Featured Staff
Meet Lida Loem, Indradevi Hope Award Winner for Young Achiever
By Vannak LACH
A Creative Learning Class teacher, Lida Loem, 22, was awarded Cambodia's first ever 2011 Indradevi Hope Award for Young Achiever. The award ceremony was organized by the Women's International Group of Cambodia, seeking to recognize exceptional Cambodian women who have worked selflessly to make a significant contribution to their community and economic development in Cambodia.
Awards were given in one of three categories: Indradevi Hope Award for Dedication, Indradevi Hope Award for Leadership and Indradevi Hope Award for Young Achiever. Winners were given a plaque, certificate and $1,500.
The Indradevi Hope Award for Young Achiever was awarded to Lida Loem for her dedication in supporting a group of students as they organized a volunteer group called Volunteers for Community Development (VCD). This group's mission is to help teach English, as well as environmental awareness and morality, to the children in rural villages in Chanleas Dai commune of Siem Reap Province.
As one of the 3 winners among 48 candidates, Lida says she is proud of herself and her team's effort. "I am so excited to get this award. It is the cooperation from all members of the VCD team," says Lida, adding that her thoughts were never on awards or public acknowledgement when she started working with VCD.
"My purpose of volunteering with VCD is to share my knowledge to other students as they are not able to afford extra classes," claims Lida. "Even during the competition, I did not care about winning the award. I was just happy to share what my team and I have done to help the children and the community with the optimism that others will devote their time to help their community like us." When asked on how she is going to spend the $1500 award, she happily said, "the money does not belong to me but VCD."
Originally from Pursat province, a graduate of the Centre for Information Systems Training (CIST), Lida moved to Siem Reap to join PEPY as an IT assistant in November 2009. Now she is a Creative Learning Class teacher in a small community in Chanleas Dai commune of Siem Reap.
Lida devotes most of her free time to help VCD's work. Her responsibilities are to support the youth leaders who are managing VCD, to coordinate volunteers to teach English to other children, and to organize rubbish collection teams in all of the communities in Chanleas Dai. In addition to teaching children, VCD's new project is a community vegetable garden and fish farm to improve nutrition among their families and neighbors.
Quiet Contributions
by Michael Jones
Photo credit: Kronk
Rith Sarakk is one of those behind the scenes people. Quietly working, you’d almost forget how many programs hinge on his efforts on a given day. Many of the programs the PEPY family has come to know and appreciate are coordinated and managed by a single, quiet, very hard-working man.
At the start of the school year, Sarakk was managing the Creative Learning Class, the Bike to School program, the Chanleas Dai primary school library, our Traveling Teacher Support program, and not only managing but also teaching our Junior High School English program. His programs provide educational opportunities to every student from 5th to 9th grade in Chanleas Dai commune, as well as all of the students studying in grades 5 or 6 in all of Chanleas Dai’s primary schools.
Recently, Sarakk has committed to focusing more of his time on management and has begun training other teachers to take his place in the English classroom. As his time in the classroom decreases, he will begin to take on more responsibilities, starting with PEPY’s Classroom Libraries program which he will begin managing in early March. Because of his experience with both the Traveling Teacher Support program and the Chanleas Dai library, he is poised to use his knowledge to improve and expand our Khmer literacy programs.
Not only is Sarakk an exceptional manager, he voluntarily donates large amounts of his time after work to the Chanleas Dai community. Each evening from 6:30 – 7:30, he teaches a free English class to anyone in the Chanleas Dai area who would like to join. This year, many of his students who have been involved in PEPY programs and regularly attended his class decided to start their own free community English classes. With inspiration from him, they began the VCD team and have been offering classes in the surrounding villages ever since. Sarakk supports them from the side, giving these outstanding young people the opportunity to become leaders in their own right with the guidance and help of an experienced manager and teacher. The VCD team currently offers 20 English classes per day in Chanleas Dai commune to over 700 students each night.
It’s an exciting time for PEPY, and for Sarakk. As our programs reorganize and grow under our new managing director, Layheng, we can be confident that our supplemental programs are in excellent hands.
Watd Khouth Sochampa: Reflections on TEDxPhnom Penh
by Watd Khouth Sochampa
TEDx was an amazing opportunity to learn and share, and it inspired me to be what I want to be and to reach my dreams. I felt really lucky to learn from the experiences of successful people.
Mike Rios was my favorite speaker. I learned a lot from his presentation. It was so funny, meaningful, and inspirational. It encouraged me to find the meaning for my life.
My hope for Cambodia is to see people in the country live in love, peace, wisdom, and compassion in a culture that values sharing and freedom. Everybody try to be a leader who stands with moral values to serve his or her community to make Cambodia a better country.
Kimline Nuch: Reflections on TEDxPhnom Penh
by Kimline Nuch
TEDx was an amazing event that I have never ever joined before. The event inspired people to share, create new ideas, innovate, take initiative, and especially to build relationships with other participants. Building relationships with other participants helps us all improve our thinking so that we can reach our goal.
My favorite speaker was Mike Rios. He’s creative and fun. He also inspired us to live a meaningful life, not just make money. I love this idea.
My hope for the future is that I want this event to happen often so that everyone can share their new ideas with other people. More than this, I really want the Cambodian leaders in art, business, architecture, economic, music, and film to write a guide on how others can be more like them. It would be very helpful for future generations.
Bopha Soth: Reflections on TEDxPhnom Penh
by Bopha Soth
Through our life, the easiest way to get information is to ask a question and listen to the answer. But more important than this is to share. How can we live without sharing? How can we learn from each other without sharing?
TEDxPhnomPenh is a model for how Cambodians and the rest of the world can learn from each other. There were many interesting and amazing topics to share. Among them, the one which touched my mind was a talk by Mike Rios. He said "try to make meaning, not money." This idea is very powerful. Life is sometimes very crazy. We don't clearly know what we live for. People try to make money, supposing that if they have money, they will have everything. But they don't know what exactly they really need. It’s not a meaningful or happy life.
Through the TEDxPhnomPenh event, I have learned a lot. It's the first time that I have joined this kind of event. There were many people who inspired me through their experiences and their innovations. More sharing means more advances, more changing. Sharing leads to progress. Sharing is a step to self-improvement. Just remember that sharing begins with us. I can’t wait to exchange and share my opinions in the future!
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