Lessons I Learned

Whenever a group of people visit me in Cambodia and want to learn about responsible development, we usually go visit RDIC, an organization working with a variety of rural applicable technologies in the areas of water, health, agriculture, and more. Whenever we’re there, I’m always struck when one of the managers, John, says one of his staple lines: “What gives you the right to think you can leave your money in this country?”

He’s spot on…. what gives me the right to leave my money here? What makes me think I know the best way to give my money to solve the problems I perceive here? Who was I to think I could come here and try to serve when I hadn’t learned?

BUT, what gives me the right to travel to this country and NOT leave my money here? If I travel through and I take so much from the place I am visiting, what right do I have to leave without trying to “help”?

Such is the traveler’s dilemma…

This, I realized, addresses our core message at PEPY Tours. We do NOT have the implicit right to leave our money in a country because it’s burning a hole in our pocket, because we come from a wealthier country than others, because we feel pity, because we feel guilt, or just because we “want to help”. We have to EARN the right to leave our money here, because throwing our money around without doing research and following up on our actions can do more harm than good. It could be argued that we shouldn’t have the right to come to visit to begin with if we aren’t willing to try to make sure our money, both from our travels and our giving, goes to responsible hands hands…. but this learning sure takes time!

I had no right to leave my money here when I first came to Cambodia to fund the construction of a school – I knew very little about the country, about development, about how to vet a partner NGO, about what successful community development might look like, etc. I hope I have now educated myself and earned some rights to financially contribute to development in Cambodia by:

–    RESEARCHING and learning how to give wisely. This also means vetting projects and programs well, connecting not just with the people involved in the project, but others who are much more knowledgeable about the specific area that I want to work in.

–    INVESTING IN PEOPLE, not just things, through capacity building, trainings, and connecting people to ideas and to each other. I realize now that before PEPY went out to invest in a building in 2005, we should have first joined forces with an invested community and involved teachers and school support committee in the process.

–    FOLLOWING UP on the funds I have given. I have made mistakes and funded irresponsible projects, but if I walked away, didn’t ask questions, or refused to believe when I found out that my funding had been misspent, I would have failed to learn from my mistakes and I would perhaps have continued to invest in the wrong things.

–    COMMITTING TO IMPACT, not inputs. It is easy to give away a few bednets and equate that action to saving a few people from malaria. In fact, if I gave you three bed nets, you can probably guarantee that you can give them away in the next hour and consequently report a 100% success rate for your “project”. But if I asked you to REALLY save three people from malaria tomorrow, it would be a lot harder to achieve and perhaps even harder to measure. That said, we can’t take the easy way out, just because it has guaranteed results. We need to commit to impact over inputs, which makes our work messier, harder to track, and more prone to failure, but has the potential to be way more successful at working towards solving the problems we face.

Once we have committed to researching, investing in people, following up, and committing to our impact, I believe that we can then tell John that we have indeed earned the right to leave our money here. The more we learn about development successes and failures, the more right we earn to donate to Cambodia by becoming more likely to invest in positive impacts.

It seems that nearly every GAP year program, international school curriculum, and business incentivizing “volunteer leave” is now harping on the concept of “service learning”. They are no longer calling it “volunteering”, as the learning is being emphasized, but what I think we need is a further revolution of this concept. I no longer believe in “service learning” as the best thing to promote to travelers visiting a new place. I now believe in and want to promote the concept of:

Learning Service

or

Learning to Serve

By prioritizing learning, we are able to live the mantra I now try to repeat and remember: we have to learn before we can help. By noting that learning comes before serving, we are reminded of participatory development theories, about researching before we act, about how doing good isn’t something we can take for granted – it takes work. Learning Service means we are learning HOW to be of service: learning about development issues and how we might help or hinder progress through our interventions, about how to vet responsible partners for our money or our time, and about who the players are in the areas we are passionate about and where our skills might add the most value.

Businesses, let your staff members have that same “volunteer leave”, or even more of it, if they decide to learn before they help. Invest in their learning service options so they can become better world citizens and they, your company, and our society will be better for it.

