By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 05:08:00 +0000

Hi Eric – nnFunny you should write this week! I JUST sent a post last week to the participants who joined us on The PEPY Ride V as they had been involved in this project. I was giving them a “One Year Later” update. To be honest, in this case, the project does not have amazing results to share. I do not think that is because of a failure in the model of how we wanted to help but instead in our choice of partner location. In this case, the tourism program had not even started yet, but we had been informed that there was interest and that tourism was coming there way. In actual fact, once we visited a few times, we realized that the momentum to solidify their tourism offerings were spearheaded by a few people, but not necessarily positioned to take off. As such, it would make sense to do this type of work with a tourism program which was more solidified and in need of refinement, promotion, or new ideas rather than an early stage project which lacked the necessary leadership.nnFor example, a few weeks ago we had a group of students with us for a few weeks from an international school. They joined us for a two night homestay at a rural temple complex where there has been a community based tourism program for a number of years. The group organized specified English workshops for the restaurant and food preparation staff, the homestay families, and the local guides. This meant that, even though they were only their two nights, the trainings they were giving about vocabulary to be used with homestay guest was applicable to their jobs and will ideally help them increase their interactions with future guests. That is the type of thing I think we should do more of.nnThanks for checking in!n- Danielan—nnBelow is the section of the email to the PRV guests about Kompong Sammaki if you are interested in an update in that area:nnHello PEPY Ride V Team -nnWow…. can you believe it has almost been a year since you came out to Cambodia and met each other for the first time? As we are gearing up for round VI, it is hard to believe that a year has already passed since you pedaled onwards.nnI wanted to give an update, especially with regards to Kompong Sammaki. This is something I know you are likely all interested in hearing about, and something I wish I had more positive news to report on. During the trip last year, we had grand goals of supporting the K.S. team in their stated desire to create an eco-tourism program in their community mangrove site. That said, when it came time for the visit (while you were with us), there was some misalignment with our previous discussions and what was happening on the ground – both in terms of how our trip was handled financially by the group, as well as the solidity with which their group was looking to approach tourism. We invited the K.S. management team to a Community Based Ecotourism meeting in Phnom Penh and brought their team up to Phnom Penh for it, but found that the project was not far enough along, both internally, and from the network’s development, to be able to benefit from the relationship. Rithy has been the main point of contact with the K.S. team and has found that there has been little movement from their team internally to pursue a tourism approach. nnIt doesn’t seem that K.S. is the best match for a tourism support program for PEPY Tours, but we will keep you posted as we visit with them again in the coming weeks. That said, your support and funding for PEPY’s programs are having a more successful impact, and I believe you would be very impressed with the improvements at PEPY since you were last here. We are also expecting the arrival of a new director, a Cambodian woman who completed her graduate degrees in the US, from mid January – and we are all excited about what will likely turn into a localization process at PEPY.nnFollow along with us, come visit us, and fill us in on your work. We’d love to be kept in the loop and hope everyone is doing VERY well! Give us an update!nnHugs – D

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:11:00 +0000

Hi Daniela,nnFirst of all, thanks for sharing both your experience (good & bad) and the “slices of life” in Cambodia… I’ve been brought back to my own experiences on several occasions.nnAfter readin gthis post (and seeing the posting date – a bit more than a year ago)), it would actually be interesting to now have your reflections / feedback on the outcome of the project and of course… the learnings you got from it.nnLooking forward to reading more about it and many more topics,nnBest wishes!nn

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