18 November 2009 ~ 3 Comments

Why am I writing? And what do I do?

General

Blogging allows us to take “Reinvent yourself!” to new heights. Even when we don’t mean for it to happen, our “virtual” selves, and our “real” selves, might have little to do with each other, and the “virtual” world around our blog, twitter, and facebook posts might never know. Since I started blogging here, my outspoken voluntourism skepticism has taken over my “virtual personality”. This not only effects how I am viewed in the web world, but how people view the organizations I run.

I recently met with the founder of a large service travel organization to talk about voluntourism101.com and his thoughts for how to improve it/make the tool more user friendly, and some time after our meeting he wrote me something along these lines:  “Before we met, I thought you worked in voluntourism and you were promoting the benefits of this way of traveling.  It wasn’t until I met you that I realized that you are coming at this from the NGO side.”

As I’ve clearly virtually pigeon-holed my online-self, I thought I’d share how my real self would attempt to “classify” PEPY.

I wanted to clarify.  I, and PEPY, are not operating volunteer tours which then turn into development projects.  Instead, we are supporting the development of affordable quality education in rural Cambodia and our 10 tours per year are one way we raise funds and awareness to support similar changes globally.

PEPY is an educational development organization.  Legally, we are an INGO – registered both in the US and Cambodia.  We operate through the work of 30+ local Cambodian staff, the majority of whom are directly from the rural areas in which we work.  We now employ three foreign staff  but are working towards a place where programs are managed by Cambodian staff with foreign staff working only on donor management, fundraising, budgeting, and connecting to partner NGOs/outside ideas to add to the strategic planning process.

We operate formal and non-formal education programs in 11 villages, with library and literacy programs in 10 schools plus a variety of other teacher training and supplemental education programs.

That is the reason we are in Cambodia, the main work that I support, and why PEPY exists.  We also offer educational trips for our donors which raise additional funding for our programs and help travelers learn how to better support and understand NGO work globally and in Cambodia.  This arm of PEPY is small: we only operate about 10 tours a year for the last few years.

So my verbose voluntourism ramblings come in part from being in the receiving end of volunteer projects, but also from living in a country where the number of international volunteers increases daily, though the positive impact these people have might not.

I hope that clarifies a bit more about what my “real” self does in Cambodia, when not speaking in the virtual world.  Thanks for reading.

  • http://talesfromethehood.wordpress.com/ J.

    Interesting to learn a bit more about you and PEPY. I don't mean to be dense, but I seem to have missed the link between what you do/PEPY does and “the reason we are in Cambodia… and why PEPY exists.” Just curious: why Cambodia and not another country in the region? Why education and not another sector? Why tourism as a source of financial support for your program(s), rather than other donors?

    Cheers,
    J.

  • danielapapi

    Hi J –

    Thanks for the comment. I hadn't seen this until now.

    Good questions!

    Cambodia vs. any other: These might sound cliche, but they are honest. It is not because the “need” is greater for education in Cambodia than anywhere else in the world (it could be argued in my home country in the US we have the greatest unfilled need as we have so much power through our wealth that we had better start being better educated about how to positively!). It is not because we did an analysis of other countries and this was where our skills fit. It is because we visited Cambodia, knew people working in development here, felt compelled by the people we met and the recent history, and because we wanted to spend more time in the area. If I had not wanted to come back to Cambodia to explore more by bicycle, we would probably not have started the first PEPY ride, funded the first school, realized that buildings were a dime a dozen and that capacity building was where there was a greater need, and expanded our programs. We are in Cambodia, because we like the people we have met here, and because, as one of our staff said “It's a great time to be alive in Cambodia.” He emphasized “alive”, I would probably emphasize “Cambodia.” It is inspiring to be in a place where people are working hard to provide a better future for the next generation and where changes are happening fast (both good and bad).

    Why Education? I believe that education is THE key to change. No matter what the issue is. Changing attitudes and actions, around health/environment/social justice/poverty issues, etc all revolve around investing time in people, building new skills and sharing ideas. PEPY is “Protect the Earth. Protect Yourself.” as we had the naive view that we could educate about the environment and health on our first ride. The concept was that people would hopefully be more inspired to protect the earth when environmental impacts were related back to health issues. As we continued our work, we realized that basic primary education coupled with basic reading and writing skills were likely an even more basic prerequisite to some of the changes we wanted to see, so that is now our focus. Yes, our goals still incorporate environmental and health changes in actions, which are supported through out child clubs and other programs, but the key to all of these changes is investing in the capacity of people through education.