Schools and parents, incentivize your students to learn before they help. Don’t send them out telling them to solve problems they don’t yet know about. Remind them that, just like writing a great paper, we need to do our research first. Show them how that is done by modeling learning service in your school programs.

If any of you reading this are interested in writing a short paper with me on this topic at some point, let me know as I’d love to send this concept out to schools and CSR programs as a challenge to them to incentivize more responsible service by prioritizing learning first.

What are your thoughts on this? Is there a better way to do or to describe whatever you believe to be the most responsible way to travel to a new place?

Ahh, bednets. NGOs sell the idea of giving things away by equating each thing we give away to “the poor”, like a bednet, as equal to “saving a life”. If only it were that easy….

This week a fascinating group of visiting students told us about a campaign that had happened in their school to send bednets to Africa. They spent their week with us as we all learned more about how to be a responsible donor, and eventually we touched on several points that lead all of us to agree that sending bednets to Africa is perhaps not the best way to “save the world”.

Let’s analyze some of the problems.

What time of day to mosquitos usually feast? When are you usually itching and scratching and putting on bug spray?

If you said sunset, then you’d be CORRECT!

So if YOU don’t usually hang out in your bed at sunset, and the “poor people” we seem to all be trying to “save” are working in Cambodia (or your favorite African country) until sunset, well then THEY probably aren’t hanging out in their beds at that time either. In other words, bednets are indeed IMPORTANT, but they are not the holy grail of health. Bednets alone do not “save” ANYONE from malaria; rather they are only a PART of the solution.

What else is needed to combat malaria? Well, in Cambodia (where I’d like to note that malaria is not prevalent in many parts of the country – much less so than in places like Papua New Guinea) deaths from Malaria are very preventable. No one should be dying from Malaria here – there are medicines, free clinics, and lots of groups trying to “save” people with bednets.  So why would anyone die of the disease here anymore?

Some people get very ill from malaria because they avoid a visit to the doctor right away and wait until they are near-death before going in order to avoid wasting money. In addition, there’s often a lack of knowledge regarding malaria. Many people don’t know:

– Where malaria comes from

– How to prevent the spread of mosquitos in and around their home

– How to tell the difference between malaria and the flu

– How severe the illness can become if left on treated

– The ease with which the malaria can be treated

– Which local remedies are effective

– The availability of medicines in urban areas

– Where they can get treated

– If a free clinic exists nearby

This lack of knowledge is a direct consequence of benefactors relying on giving away THINGS, like bednets, without investing the time in education or connecting people to the other resources and information they might need.

We can’t continue to dumb down statistics and create false facts. A bednet does NOT save a life. It’s a part of the solution, but it’s the EASIEST and QUICKEST part. It’s a tempting solution, because we can act instantly, and then pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. We can’t keep advocating that THINGS are the only solution – that giving out a bednet, equates to saving a family.

We all know our time is the most valuable resource that we have, so we create false metrics to help us save time and fool ourselves into thinking that we achieved guaranteed results, because anyone can walk out the door and give away a mosquito net. It’s not as easy to walk out the door and “save a life”. Mosquitos are sadly still biting at sunset, and although NGO marketing material might tell you otherwise, our things aren’t out there “saving” people for us.

Reminder to self: There’s more to it than giving things away.

Yesterday I posted a piece which has gotten a lot of attention that is questioning our human tendency to focus on the hero story rather than the impact of development work.

My complaints are not so useful if I don’t consider giving alternative options … so here we go. Here are some of my take-aways for the Would-Be-NGO-Fan-or-Donor which also apply to the Budding-Do-Gooder. There are MANY more ideas for guidelines than this and countless development blogs which focus on responsible development work (like this one), so don’t take this as a complete list.  I will focus on a few topics relating to yesterday’s post in order to help us avoid the hero-story dilemma and to stop incentivizing people to move to a “poor place” and take immediate action. I believe that, if we all stuck to this code of conduct, we’d have at least slightly fewer failures in the social sector and our money would be having more impact.

PLEASE add your thoughts to this.  It is not a thorough list, and I’d love to read more ideas about what I might have overlooked.

