👋Have you ever heard 👂of the Steung Meanchey garbage dump🗑️ in Cambodia🇰🇭, also called Smokey 💨Mountain? Until 2009, hundreds of children👩💼👨💼 were picking through garbage to sell for recycling♻️ on this 6-hectare dumping ground. It was one of the most toxic☣️ environments imaginable. Since 2004, the Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF) has been fighting to transform impoverished kids into tomorrow’s leaders👨💼👩💼.
I would be surprised 😯if you have never heard of🎥 X-Men, Star Wars, Braveheart or Titanic. The man behind them is Scott Neeson, former President of 🎞️20th Century Fox International. Before starting a new role at Sony in 2003, he took a 5-week🧳✈️ trip to Cambodia🇰🇭, where he discovered children🎞️👨👧 working everywhere on that garbage dump. He could not let that go. One year later, he sold his fancy cars🚗, yacht🛥️ and house 🏠to relocate to Phnom Penh and started the Cambodian Children’s Fund.
CCF aims🎯 to provide best-in-class education 👩🏫to marginalized children living near the dumping 🗑️ground. Their outreach teams 🌟create the right environment for education, with support for basic needs such as housing🏠, food🍏 and health⚕️. Then, they provide access to their own primary and secondary schools 🏢with one objective: support students all the way to university 💪and make sure they can become the leaders of tomorrow👩💼👨💼.
Their secondary school is impressive🌟. It looks like a top-tier private school🏢, but it is located in the middle of one of the poorest areas in the country🇰🇭. Since its🚀 inception, they have trained 💪😀1,898 students, provided 461 homes and distributed 45 tons of rice at a heavily subsidized price.
🌟🌟🌟At Our Own Pace And Scale, Everyone Can Aspire To Change The World🌟🌟🌟
Tag: NGOs
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After Overseeing Hollywood Movies Such as X-Men and Star Wars, Scott Neeson Quit Everything to Support Marginalized Kids
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Darong Transferred 5 schools for Deaf and Blind Children to the Ministry of Education in Cambodia
✌️We met Darong Chour, director of the 🚀NGO☀️ Krousar Thmey, a leading NGO based in Cambodia 🇰🇭supporting blind and deaf children👨👧. The adventure started because, in the 1990s, there was no infrastructure🏗️ to support blind and deaf children.
Education 👨🏫was the key🗝️ priority. To make sure children got a proper education👨🎓, the team developed a Khmer version of Braille📒, started teaching sign☦️ language and translated the entire Cambodian curriculum. And it worked really well!💪🙂
We met Darong a few weeks after a major announcement📣. After 30 years of co-development with the Cambodian government, the government approved✔️ the transfer 🤗of their 5 schools👨🎓 for blind and deaf children, including more than 200 teachers👨🏫👩🏫, to the Ministry of Education. This year, more than 300 blind and 750 deaf children 😀🏆🚀are supported by Krousar Thmey.
🌟🌟🌟At Our Own Pace And Scale, Everyone Can Aspire To Change The World🌟🌟🌟 -
They Teach, Empower, Console, Encourage, Teachers are True Heroes
Teachers 👨🏫are a cornerstone of our society. We all remember a great teacher who encouraged us during hard⛰️ times, who told us that we could make it, or who punished 😢us for a reason we only understood a few years later. They are true 😎💪heroes!
I will never forget my discussion with the head teacher of the Lindi School, located in a very poor slum. Surprisingly, this school was a haven of joy🌞 and cheerfulness🌈. After a warm welcome from 50 young & lively children👦👧 at the entrance gates👋, I had the chance to sit down for a few minutes with the head teacher. He shared some frightening figures🔢 with me: out of 200 children, only 2 had passed their final exams, and none of them could pay the high school fees. They had one book 📚for up to 10 children. He was struggling to pay💰 the other teachers’ salaries.
However, his mission 🚀has remained intact for the last 20 years: to do his best 💪to provide as much education👩🏫 as he can to his pupils. If he does not, no one will. I was really impressed😀🌠 by this man, who has been fighting 💥for more than 20 years and has never given up!🌠🌠🌠“At our own pace and scale, everyone can aspire to change the world”🌠🌠🌠
Lindi School Romain Sion -
Faith – 17 Years Old, Mother, Student and Young Leader in the Largest Urban Slum in Africa
👋How would you react if a 17 years old joyful girl👧 tells you that few years back, she wanted to kill☠️ herself because of her pregnancy👶? It was a Thursday at 5.30am. After a 20 minute walk across metal sheets barracks, Faith welcomed🙂 us in her tiny 12m2 family house🏠. While washing her daughter clothes, Faith described the discovery of her pregnancy after 7 months, the father’s refusal to recognize his twins, the rejection of her friends, the death of one of the twins & her desire to commit suicide…
But that was before! 😀🌠Then, she met with an impactful NGO called Carolina for Kibera which empowered her, gave her confidence back & supported her to go back to school.🚀 Her most important learning 👩🏫was to be able to say NO! She became an 🌠inspiring young woman🌠 fighting for her daughter. She told me: “I am working hard because I do not want my daughter to suffer” She also became class representative at school. What’s really struck me was when she took me aside before I left. She asked me support for one recurring challenge: sanitary napkins for her classmates. Her only request was not even for herself but for her classmates… 17 years old and she is already an inspiring leader!💪😀 .
