Support the futures of 3,000+ Youth in Cambodia

Dear PEPY’s Friends and Community,

We hope you have been doing well since our last update! Over the past three months, we have selected new participants and started our classes, and made fantastic progress on our projects that we would love to share with you. Through your generosity, this year, we are able to support over 1000 youth!

Some recent highlights include:

• Dream Management Project:  In the Dream Management Project, we have over 950 students in Grades 10-12 attending Dream Classes regularly. Our Dream Officers have conducted at least four lessons per grade focused on self-discovery, goal setting, presenting, teamwork, leadership, financial literacy, how to fill out scholarship applications, and how to do an interview. The Dream team also organized regular Dream Talks at each of our partner schools reaching over 300 students. Also, in Varin High School, we organized the first Sharing Event of the year with over 500 attendees.
• Scholarship for Higher Education Project:  This year, we are so pleased to share that we have accepted 35 new scholars for 2022-2023. We organized an Integration Day Event for the new scholars in January to give them a chance to get to know each other, learn about PEPY programs, and prepare for life in Siem Reap City. We are also thrilled to share that now, the scholarship employment rate for all work-eligible scholars is 98%.
• Learning Center Program:  For the first time since the program’s inception, we selected 65 students to attend the center! The additional interns and volunteers enabled us to expand from 60 beneficiaries to 65. Twenty-eight parents joined our Welcoming Event from January 16^th-17^th in support of their children’s education and to express their commitment to the center. The commitment from parents has been so very heartwarming.
• Youth Innovators' Space and Incubator (YISI) Program:  Lastly, the YISI program is in its third year of operation as of this quarter! This year, the YISI team selected 20 Youth Innovators out of 35 applicants to join our Social Enterprise Incubator Course. The team also organized our 3^rd Siem Reap Entrepreneur’s Future Innovation Exhibition event at the Cambodian National Youth Center on Sunday, February 19^th, 2023. Thirty entrepreneurs featured their products and services to over 500 event attendees!

Please see our recent quarterly report (linked below) for even more exciting news!

Sereyvuth’s story:  Before we go, we recently received a community story that really lifted our spirits. We hope you enjoy reading it and can get inspired with us!

Sereyvuth is a 2021 scholar from Taing Kork District, Kampong Thom Province.  He is the youngest child in a family of eight and his parents are farmers. His parents were unable to support most of his siblings through high school. In fact, Sereyvuth and his fifth sister are the only members of the family to finish high school and continue to higher education. He was an outstanding student in high school so he received scholarship offers from a few organizations to continue his studies, but he chose the PEPY scholarship and moved to live and study in Siem Reap Province.

He is now pursuing a Bachelor’s in Information Technology at the University of South-East Asia (USEA), and he is a sophomore. After graduating from the PEPY Learning Center, he received a six-month internship from German International Cooperation called GIZ based in Siem Reap Province. He has been working for two months now. He said “I am happy with my internship here and I work as a general support in the office and organizing events. I have learned a lot from my job as a staff here are friendly to share and help me grow my professional experience.”

In the future, he aims to become a professional web developer in the next five years and hopes to run his own company related to web development in the next ten years!

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Thank you so much for taking the time to read our update! If you have any questions or would like to learn more please feel free to reach out to us anytime! 

Sincerely, 

Kathryn | kathryn@pepyempoweringyouth.org

Links:

• 2022 Annual Report