The Would-Be-Donor and Budding-Do-Gooder’s code of conduct

I, the soon-to-be do-gooder or donor to one, do herby commit to doing good through following these principals of high-quality do-gooderness:

1)   I promise that, if I know nothing at all about a social issue that I would like to effect positive change in, before choosing which group to fund or starting my own project or NGO, I will ask others who DO know about the issue to educate me a bit more before taking action. If the project I am considering being a part of is in a country or area I know little about, I will ask a range of people who live in that area their opinions and value those over mainstream media reports.

2)   If I can find a role model in this area, I will even go out of my way to thoroughly research or work for their project for a period of time so that I can better understand how and why their work is successful. As a donor, I will choose to praise and fund people who do research before starting large projects and who value and acknowledge that we have to learn before we can help.

3)   I will do research to educate myself by asking a range of other organizations working in the same sector to understand the lessons they have learned and to try to avoid making the same mistakes others have made in the past.

4)   I will ask a range of people working in the same field who they respect in the sector and why. I will ask people about their failures and what changes they have made to their programs now rather than in years prior which have increased the impact of the work they are doing.  If they can’t or won’t answer questions relating to mistakes they have made, I will not give them funding nor will I consider theirs a highly respectable model worth repeating.

5)   If I feel that I understand the sector, the common mistakes and the issues involved, and if my proposed solution is embraced, not only by my family who are pretty much obliged to love my ideas, and not just by local media in my hometown who know little about the work I am trying to do, but is supported by a range of experts and experienced do-gooders who are also working in the same area, only then will I consider taking action.

6)   I will focus on designing and refining the impact of what I am doing first before I start thinking about branding, logos, and fundraising.  If I am donating to a project, I will fund groups who speak about, focus on, and answer questions relating to their impact rather than being wooed by the NGO choices with pretty websites, main stream media, or late-night TV features.

7)   If I am not the beneficiary, as in, if I am trying to help a group of which I am not a part (perhaps “the poor people of such-and-such place” or “people with a, b, or c problems which I don’t have”), then I will first seek to find a leader who IS part of that group, and consider partnering or working for them first rather than taking charge on my own. As a donor, I will value organizations which are spearheaded by a local person or member of the beneficiary group, or at minimum, a group working towards such leadership.

8)   If I dare to then start something, knowing the hard work, the common problems, and the level of commitment this is going to take, I commit to admitting my mistakes along the way and sharing them with others so that they can hopefully learn from them too. I will admit and share my failures, and I will not try to hide them. As a donor or super-fan, I will “like” organizations who talk about and share the lessons they learn with others and I will value discussions of failures.

9)   I will always remember that I am human and that I can’t solve all of the world’s problems at once. I will keep in mind that I have my own needs as well, and that I shouldn’t make life-long promises to anyone if I am not sure that I will commit to keeping them in the future.

10)   If a donor, journalist, friend, or fan praises me saying that I am “like Mother Theresa,” thinks I’m so great for “dedicating my life to the poor,” or says “It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you go out there and do something,” I will correct them. I will let them know that development work done poorly CAN cause a lot of harm, and I will give them examples because I will have seen some of these while doing my research. I will remind people about the IMPACT of the work I am doing and tell them that is what they should focus on, not the fact that I’m so brave/cool/or nun-like. As an observer, I will become a fan of people who don’t let me compare them to Bono.

Please add more!

I heard a disturbing story this week. A friend who works in Battambang, a northwestern province of Cambodia, told me that she had recently met a young traveler from Australia in her late teens who said she was starting an orphanage.

When asked why she came to Cambodia, she said:

“I was so inspired by a story I saw on TV that I decided to come here myself.  Cambodian kids are SO cute!  Now I have three of my own!”

Uh oh …

The most disturbing part of this statement is the issue that this girl is treating Cambodian kids like Barbie dolls—as if she can just pick the cutest one off the shelf, take it home, and call it hers. But I want to focus on the bigger picture. Why did this girl think coming here to “save” Cambodian children was ok? Where did she get the go-ahead to do this?

She got the thumbs up from us. From society at large. From what the media chooses to highlight. And from hero-worshipers who focus on the WHO of social causes and not the WHAT.

