones and 260kg of rice as their prizes. With these smart phones, we are hoping to open more online education opportunities for our children in rural Cambodia and bringing the wider world to them.”

We are elated that Zero Waste has come to a fruitful end and we would like to celebrate our journey with this competition and the creations of all our participants whether they won or not. We are so proud of every single one of our participants and their creations. If you were not at the live event and would love to watch it, do not fret! We have the video up on our Facebook Channel, so do check it out and give us a follow! Also, if you’d like to support our children in Cambodia and provide them with more of such opportunities, visit our fundraising webpage. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen Thum

]]>