Pour un Sourire d'enfants : when social change starts with educated children - Discovery and happiness

I arrived in PSE for an internship in August 2014. I got very lucky to get this opportunity and I would like to thank again the ones that allowed it to become possible ;)

The association is located in Stung Meanchey, in the suburban area of Phnom Penh (southwest of the city centre) :

Decouvrir PSE

http://pse.asso.fr/

It has been created in 1995 by a French couple, the des Pallières - called there in a very friendly and familial way Papie and Mamie. When they came to Cambodia at that period, they got deeply touched and overwhelmed by all the poverty and misery they saw around them. The country has indeed grown and moved on a fast pace towards economic development since then, but at that time the standards of living of many people were still dramatic. They met  children working in the massive landfill site of Phnom Penh, and saw  them eating among garbage. The conclusion to that confrontation of Cambodia's realtity was obvious for the couple : they decided that something needed to be changed, through helping the country and its people, starting with its youth. They therefore went back to France to tell to their friends, families what they had seen. They managed to gather people and money and to found Pour un sourire d'enfants.

It then first started in 1996 with 20 children... PSE now provides access to education to around 7 000 children !!

PSE targets children from underprivileged backgrounds in Phnom Penh and its surroundings.

How is the NGO organized? It's first composed of a Social department, that aims at meeting communities and selecting the most underprivileged ones - the ones they will follow - based on specific criteria. The other departments then provides access to a panel of basic services (education, healthcare, …) to these people who wouldn’t have accessed it otherwise. The main programs are the following :

- general education : it consists in adjustement classes aiming at making up for educational lost time for the targeted children. Classes are therefore accelerated to provide 2 normal academic levels in one year

- vocational training for older children/young adults, in the field of business, mechanics, hospitality & tourism, cinema & audiovisual media. The needs of companies and work market are followed so that classes could be directly adapted to workplaces' needs. Students are mainly directly recruted after these trainings. Interships through the program allow them to be directly operational

- hygiene, nutrition and healthcare : medical exams are systematically undertaken by new recruited families and children under the age of 2. A Nutrition center has been created to provide food to mothers for babies and to give advice to famiies as for nutrition of the youngest. PSE also provides to all children followed by any program a regular medical follow-up

- social and psychological follow-up or children, mothers or families concerned

- organisation of extracurricular activities, because children also need to do sports and have fun !! In addition to regular activities, Summer camps are organized with foreign young volunteers

- providing jobs to mothers : programs are developed so that families don't loose money through their children being enrolled in education programs. Mothers are provided social jobs, as working in a sewing shop which currently employs fifty mothers or around. Otherwise, some families wouldn't be able to "afford" letting their children study, especially girls.

PSE also collects funds when families have to faceemergency  issues, namely floodings during the rainy season.

While it was first focused on providing food and eucation to the children, the actions of PSE have the widened through times, trying to address the main difficulties currently faced by Phnom Penh’s people.

Students gathering or playing sports, families met by the Social department

PSE also has a Souvenir shop, which allows students from the Business vocational training program to learn directly through experience ! Most of the handicrafts sold there is realized withing the sewing shop that employs mothers (see above). Products coming from other NGOS are also proposed. 

In addition to the amazing work realized there and its impact on the targeted populations, going and working there is a fabulous jouney in itself. You may feel the generous and friendly atmosphere uniting people. It’s easy to see that PSE’s staff has not joined the NGO by chance, they decided to work there in order to get committed and involved in the improvement of the life of children in their country. Many pupils of all age, in uniforms, run through the campus. Joy is emanating from PSE’s headquarters. Namely if one remembers from where they may come from !

For many reasons, I’ll keep a wonderful and very strong memory of the time spent there – hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to visit or work with them again one day!

• It teaches you humility, makes you figure out how blessed we are – which we tend sometimes to forget !! Eduation is a basic right for all and developipng coun tries may not be able to go out of poverty without educating its youth
• It makes you meet amazing people, trying to have an impact through their professional life, and not only to maximize their salary. Which shows a lot concerning Khmer staff. Choosing to work for an organization where salaries are the best in the city is indeed the main trend in Cambodia, as it's a country where economic development is thriving and money has been missed by lots of people for a while. Cambodia is actually still belonging to the Low-income countries group (while it shall in a very few year-time go up to the Middle-income one). Deciding to work for PSE is then a strong signal from PSE's teams !

More about the Cambodian experience in its whole in the article about Phnom Penh : Great learnings and discoveries in Phnom Penh.