This teenager had been inspired by a TV feature she had seen about another young girl who came here to Cambodia at 21 years old and later, as the media describes it, “saved Cambodian orphans” by becoming their “mother.”  She was given awards in her home country for setting up an orphanage and the media produced a documentary starring this girl, reenacting not only her original rescue of 17 kids from a horrible orphanage, but also her own reenactment of how she took in additional kids she had found who were living with other families whom she felt needed a better home.

Although the media was clearly trying to highlight this girls bravery, her story of leaving a wealthy society behind to help the poor, and her remarkable instinct to act while so many others might have been too scared, for a range of reasons, to do so, the media and the award judges probably did not consider that other young people might view this as permission to go to a poor country and “getting a few cute orphans of their own”?  It seems like they should have.

I think we as a society need to be careful how we highlight philanthropy and who we choose to idealize. The stories people hear about development work around the world tend to be those of people who have led lives others might envy (working in film, Hollywood producers or starts, wealthy New York elite, etc). The media LOVES it – they love talking about how beautiful people, who could have continued to pursue popular and idealized careers, “gave it all up to help the poor.”

But they rarely focus on WHAT those people are doing—or better yet, HOW is they are doing it? Before we turn “do-gooders” into national heroes we need to move beyond the hero story of leaving fame and fortune behind and ask the tough questions. We need to do due diligence and dig into the WHAT of these organizations, not just the WHO, to be sure we are promoting responsible, educated, long-term efforts which can be models for replicable positive change.

In Cambodia, the Ministry of Social Affairs has guidelines around orphanages, and they—and so many other child protection groups around the world—state that keeping children with their families or extended families should be top priority where possible and, if that is not possible, one should consider foster care or small (8 children per adult recommended) family-style living. By promoting media pieces, awards, and articles which make it almost seem easy to take a child out of a bad situation and put them into a better one just by the nature of only rewarding and recognizing the act of removing the kids from where they were, we are giving others permission and incentive to repeat those actions.  The media rarely digs into best practices around an issue. In the case of orphanages, the media didn’t think to discuss alternatives or to do into questions about what globally respected child rights organizations describe as best practices in this area. When people fall in love with the hero stories they see on Oprah – people building schools, digging wells, building libraries – they often take a deep look into the story of the person taking action, but gloss over the details of the organization’s actions.

If we skip over those things, all we see is a hero’s story. The desire to help is something we need to embrace and then harness for good in the most responsible way. But, good intentions are not enough, and we can’t continue to praise people because their IDEA was good, or their INTENTIONS were good. This post is not intended to say that things which start out without following best practices can not be great or praise worthy in the future.  This post is to remind people who vote for “hero” awards, people who work in media, and all of us who talk about/donate to/volunteer for/idealize those who have gone out to “do good” in the world, to BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PROMOTE THROUGH YOUR PRAISE!

By praising things which make development work look easy, which make it seem like any person with no specific training can come in and start a successful NGO project, which only focus on praising how something started but overlook the discussion of the long-term systems in place to ensure a positive impact, we are setting up more opportunities for development work disasters. This isn’t the first time a young, self-identified-as-unqualified person has been praised for taking in orphans in a “poor country.” Nicholas Kristof promoted this type of action in the New York Times by highlighting a 19-year-old girl who started a children’s shelter in Nepal (see Maggie’s story in this DIY Aid article).

I feel passionately about this issue because I was once the young idealistic 20-something myself who started something I too was unqualified to start (and I sure am glad that what I started didn’t involve taking children into my home!). The reason I have this blog is to share the lessons I have learned in order to help prevent people from making the same mistakes I made. When I was twenty-six, some friends and I organized a bike trip across Cambodia, and we thought we could improve education by building a school.  We were fortunate to realize that starting a school on our own would not have been the wisest decision, so we found an NGO building schools and raised funds for their work. Were we praised for this “heroic deed” or building a school in a poor country when all of us came from rice places like the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Finland?  Yes, of course!  Lots of people wrote notes or articles about our heroic deeds.

But what were they praising?  A bunch of kids building a building which would sit there empty if we left it at that.  It has taken us five years of hard work to try to make that initial investment of a building worth while as we realized that other organizations were more concerned with building buildings than building education.

