Project Cambodia (Phnom Penh) 2016

August 1-14, 2016

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Executive Summary

Project Cambodia 2016 (Phnom Penh) will focus on the three keywords: underprivileged children, inspiration, and education, which will be the most prominent themes throughout the two-week workshops. Although many underprivileged children from the slum areas in Cambodia are able to grant access to education through NGOs’ support, they still face the danger of having to make a living on the streets, which hinders a prospective future ahead of them due to financial struggles. Wishing to improve the situation, the project aims to inspire underprivileged children in the slum areas in Phnom Penh through equipping them with essential skills which will help them to have fun and engage more in general learning, e.g. painting, drawing, coding and role-playing, etc.

Moreover, we aspire to help these underprivileged children to acknowledge the vast opportunities which education brings and also for them to realize their limitless potential. Our main purpose is to provide the underprivileged children with a more positive outlook into the world outside of their slum community through story-telling and mentorship. Project Cambodia 2016 (Phnom Penh) hopes to offer underprivileged children and also team members the chance to develop personal growth through inspiring and being inspired by each other. As we believe that “every person has a story to tell, a lesson to teach and a dream to share,” we hope to carry the impact in which these underprivileged children and team members will be empowered by each other’s stories through our personal mentorship system.

Community Problem

Slum community

The slum communities that the project will be working with are underprivileged children who still live off the streets despite receiving education, which subsequently de-motivates their learning aspirations. There are also many underprivileged kids who do not see the value of education and prefer making a living on the streets to earn fast money. Throughout the service curriculum, all members will be closely exposed to children from the slum areas and strive to make a difference in these communities. Team members will get to personally engage with a group of children ranging from age 7 to 11 in a local organization which gathers underprivileged children to receive their education program. Our partner organization provides some financial compensations to the parents in exchange for the underprivileged children to study. Project Cambodia 2016 (Phnom Penh) hopes to nurture in the children a growing interest in learning and also inspire them with the possibilities that an educated life could bring.

High school students in Cambodia & Vietnam

At the academically stressful environment at high schools in Vietnam and Cambodia, students do not get enough opportunities to explore and develop themselves through expressive activities and community service. This also restricts students from discovering who they are and ultimately, their purposes for contribution as change-agents. We hope to provide the students with essential leadership skills and empower them to return as project leaders in their own communities. More importantly, the high school students are given chances to reflect upon themselves and hopefully find the answer to the question “Who am I?”.

 Our vision & objectives
  • Inspire underprivileged children from the slum areas to develop an interest and realize the meaning of education, hence producing a lifelong impact.
  • Promote the spirit of volunteerism and SEALNet’s culture to the high school (mentees) and university students (mentors) across the world
  • Empower both high school and university students to become potential leaders with well-equipped skills and a concrete understanding about the issue to return and support the similar communities in their locations
  • Create a safe environment that provokes a family-like sense of belonging in order for the children and project members to inspire each other while being inspired
  • Raise at least $500 for our partner organization to support the underprivileged children financially
 Approach
  • Leadership Curriculum

As the recurring theme throughout the project is ‘InspirationTo inspire and be inspired’, our goal for the Leadership Team is to ‘inspire’ the mentees through providing them different insights on what makes a good leader, hence allowing the mentees to construct their own definition of leadership. The members of the Leadership Team will be designing the detailed planning for the leadership workshops, based on the theme of the project and the objectives given by the two project leaders. The workshops will focus on two themes: Personal Development as a Leader and Mentorship.

  • Mentee Challenge

As part of the pre-project program, 10 mentees from Cambodia and 10 mentees from Vietnam will be given an opportunity to practice their fundraising skills, especially to those who have never had experience with fundraising. 10 students from each country will have to work together to fundraise in their location while the mentors will act as an observer and monitor the mentees’ abilities in terms of their involvement and determination to learn. This information will be useful later for their mentor to help support and improve their leadership potential.

  • Service Curriculum

The mentors in Service Team will be designing the detailed planning for community outreach workshops. Our aim is not only to provide emotional support but also to ‘inspire’ underprivileged children by introducing to them a new world outside of their community and the value of education. The community outreach workshops will act as tools to initiate and closely develop the relationship between the slum children and project members (mentors and mentees) throughout the 2-week project. The three core themes of the workshops will include ‘I Have A Story’, ‘The Outside World’ and ‘The Meaning of Education’.

  • Mini- Project: Make Phnom Penh Home

This is a mini-project designed for the team members and the children to have bonding time together through cooking and delivering food to the homeless people around Phnom Penh. The aim of the mini-project is to offer an example for the mentees on how to lead a project in preparation for the Charity Event. Moreover, the purpose is to enhance the members’ awareness on the value of community service (as part of the Leadership Curriculum), as well as leaving the slum children to feel empowered and inspired by how education can help them support their own community.

  • Charity Event – you name it!

Alongside designing their own workshop, mentees will be able to run their own project which will be a charity event for the children from the slum areas. This also marks as a closing ceremony of the project and an opportunity for the slum children to showcase their artistic talents in collaboration with our project members (mentees and mentors). Our sponsors – local government, local communities, families, and friends will be invited as audiences. We aim to raise at least $500 to improve these children’s quality of life (classroom infrastructure, their access to education, etc.) through “letting the slum children’s voices and stories be heard” to the general public.

  • Mentorship System

Throughout the project, we will incorporate the mentor-mentee system in which one mentor will assist two mentees in terms of leadership and personal development. All of the mentors will be required to design a leadership schedule and one-year development schedule for their mentees. The purposes are for keeping track of the mentees’ growth, as well as serving as a sustainability goal of the project to maintain the relationship between mentors and mentees. At the same time, there will be a peer-mentoring system within each mentorship group as the two mentees will be able to apply what they have learned from the mentorship workshops, as well from their personal experiences to support each other.

Team Members’ Responsibilities
  • Strong commitment to the planning process from April to August.
  • Involvement in the execution process when we are on the ground.
  • Dedication to your mentees during and beyond these two weeks.
  • Fundraise $350 toward the cause of the project.
  • Do your best, take initiatives and have fun!
What We Want in Our Applicants
  • Be an effective advocate for your passion and interest
  • Be invested in the project and our mission
  • Be open to people from different cultures and perspectives
  • Be ready to engage with local students and children from the slum areas in Phnom Penh
  • Be willing to step out of their comfort zones in order to learn new things about others and themselves
  • Be able to “Say YES before knowing how” every chance you get
Project Leaders

Chea San (San) | cheasan99@nullgmail.com

Trinh K Lê (Trinh or Katie) | ktrinh.le@nullhotmail.com

Facebook page: facebook.com/SEALNetPC16PP/