By Barbara Rosasco | Secretary & Treasurer
Our Jobs for Cambodia Youth program has been running side by side for some years with some of our other projects. As a small non profit, we are closely involved with our program participants and sometimes we are able to harness the power of one project to benefit more than just the group initially intended. Jobs for Youth is a great example of this.
Our Jobs for Youth program has provided vital employment income to several of our college students ( please see our Build dreams ! Send Cambodian Students to College project on GlobalGiving. ) who are employed in various capacities at our Champey Academy of arts. The benefits of employing these college students goes far beyond the income that the jobs provide.
In addition to providing our college students with income, these college students, coming from extremely poor families, themselves, become peer role models for many of the children and youth who participate in Champey Programs of art, dance and music. Many of these children , who are themselves from impoverished backrounds, are also impacted by the dual challenge of extreme poverty and the impact of HIV/AIDS in their immediate families.
A central theme to all our programs is a focus on the power of education. Education and mentoring are key to helping children who are mired in the hand to mouth lifeftyle of poverty, see that change and bettering their lives is possible. It is staggering to consider the impact that some of these kids must feel when they can see that their peer mentors are actually in college ! Our kids can see , real time, that setting annual goals such as completeing a year of school, moving upward, graduating first from grade schoool, middle school and then high school could also propel them onward to a college education.
However, regardless of the breathtaking accomplishments of our college students, the simple fact is that they come from families who are just too poor to help them with any money at all for food or rent.
Jobs for Cambodian Youth can provide meaningful, safe employment, helping our college students to build a resume of skills, learn team building behaviours and professional standards , and take on the mantle of mentoring by example while earning a modest salary that can pay for their living expense such as food, clothing and small personal items .
Over the past year we have had a core of 8 to 10 college students employed who earnings range from $ 70 to $ 130 per month for an approximate annual cost of $12,000 . In addition to those students, the program has also provided employment as many as 6 other young adults, in capacities as translator, office staff, apprentice dance teachers whose salaries range from $100 to $200 per month.
Your support has allowed this program to become a " success link", by providing a safe , ethical way to encourage and enable these young people to continue to move forward in achieve our main goal for them of helping them to break the cycle of inherited poverty.
Our heartfelt thanks on behalf of all of our program's participants for your past and continued support.
Barbara & Mark Rosasco
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