We started off funding this work by offering “voluntourism” trips, where people could “save the world in a week” and come volunteer in Cambodia.  What we learned early on was that we were doing two major disservices by offering trips which were focused on giving rather than learning: 1) by rushing to help, we were encouraging people to take action before they fully understood a problem or a goal, which can often lead to unnecessary mistakes; and 2) we were creating experiences which made US feel good, which were catering to the universal desire to be a hero, and which were more about filling the needs of the looking-to-feel-needed traveler than of the “beneficiaries” of the projects we claimed to be supporting. We realized through our own missteps that we have to learn before we can help, and that sustainable change takes time and expertise.

My friend Nik made a great comment about this mentality when she said:

While I understand the desire to help kids who are in bad situations, I can’t understand why people think the logical solution is for the kids to be then entrusted in the care of a young girl. If we come across someone who says their community needs a well, no one would just start digging on the spot and fudge their way through it, would they? It would be obvious that you didn’t know what you were doing!

But sometimes it isn’t obvious to the “doer”, and that is why I think we need more development education initiatives in schools, for travelers, and for the philanthropists.  It also isn’t always obvious to the media, and then the media sells heroes to the public based on their personal story of taking action without the knowledge to back that up, as if that were a GOOD thing.

So why do we allow this when it comes to KIDS—real humans—rather than wells? And why do we incentivize it by making people heroes, thereby encouraging others to do the same? After seeing too many cases of people who have been praised as heroes who then leave the project they started after a few years when it gets too hard, I think we need to redefine a hero as someone who takes the time to research, learn, and make sustainable choices in an effort to make their project NOT all about them, but about the impact the media seems to always overlook.

The media is not afraid to dig deep into the hero story. They are looking at THEM with a microscope – interviewing their parents, finding out about her past – but they are not looking at THE WORK they are apparently being praised for with the same microscopic lens.  Where is the interview of the the stakeholders? Where is the discussion of long-term plans for the wells, for the schools, for the kids?

It is interesting that, for all of the general population’s talk about wanting to understand the impact that an organization has before we make a financial contribution, we seem to say one thing and yet do another. We get blinded both by great advertising and by fame, yet we state that we understand the responsibility of donating. When we donate, we are voting with our funding – we are voting for what we want to see repeated. If we don’t do our homework and we fall victim to flashy branding or tear-jerking stories, we are voting for something we know little about. In this case, the media voted, and more teenagers are coming to Cambodia to start their own orphanages.

Let’s focus on impact rather than on the “hero” if we want to praise successful models which we’d like to see repeated. This is not to discredit the entrepreneurial spirit – I love people who see a problem and come up with new and previously unimagined solutions to the world’s problems – we need those people! But I’ve learned that those of us who are inclined to jump into action with our ideas need to take a breath, look around and ask questions, and examine other possible solutions which have already been tried and tested, ESPECIALLY when it comes to kids. We continue to dole out praise for this type of work at the same time that the mainstream media is finally recognizing that orphanages and orphanage-based volunteer work can cause such negative impacts!

Kjerstin Erickson, founder of Forge, gets it right when talking about the focus on “The Social Entrepreneur.” Her complaints from her SocialEdge blog against focusing on the founder’s story can apply here:

“…the mythology of The Social Entrepreneur revolves the whole story around the individual. Through a shrewd sleight-of-hand, our attention is turned away from the collective movement and toward an individual onto whom a Hero’s Journey is imposed. The drama of such a tale is high, but at what cost? Kings and Queens are made, and many a speaking career launched…but what is sacrificed? What collective narrative, what real representation of holistic social change, what inclusive vision for proudly joining hands as small cogs in a big wheel?”

