Make Future is Bright Lab for Youth in Cambodia

Hello PEPY friends and community, 

Your support and contributions to our Future is Bright Lab and Library are making a huge difference for PEPY youth and in the Siem Reap community. Since our last report, PEPY, in partnership with local IT businesses and other youth leaders, has successfully launched the Siem Reap Coding Club in January. In addition, the IT library is becoming one of our most popular initiatives, with 18 youth borrowing computers 50x in the last two months! 

Coding Club: The Coding Club leaders worked with our team to develop a marketing strategy for the club and quickly gained over 150 members in their Facebook group. On Facebook, they provide coding resources, fun challenges, and club meeting updates to encourage and engage our community. The club session is held on Sundays and 30-40 youth are actively participating.

During the first couple weeks in the club, it was quickly established that the majority of the participants need to start from the basics. The club leaders partnered with a computer science expert from Mediapark, which is an IT solutions and app development company we work with, to help the participants understand how coding works and what coding languages mean. Even though some of the coding club participants are very familiar with coding, and are even developing their own apps, they were very content to support new learners as mentors and are happy to help everyone build up their skills together. 

Bright Library: So far, we have raised over $200 from rentals, helping us start a fund to cover future IT purchases and cover computer maintenance! While our ultimate goal is for youth to practice good financial planning and purchase their own computers, many of our youth will not be in a position to buy for a few years. Having access to a computer while attending university and working on professional skills is imperative. Since launching the Library, our students' GPAs have increased overall, and we have had many youth report to us how having access to a computer has helped them find or keep a job. We are astounded to see the impact of this initiative and glad it has contributed to our increased employment rate at PEPY. Currently, we have an 89% employment rate for our work-eligible scholars, which is a huge increase from the economic collapse due caused by the pandemic.

Future Plans: Since launching our Librarika application to track IT rentals and waiting lists, we know that we need at least 12 additional computers to meet the current demand of our youth participants. Through your generosity, we are aiming to purchase another computer with this fund, and we will be receiving another in-kind donation of refurbished computers from the United States, as well as purchasing 5-6 more with our recent grants. By the end of the year, we hope to reach our targets and have enough of a seed fund to support future IT repairs and maintenance. 

Your donation/s has helped our students stay in school throughout the pandemic, find work to support themselves and their families, and build their confidence in IT. Every dollar that went into the Future is Bright Lab and Library ensured that our youth are able to continue working toward their potential and achieve their goals. This was only made possible by your kindness. With your continued support, we will make sure that no student is left behind regardless of their socio-economic background! Thank you for being a changemaker in our community. 

Sincerely,

Kathryn, PEPY's Partnerships and Development Manager | kathryn@pepyempoweringyouth.org

Links:

• Siem Reap Coding Club Facebook Page

Dear PEPY family and friends, 

We wanted to take a moment to express our gratitude to you for your support and provide a brief update about our Future is Bright Lab!

As you know, in Cambodia, IT access is still one of the greatest education barriers that young people are facing. When schools closed, rural youth lost the opportunity to go to school. Our IT lab provides computers, smartphones, and additional tech to those youth so that they continue their educational and professional development. All first-year scholars were given access to a computer and additional youth participants rented computers. This made a huge difference in their ability to pursue and research job opportunities and now our employment rate is 89%! This is the highest it has been since the start of the pandemic lockdowns and we look forward to getting it back up to 100%. 

This quarter, the team finished their project with Team4Tech to complete the setup of the Librarika Application. Now, we can track the IT rentals more effectively and help youth by notifying them when an item is available more quickly. At the end of November, there were 16 individuals borrowing IT items, helping provide some small funds to PEPY to maintain IT, and purchasing supplies. With the rental tracking app, our team will be able to see which items are most requested by our students and alumni and help us better support them by focusing our funding on their needs.  

Our team recently reached out to get feedback on the Bright Lab and many youths shared that these initiatives have helped them improve their quality of life and stay in school. Before the Bright Lab, many youths were doing assignments on their phones. This opportunity saves them great amounts of time, reduces their stress load, and helps them complete their assignments on time. 

• Siem Reap Coding Club: The PEPY team has now completed the leaders' training of the club and they have launched a Facebook page and are recruiting participants! Soon, they will be hosting club sessions in the YISI Office. Check out their page here! 

We are so excited about all the progress of the club and the Bright Lab and look forward to sending you additional updates! During this holiday season, we hope you realize that your generosity has helped improve the lives of our students, families, and their communities. Thank you for giving youth the opportunity to continue to pursue their dreams.

Sincerely,

Kathryn, Partnerships and Development Manager

kathryn@pepyempoweringyouth.org

Links:

• Read our recent reports on our projects!