PEPY Press

PEPY to Hand Executive Director Post over to Cambodian National

Siem Reap, Cambodia, June 10, 2011 – PEPY’s Executive Director Daniela Papi will hand over her position to a Cambodian national: Layheng Ting, a PhD in Education from the United States, effectively from June 1, 2011. PEPY, an international non-governmental organization working to improve the access to, and quality of, education in Cambodia, has spent more than two years searching for a qualified Cambodian who has relevant international programmatic experience to lead the organization forward.

PEPY believes that the organization's programs will be truly sustainable only when the foundation of the organization is solid and rooted in the country itself, and having a qualified Khmer director and staff with a good leadership and management is the most important piece.

"Finding high level management skills is always a challenge, but in our case, we also need to find people with the heart that is necessary to continue the PEPY culture," said Daniela. "We need 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," she added.

Layheng was selected from more than 100 applicants, due in large part to her commitment and desire to improve the quality of and access to education in Cambodia. And we are sure that she is the right person for the post after spending more than 3 months with her on our team. With her excellent leadership and management skills, she will be officially appointed as a PEPY's Executive Director in June.

Layheng's extensive experience includes several years working in high-level management positions in educational and non-profit institutions. In addition, she has spent the last five years in the US, during which she earned both her Masters (through the prestigious Fulbright program) and PhD (with the support of the Ralph W. Harbison Fellowship and Maryknoll Scholarship) at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

While living in the US, Layheng began working with a non-profit organization helping refugees, and was quickly promoted through the ranks until she became its Executive Director. Working in literacy and after school programs, Layheng was able to put her academic studies into practice. She is eager to apply all what she has learned to a Cambodian context, now that she has returned to her home country. "Layheng's dream is to help improve the quality of education in her country, and the place that needs it most is rural Cambodia."

At the same time, a new senior management team leader, Mr. Khath Samal, also comes to join PEPY with his 15 years of experience in education, having worked extensively with CARE International and with the Cambodian Ministry of Education Youth and Sports in Ratanakiri province. PEPY, with a strong and committed management and leadership team, is ready to expand its works in the long-run future.

"I am proud that PEPY's new leadership team has great role models for Cambodia's youth. Both Layheng and Samal have many opportunities available to them, but they have chosen to commit their time to improving education in rural Cambodia, and we're delighted that they have chosen to give their time and talent to PEPY's programs," said Daniela with satisfaction and strong expectation that one day PEPY will led entirely by Khmer staff.

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PEPY Cambodia on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PEPYRide
PEPY Cambodia on Twitter: http://twitter.com/PEPYCambodia
PEPY Cambodia & PEPY Tours Blog: http://journal.pepyride.org

About PEPY Cambodia: PEPY Cambodia is a New York State registered Non-for-Profit Corporation founded in 2005 to aid rural communities in improving their own standards of living, with a focus on increased access to quality education in rural Cambodia.

For media inquiries, contact:
Communications Team
(855) 92 74 94 34
contact@pepyride.org

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PEPY on CNN, Beyond Profit, and Emirates Woman Magazine

PEPY Journal

From Scale to Collaboration [and the Ever-Present Topic of Voluntourism]

Last month we were fortunate enough to contribute our voice to a range of respected publications.

As a guest columnist on the social enterprise website beyondprofit.com, Daniela presented her thoughts on the issue of scale in social enterprise, highlighting the importance of attention to quality of work over expansion of an organization. In her article entitled “Much Ado about Scale”, Daniela emphasizes the benefits of a smaller organization in philanthropic efforts, pointing to a possible contradiction between an organization’s impact and its profitability. Stating that “scale can often dilute impact,” Daniela encourages readers to reconsider process over product.

Meanwhile in Emirates Woman magazine, journalist Linda Bassett reported on organizations’ collaborative efforts to restore education in Cambodia. Depicting the mutual aid between PEPY and the international organization Dubai Cares, Bassett illustrates the importance of organizations’ collaboration rather than competition in working to improve the scope of education in Cambodia. Bassett relates PEPY’s overall narrative from day one to present, starting from our beginning in 2005 and walking through the evolution to current programs and initiatives. Read the article here.

Finally, PEPY was featured on the homepage of CNN online in an article entitled “Finding volunteer trips that actually help”. In the article, CNN acknowledges the potential negative impact of voluntourism, encouraging a more realistic approach to the practice. The article stresses the importance of prioritizing community needs over the desires of the transitory volunteer as one important best practice among voluntourism operators.

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Beyond Profit

PEPY Journal

The most recent issue of Beyond Profit Magazine features an article about scale written by Daniela Papi, PEPY's Executive Director. Click here to read Daniela's article or visit Beyond Profit's website to subscribe to their social enterprise magazine. On their site they also have a blog featuring interesting social ventures and ideas from around the world. We love their work and are delighted for the chance to be associated with their magazine! Read up!

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More PEPY press

PEPY Journal

This has been a great week for PEPY press!

You may remember that back in September PEPY were announced as one of the three winners of the 2009 Geotourism Challenge alongside Nature Air and Wikiloc (two great companies – check them out). We only got there because of your support so once again THANK YOU!

This week tonic.com, a funky happiness-driven online media company that seeks out all the goodness in the world, covered National Geographic's Geotourism Summit 2010 where all of the Geotourism finalists were honored. Our director, Daniela Papi, was brought to the USA to join the summit and she said she has learned a lot to bring back to us when she returns next week! Look out for a post from her soon highlighting what she has learned and the inspiring people she was able to meet. Thanks again to Ashoka Changemakers and National Geographic for this fabulous honor and once again, THANK YOU for getting us there!

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A glimpse of what the future can be...

PEPY Journal Responsible Tourism

This week PEPY had a visitor! We were lucky enough to be joined for a few days by Jerri Chou. Inspired by the amazing people she has met, and the wonderful things she has seen, Jerri has one simple desire in life. She wants to change the world and she wants to empower others to do the same. (Sound familiar? That's because it's OUR GOAL TOO!) And that is exactly what she's doing.

Jerri is the founder of TBD, a free weekly newsletter that delivers "one world-shaking idea and one collective action to improve our future”. The features in TBD range from ways to make your voice heard by the people who never seem like they're listening, to companies who are turning scary corporate big guns into soft loveable teddy bears, to programs which give social entrepreneurs a leg up in the big bad world. TBD looks for organizations that are making a positive impact in the world and shares it with all their like-minded supporters who won't just sit back and do nothing. Most recently, TBD found PEPY.

We are really honored to have been featured and were delighted to have the opportunity to meet with Jerri this week. We strongly encourage you all to sign up for your TBD newsletter and find out about ways to improve your own future!

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