She knows all about the problems of focusing on the “hero” rather than the work because she herself went to Africa as a teenager and then started up a development organization.  She too was recognized around the world as a talented young woman who had every opportunity available to her through her Stanford education and yet she chose to “do good.” It must have been frustrating for Kjerstin to get praise around her hero’s journey all of the time when she was probably more proud of the cases when people dug in deeper and learned about her work enough to praise her for her IMPACT, not her decision to put her pretty face into a poor country.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT THESE HEROES CAN’T OR DON’T GO ON TO DO GREAT THINGS!  If anything, let’s hope the praise and fame incentivizes them to continue to improve their work.  In my own story, once all of these people had donated their hard-earned money to help us build a school and praised us for our efforts, I felt a need to prove them right.  When we realized a school does not teach kids, people do, we could have walked away with a pretty building with our name on it, but instead we stayed.  We started off unqualified, and in my opinion, NOT worthy of praise.  I would NOT recommend anyone to move to Cambodia and start an NGO when they know very little about the people/place/systems.  We didn’t deserve praise when we got it. BUT, now, after five years, there are parts of our work and our programs that I think can and should be viewed as repeatable models, and many other organizations are coming to look at or train with our programs to see them repeated.  In other words, for all of the heros we have commended for how they STARTED, we should check in and check in to commend them for how they IMPROVED as, we don’t want to provide incentives for unqualified people to start things.  We want to inspire people to support or learn about models which work to positively impact their goals and target areas, and that takes a lot more time/effort/know-how and commitment than just the heroic act of starting something.

There is a debate going on in the comments of this blog right now which has gotten into this “hero’s journey” dilemma as well. One of the commenters admits that his respect for the popular organization, charity:water is due in part to his love for the founder’s “leaving big fancy job to save the world” story. If we are going to focus on impact, we need to dig deeper and know what we are funding behind the famous face.

We need to dig into the WHAT of these organizations, not just the WHO, to be sure we are promoting responsible, educated, long-term efforts which can be models for replicable positive change. We should be praising people who go out and learn – who go out and educate themselves on the responsible ways to have an impact before they act, ESPECIALLY when it comes to taking kids in. If we don’t and if the media continues to depict acts of young people with little or no qualifications working directly with kids as heroic, then we are providing incentives for more development disasters with other young people “getting a few cute orphans of their own”?  What a shame.

Watch what you promote.

—

NOTE: This post was changed to remove a name/organization, but the message and previous examples are still the same with additional examples added in.  The point is still the same: Promote good impact. Not just good and interesting people.

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE: I recognize that criticism is less helpful than suggestions for improved future actions. Read this next post about actions you can take as a budding-do-gooder and a wanna-be-responsible-donor which can help us avoid funding or starting irresponsible aid projects.  This is by no means a complete or thorough list – please add your thoughts!

Resources:

How to evaluate an orphanage, by Saundra Schimmelpfennig

Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do, by Ian Birrell

Cambodian Orphanage Tourism, on Aljezeera

Orphanage Tourism: The Catch-22 of Orphanage Funding, by Eric Lewis

Orphanage Tourism in Cambodia: Good Intentions are Not Enough, by Saundra Schimmelpfennig

A Protest Against Orphanage Tourism, and other orphanage tourism related posts on this blog

Sasha Dichter of Acumen Fund reminds us to be generous and use our heart, but to “ask the tough questions”

About a year ago, I went to TEDx in Bangkok with my friend and co-worker, Rithy, and immediately afterwards we decided that we wanted to organize at TEDx event in Cambodia.  One year later, with a team of 7 other fabulous people, we helped bring TEDx to Phnom Penh for the first time.

Our goals had been to be part of a movement to bring idea sharing type events to Cambodia but mostly to connect with young Khmer students and leaders.  Rithy started a group called Khmer Young Entrepreneurs (KYE) and they are going to organize Khmer Talks, an idea sharing forum by young Khmer leaders, for young Khmer leaders.  I can’t wait to see it happen!

Rather than give you all a breakdown of the TEDxPhnomPenh day, I’m just going to link you to a post by one of the attendees, Leigh, as she did a better job describing the day than I could do anyway!  Read up, and enjoy!

I know that I started this blog intending for it to be separate from PEPY, but since my life and PEPY are intertwined, that is sometimes impossible!

