Lotus Pedals - Help Cambodian Girls Get to School!

We travelled three hours south from Phnom Penh to Svey Rieng near the Vietnam border for a recent Lotus Pedals bicycle giveaway. Svey Rieng is one of the poorest provinces in Cambodia, primarily due to poor soil quality and insufficient rainfall which greatly inhibit agricultural output. Only half of Svay Rieng’s...

With your generous support, 364 impoverished girls in rural Cambodia received new bicycles, pumps and locks in 2012, clearing the single greatest obstacle to their continued education. In this update, we will offer you an inside look at how the project picks beneficiaries and monitors their progress.Because demand for the...

As a result of your generous support, 107 impoverished young girls in the Russey Keo district of Phnom Penh, Cambodia received refurbished bicycles and repair kits this month, allowing them to celebrate Back to School season in style.In rural Cambodia, the road to school is long and full of hazards.  In addition to the...

On July 12, Lotus Pedals delivered brand new bicycles and pumps to five promising young women enrolled in our Girls’ Access to Education (GATE) scholarship program in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to ensure they could get to school safely.In urban environments like Phnom Penh, girls often face harassment and abuse while...

Since last October when Sim Soline began her upper secondary studies, she has walked four kilometers to her new high school. Sometimes she was able to ride along on the back of a friend’s bike or pay a moto-taxi to bridge the distance – whatever it took to make it to class. Her attendance is near perfect, making...

Jacqueline Lee is an InTheField Traveler with GlobalGiving who is visiting our partners' projects throughout Southeast Asia. Her "Postcard" from the visit in Cambodia: On March 14, Alexis and I visited Louts Outreach's recipients of the Lotus Pedals project. The recipients were 2 young girls who received a bike from the...

Dear friends,We would like to sincerely thank you for investing in the Lotus Pedals project.  With your generous support, we have provided nearly 500 young girls with a ride to school and a chance at an education—the most powerful catalyst for eradicating poverty in the developing world.Did you know that an...

This month we bring you a personal thank you from a recent bike recipient, Pheung Sopheavy. She is also supported by our Girls' Access to Education scholarship program.  I am now in 12th grade at Dom Dek High School and I am the only child of the family who can stay in school this far. All of my siblings dropped...

In the past year, you have allowed us to provide 236 bicycles, pumps, repair kits and locks to impoverished, at-risk girls across Cambodia so they can safely get to school each day: 152 bicycles were given to Girls’ Access to Education (GATE) students and youth club members in Siem Reap. 43 bicycles were given to...

From October 2010 to March 2011, the Lotus Pedals project gave away 186 bicycles to vulnerable girls across Cambodia, with 45 more scheduled for distribution in the coming weeks. Eighteen year-old Roeun Sonang, a grade 9 student at Chan Sor lower secondary school is one of them. Her family rents 1.5 hectares of land to grow...

Gate scholar and bicycle recipient Kreach Sopea wears her big sister’s shirt to school every day; it is stained and still bears the older girl’s name. Sopea’s mother, a widow with four children to raise, can barely afford to keep her in school; Sopea spends her days off foraging in the swamp next to...

Although poverty presents the most pervasive challenge to the people we serve, the sad reality we often encounter is that many women must also overcome abuse at the hands of their own fathers and brothers. This is the case of Teuk Thida, an avid student who was forced into a karaoke bar after the sixth grade to pay for her...

How Lotus Pedals is keeping girls out of the sex trade (and in school!)As a result of your generous support, we were recently able to provide new bicycles to 13 bright young girls living in Phnom Penh’s red light districts so they can get to school!Living in brothel-based communities, the daughters of illiterate sex...

Phnom Kravanh (meaning “Cardamom Mountain” in Khmer) is one of six districts in Cambodia’s Pursat province. This rural, mountainous region is sparsely populated and some parts remain heavily mined, as the district is a former fighting zone between the Cambodian government and Khmer Rouge insurgents. The Cardamom...

Poverty places a great demand on a child’s time. Between keeping the house while parents work and working themselves, children in rural Cambodia struggle to attend school. Unfortunately, a scarcity of schools means that a commute of several kilometers to neighboring villages is commonplace, compounding the challenges to...

Dear friends of Lotus Outreach, With your generous support, Lotus Pedals provided 193 girls in rural Banteay Meanchey, Cambodia with heavy terrain bicycles in 2009. Not only were we able to extend the budget to support bicycles for an additional 30 young girls, but we still have enough of your funds remaining to provide...