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January 7th, 1979 marked the end of the Cambodian genocide and the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge forces. Despite 45 years of rebuilding the country, Cambodia remains facing many development challenges and one of them is the inequality of girls and women. UNESCO reported that, “88% of girls in Cambodia made their transition from primary to lower secondary school, but only 1 in 5 of those girls graduated from upper secondary school.” We further learned from the Children of the Mekong that, “Only 37% of Cambodian women reach upper secondary school.”
PeopleStories STEM for Girls program is to help talented young girls to pursue their high school education in STEM. As STEM education is almost non-existed in the rural villages, our program supports girls living and studying in a quality STEM high school in the capital city of Phnom Penh. This also means that the selected girls will have to relocate from their rural villages and live in Phnom Penh. Since 2020, we have successfully supported 3 young talented girls (Pokim, Kongnov and Sreymey) to complete their STEM high school education and 2 other girls (Solin and Tangyi) are on their journey as we speak. We often wonder why these girls are keen to be part of STEM for Girls?
She shared, “I have many dreams! Before I moved to PP, my horizon was limited. After seeing so many new things, my thinking has changed and my new dream is to be a Fashion Designer.” There is no doubt that Tangyi is enjoying her exciting experiences with her STEM high education and living in a big city has given her plenty of opportunities to broaden her horizons. How about challenges? We wonder what kind of difficulties she is facing living in the big city? Tangyi spoke emotionally, “When I moved to Phnom Penh, I was missing home so much! The biggest difficulty I face is living alone without my parents and family!”
Tangyi was deep in thought and then shared, “I really value this scholarship and will use it to gain not only knowledge but reach my dream! My advice for other young girls in the village is you need to try to be patient. Please learn more. When you learn you gain a lot of knowledge. When you have knowledge, you can pursue your dreams and change your life.”
Let’s wish Tangyi all the best with her STEM education. We truly look forward to hearing more about her journey. If you are passionate about gender equality and wanted to do something to give girls greater equal opportunities, please support our STEM for Girls scholarship: https://bit.ly/Donate_PS2024 Story written by: Volunteer Victoria Miloschewsky
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Critical thinking is defined as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, and/or evaluating information gathered from observations, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. At PeopleStories, there is a strong belief in this critical life skill. PS Mobile Digital School recently launched a Critical Thinking learning course for our children! We are very excited to dive into the details of this course and learn more about it.
Coming into a project that is working in unique circumstances, such as poverty and low literacy levels, can make the design of online learning courses difficult at times. Andreas explained, “Our approach involves repeated content presentation through various means like videos, audios, text, and images to reinforce key learnings.” Language barriers exist as well, as Andreas continues, “Translating courses from English to Khmer definitely presents design challenges. Recently we found that text animations in videos work well with English fonts but don’t display correctly when translated into Khmer fonts. Thanks to our fantastic team of translators, this issue was resolved.” Recently, at Chea Smonn Secondary School, there was a “Test & Learn” session with 30 children, using Andres’s very first designed digital learning unit. Andreas received feedback on that learning unit and beamed with joy, saying, “When I first saw a video of the Test & Learn session it made me incredibly happy. It is amazing to see children working through the unit and trying to figure out the answers to the “brainteasers.”
Congratulations to the 180 children and their families for receiving their much needed PeopleStories scholarships for 2024. It is wonderful to see the rural community getting together to celebrate the power of education. Founder Victoria shares at the ceremony, "Children, you are here today not because you are poor or your parents asked you to... You are here today because you have made a choice! A choice to go to school and a commitment to education. May your future be bright and let's seize the power of education."
The School for Life program is in its 7th year and we had several of the sponsored children graduate from High School. This is the first time that these, now young adults, can take their own steps, choosing what they want to achieve, and we are humbled that many of them chose to stay connected to PeopleStories. Let's share some of the amazing stories with you…
Seeing how Sreymey, with the right nurture, has developed into this beautiful and intelligent person is incredible and a proud moment for everyone. Her coming back to join us is also testament to the transformational power of the School for Life program and the value children see. It has always been one of our goals to get former students to give back to the community, creating a more sustainable and inclusive charity that is at least partially driven by those who benefitted from it previously. And of course it is so much more powerful if children see and hear from their own peers rather than being only told how important education is.
After PeopleStories has been for 6 years in their lives and seeing the girls and boys grow up almost feels like family. It’s the sense of belonging, the care but also the friendly nudge and push to work hard knowing how education will help them immensely later on. Chriya shared with excitement, “Teacher, I have started working at a guest house as a receptionist! I am finally able to earn some income to help my family!” Kimhang, who has grown so tall, also shared, “I have decided to help my family to farm and hope that my effort will improve their crops.” We are now starting to see them work or wait for university and it doesn’t really matter that much what it is they do as long as they have a choice and can do what they feel is right to pursue their dreams! Our care and our support does not stop with graduation. We continue to look for ways to help students pursue theirs with practical support. Some of them who returned started working in the city, which is an hour away from the village and we are now exploring more ways to support them. For us this year was all about 180 new dreams in progress but also several dreams started to come true with kind hearted former students continuing to be involved with PeopleStories and, importantly, starting to work and build their own lives. Making positive changes and ripple effects may not be as hard as you think. Take your step today and give PeopleStories a helping hand to empower those wonderful children in rural Cambodia: https://bit.ly/Donate_PS2024 Story written by: Volunteer Oliver Miloschewsky  |
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November 2024
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