Here is a letter I recently wrote to many of PEPY’s supporters which I thought I would share:

—-

Hi PEPY Family –

I am writing today to let you know that after Layheng’s first three days we already know we have made a fabulous decision (actually, we were sure after the first hour when she wowed our team talking about her personal philosophies and goals).  Picking a leader to manage PEPY’s programs long into the future was a daunting task.  Finding people with high level management skills is always a challenge, but in our case, we also needed to find someone with the heart that is necessary to continue the PEPY culture. We needed someone from Cambodia who is dedicated to improving their own country’s educational offerings but who also has seen examples of highly successful educational programs around the world to be able to set the bar high. We needed someone who was in a time in their life to be able to put their full energy and heart into growing our team, our organization, and our impact yet who had the wisdom and managerial experience to balance logic with passion.  We needed someone who believes that reaching communal goals means investing in each team member to reach their personal goals, who is a joy to be around, who cares about those around them, and who believes in their own ability to be a leader for positive change.  We needed someone named Layheng, and we found her.

We have been looking for Khmer leadership for more than two years, and after going through more than 100 applications and dozens of interviews, last year we were nearly ready to settle for someone who could “get the job done”. Having spent the last five years here in Cambodia with my heartstrings tied to each member of our team and the goals we see possible in the future of our organization, it was hard to think about handing this over to someone pretty great when we were looking for exceptional.  Last July, when I was in the US, I had the chance to interview Layheng Ting who had applied for the director role at PEPY.  I knew within a half-hour that our baby, PEPY, had a new mother.  I had never met anyone more dedicated to returning to their country to be a force for positive change.

Dr. Ting recently successfully defended her dissertation after having spent the last five years in the US getting a Masters and then PhD in the education fields, initially traveling to the US on a Fulbright Scholarship.  She was offered many jobs in the US and she could have successfully stayed in the US earning an impressive income for many years to come.  But, as she says, she was only in the US to gain the skills she needed to return home to her country to improve education here. She comes from a family that highly values education, and we are grateful to her parents for raising Layheng with the conviction and commitment to Cambodia and its education system.

We are ecstatic that Layheng has chosen to lead our organization into the future, and we can’t wait to keep you up to date on all of the improvements and growth she helps us achieve in the future.  In the meantime, I can’t help but have the world’s biggest smile on my face as I realized that indeed, it is worth the wait for someone exceptional.

Thanks for being part of our team to get us to where we are today.

Hugs and love from an ecstatic team in Cambodia!

– Daniela

Side note addition which should make you smile: For those of you who engaged in the debate two years ago as to whether we should send four students to the US for summer camp, you know that we decided to pursue this with the idea that we thought the potential positives would outweigh the potential negatives, but we were unsure as to “when” those outcomes might show.  Today Layheng and I were able to witness one of the most amazing results of this and all of our work at PEPY.  Through the culmination of the Child to Child program inspiring young leaders to take responsibility for their own community, fabulous English and Creative Learning Class teachers inspiring a desire to learn and share, and a young boy who returned from the US and started teaching English in his community has sprung an NGO and community action group completely powered by these students.  On their own – independently of PEPY support, a group of students decided to emulate the English teaching student and they started VCD – Volunteers for Community Development.  They made their own website (in Khmer and in English http://yvcd.wordpress.com/) and raised their own money in their community.  They each paid 5000 reil (about $1.25) to join the club and to sign up to be a teacher.  The students in the community who want to study had to pay a one time fee of 1000 reil to help buy the white board, markers, etc.  There are now 54 members of VCD and what started as 500 kids in their 12 nightly classes has now turned to 20 classes each night, 5 nights per week, with over 700 students.  The VCD team, made up of 7th-12th graders around the age of 16 has a manager, a monitoring team, a designer, fundraisers, etc.  They have teachers assigned to each class, and also “rotating teachers” responsible for ensuring the quality of the classes is high throughout the commune.  They also take turns working in the VCD office which was originally under a family’s home like the rest of the classes but is now in a spare room next to the commune chiefs office as he has donated the space.  They no longer just teach English – they do recycling and garbage collection throughout the commune near their homes, they have done plays and fundraiser to repair a local gate, etc.  They are the most phenomenal group of young people I have ever met – and I am just blown away by what they are doing and HOW they are doing it.  This group, along with Layheng, will do some powerful things well into the future.  Thank you all for being a part of PEPY and making this possible!