👉”At our own pace and scaler, everyone can aspire to change the World!”🌠
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Sarah and Her Impact-Driven Team Support 77,000 Disadvantaged People in Bulgaria
A few years back, Sarah would never have imagined launching the Trust for Social Achievement, a leading organization in Bulgaria with an ambitious vision: help Bulgaria’s most disadvantaged achieve educational & economic success. After working for a decade in large US institutions, she had the opportunity to conduct research on social inclusion in Bulgaria. Her lifetime mission became clear! In 2012, she founded the Trust for Social Achievement. With her team of 30 mission-driven employees, she focuses on developing innovative & data-driven approaches that increase self-sufficiency & improve life outcomes for Bulgaria’s poor, with a focus on the Roma. Here is one of their most impactful successes. They noticed that due to the lack of a national policy on kindergarten, only 45% of Roma 3–6-year-olds attended kindergarten, even though quality early education improves later school performance. Hand in hand with the World Bank’s team of experts, they conducted the first randomized controlled trial impact evaluation in 240 settlements with the help of 23 NGOs. Results were stunning! Thanks to a change in the law, welfare payments raised Roma kindergarten enrollment to 68%, and it should reach 85% once kindergarten fees are fully removed. A great example of how data-driven approaches can drive massive change across a country! https://socialachievement.org/en
👉The Trust for Social Achievement is: 4 program areas / 257 projects funded / 77,000 beneficiaries / +$12M raised over the past 6 years
🌠🌠🌠“At our own pace and scale, everyone can aspire to change the world”🌠🌠🌠
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Fany – A Hard-Working Mother Who Wants a Better Life for Her Daughter
👋 Hi Everyone,
I had the chance🤩 to stay a week in Cuzco 🌎. Every morning, I used to go to El Mercado San Pedro 🛒for my breakfast 🍊. Imagine, hundreds of small shops selling similar products in a not only friendly 🤗 but also ultra-competitive 🏁 atmosphere. This is how I met with Fany at her small shop selling fruit juices 🍌🍍🍎. She was not pushy to make my buy, just a great & authentic smile 😄. In the morning, I was coming to get my fruit juice & exchange about our respective cultures 📚. Selling fruits on the market is clearly not very well paid 💰 but that was Fany’s job. Without complaining, she explained that she was doing all of that for her daughter 👩. She was fighting hard ⚔️ for her by getting up very early in the morning & trying to offer the best juice 🍹possible to her customers 👥. She wanted to make sure her daughter could access education 🎓 & get a better life👍. As a single mother, she was managing everything from paying the bills🖊️ to taking care of her daughter. I have been amazed by her true commitment 🤩& true proof of love! ♥️Around the world, there are so many unknown heros who are fighting everyday to improve other’s life!
👉🌠I am convinced that massive impact will be driven by collective actions coming from all of us.🌠🌠🌠 At our own pace and scale, everyone can aspire to change the world!🌠🌠🌠
Talk you soon!
👋
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Peter wants to rebuild the slum of Kibera with decent homes
👋Hi Everyone👋,
Have you met Peter? Peter is a young Kenyan 🇰🇪 leader with a BIG dream. He was born in the middle of Kibera, one of the largest African slum located in the south of Nairobi. Living in Kibera was his biggest challenge 💥 in life. He said: “You do not have dreams, you think you can not make it in life and you feel inferior”. It really affected him when he was young 🧒. One day, he had the chance to meet with an impact driven 🚀 non-profit organization called Carolina for Kibera. It changed his mentality 😀 and CFK made him believe in himself 💪. During school holidays, he joined mentorship 👨🏫 and leadership 🌠 programs where he had the opportunity to learn and to get motivated. After receiving a sponsorship 💰 to join high school education, he got accepted at the University of Nairobi 🎓 for a degree in civil engineering 🛠️. When we met, he was doing his 4thyear internship with the construction 👷 of a brand new bridge 🌉 in Kibera. When I asked him about his 🚀 lifetime dream 🚀, his answer was clear and straight forward: he wants to rebuild the infrastructure of the slum with decent homes 🏠 and to be a role model for the youth in Kibera. He wants them to believe they can make it not matter their background no matter they come from.
👉He said: 🌠🌠🌠“I truly believe when the youth succeed then the overall community will have succeeded.”🌠🌠🌠 I wonder: 👉How massive will be the impact of on an inspiring young leader like Peter on the overall community?
👉Interview in video: -
#StrongerTogether 5 NGOs 5 Countries 1 Project
Hi Everyone,
During my stay in Cluj Napoca, I had the chance to spend one afternoon with a group project led by the city hall of Cluj Napoca. 5 NGOs from Roumania 🇷🇴, Albania 🇦🇱, Poland 🇵🇱, Bulgaria 🇧🇬 and Portugal 🇵🇹 focusing on social and economic inclusion of young children 👦👧 with disabilities gathered together. They started the preparation of a travel ✈️ for 40 young children. We had a great time discussing on their mission and challenges. They all expressed a true passion ♥️ about their involvement but they also shared their daily challenge on the financing 💰 side. Teaming up with other organizations to reduce the project cost was a great solution! Based on my previous travels, I would also add another advantage of gathering NGOs together. There is strong interest from NGOs for sharing knowledge and best practices with each other.
Together, we are stronger!