    Why tours? The tours are a separate entity from our NGO work. If the tours stop, the NGO programs will continue (from new donor support, they only bring in about 1/5 of our annual budget, though many of our larger donors are indeed past participants). It is not a matter of “rather than other donors”. We have a lot of other donors outside of our tours. Last year about 50% of our spending came from a grant from Dubai and we also have funding for our library program through a large partnership grant. There are many tour companies which support a range of NGOs around the world. PEPY, the NGO, does not rely on the tour company to survive, though we do think that it provides a valuable way for our donors to learn about the country and programs their funds are supporting. Last year we offered 8 tours, and we find that the costs associated with doing those are far less significant than the benefits of the advocacy and learning which comes out of them.

    We've also found that our tours are an opportunity to educate current and potential donors (not just to PEPY, but non-profits in general) about responsible giving. We have seen examples of good, bad, and ugly development work here in Cambodia and we spend time on our tours sharing these stories. Though we can and do blow whistles here when we see things we don't believe in, we think a more educated donor base can also significantly improve aid projects which have relied on successful marketing poor-performing programs. We think it is important for donors to know what questions they can ask to make sure that their funding is going towards projects they believe in.

    Happy to answer other question if you have them!

    – Daniela

  • danielapapi

    Hi J –

    Thanks for the comment. I hadn't seen this until now.

    Good questions!

    Cambodia vs. any other: These might sound cliche, but they are honest. It is not because the “need” is greater for education in Cambodia than anywhere else in the world (it could be argued in my home country in the US we have the greatest unfilled need as we have so much power through our wealth that we had better start being better educated about how to positively!). It is not because we did an analysis of other countries and this was where our skills fit. It is because we visited Cambodia, knew people working in development here, felt compelled by the people we met and the recent history, and because we wanted to spend more time in the area. If I had not wanted to come back to Cambodia to explore more by bicycle, we would probably not have started the first PEPY ride, funded the first school, realized that buildings were a dime a dozen and that capacity building was where there was a greater need, and expanded our programs. We are in Cambodia, because we like the people we have met here, and because, as one of our staff said “It's a great time to be alive in Cambodia.” He emphasized “alive”, I would probably emphasize “Cambodia.” It is inspiring to be in a place where people are working hard to provide a better future for the next generation and where changes are happening fast (both good and bad).

    Why Education? I believe that education is THE key to change. No matter what the issue is. Changing attitudes and actions, around health/environment/social justice/poverty issues, etc all revolve around investing time in people, building new skills and sharing ideas. PEPY is “Protect the Earth. Protect Yourself.” as we had the naive view that we could educate about the environment and health on our first ride. The concept was that people would hopefully be more inspired to protect the earth when environmental impacts were related back to health issues. As we continued our work, we realized that basic primary education coupled with basic reading and writing skills were likely an even more basic prerequisite to some of the changes we wanted to see, so that is now our focus. Yes, our goals still incorporate environmental and health changes in actions, which are supported through out child clubs and other programs, but the key to all of these changes is investing in the capacity of people through education.

    Why tours? The tours are a separate entity from our NGO work. If the tours stop, the NGO programs will continue (from new donor support, they only bring in about 1/5 of our annual budget, though many of our larger donors are indeed past participants). It is not a matter of “rather than other donors”. We have a lot of other donors outside of our tours. Last year about 50% of our spending came from a grant from Dubai and we also have funding for our library program through a large partnership grant. There are many tour companies which support a range of NGOs around the world. PEPY, the NGO, does not rely on the tour company to survive, though we do think that it provides a valuable way for our donors to learn about the country and programs their funds are supporting. Last year we offered 8 tours, and we find that the costs associated with doing those are far less significant than the benefits of the advocacy and learning which comes out of them.

    We've also found that our tours are an opportunity to educate current and potential donors (not just to PEPY, but non-profits in general) about responsible giving. We have seen examples of good, bad, and ugly development work here in Cambodia and we spend time on our tours sharing these stories. Though we can and do blow whistles here when we see things we don't believe in, we think a more educated donor base can also significantly improve aid projects which have relied on successful marketing poor-performing programs. We think it is important for donors to know what questions they can ask to make sure that their funding is going towards projects they believe in.

    Happy to answer other question if you have them!

    – Daniela