Very lucky, that HVTO got good news from Ms. Susan Carroll from Ireland, who was volunteering to teach English in our village for one week, to say that her Father would donate 1000$ to HVTO and expect that HVTO would spend this money wisely for all the programs that we have. After great consideration, HVTO decided to use this money to build a small library. So we buy two big bookshelves and put into our computer room and we bought hundreds of books to fill into the shelves and now we are very happy to see that all those children start reading all those books. It is not always enough, we still need more books to put into our library.
We would like to thank Ms. Sopheak Ong, a friend from facebook, who sent a box of books to hvto and we are very grateful to you generosity.
We would like to thank Mr. Sowanna Yun, a professional tour guide, who always tries to help HVTO and now he becomes one of the most important sponsors in which he always brings his tourists to visit our school and we always receive help from his tourists mainly in materials like books, pens and etc. more info about him is www.cambodianguide.com
We would like to thank Mr. Hout Bunhok, also a tour guide, who bring his tourists to visit our school and thank to Sandra Fornell and her boyfriend who donated some books to our library!
HVTO always appeals to all generous people to help building a library for our school and here is our applicaton form!
Application Form
A. Our Organization
1) Name of organization: Homestay Volunteer Teachers Organization (HVTO) | ||||||
2) Name of Founder & Executive Director: Mr. Sim Pisith | ||||||
3) Contact person for this application: Mr. Sim Pisith | ||||||
4) Postal Address: # 132, Group 14, Sophy village, Kontreang commune, Brasatbakong district, Siem Reap Angkor Cambodia. | ||||||
5) E-mail & Website addresses: Executive Director’s e-mail: sim_pisith@yahoo.com / info@hvto.org Website: www.hvto.org | ||||||
6) Tel. +(855)12710027 or +(855) 978 666 729 | ||||||
7) Fax. | ||||||
8) Mission statement: HVTO is a non-profit NGO. We develop and manage literacy and vocational education projects aimed at helping the poorest and neediest Cambodian communities improve their quality of life and improve their self-sustainability. Reducing poverty and increasing wisdom is the aim. Education is the answer. Our development projects simultaneously create job opportunities for local people. | ||||||
9) How our organization was founded including start date: I was born in Sophy village in 1981 and was later made a Buddhist monk and lived in a Buddhist monastery for 8 years. Thanks to the sponsorship I received, I had the opportunity to graduate from the Buddhist Bali Upper High School and learned German, English and Spanish. Due to all the knowledge I acquired, I could work as a tour guide and English teacher. Then I realized that local Cambodian young people profit from knowledge of foreign languages by getting jobs in the tourist industry or by continuing their studies. In the past, due to the repression carried out by the Khmer Rouge, a lot of the population in Cambodia was forced to leave the cities and move to the countryside. As a result, the new generations found it very difficult to study as resources were very limited. Nowadays, the government is making great efforts to change this situation, but extra help in really needed to speed up this process. With my experience, I thought that it should be possible to create programs promoting the education of young people and children in my village and other rural areas so that they could have a chance like me to benefit from, and keep up with current development. This is why I created HVTO in 28th August 2008. | ||||||
10) Outline of service provision ( listed up to top 5 areas): Ongoing projects 1. Free English Education Program Providing Free English Classes to more than 500 children that would have never been able to learn English. 2. Sponsorship Program Funding the smartest and hardest working students from the poorest families to continue studying until they finish high school. 3. Clean Water Project Installation of hand water pumps and water filters to help reduce disease caused by contaminated water in the rural areas. Upcoming projects 4. Library construction Building a library in Sophy village to enable the children to gain knowledge 5. Vocational Training School Providing professional skills to village people to help them learn a new vocation. | ||||||
11) Client group including numbers served by organization: All the Sophy and Sreth villages inhabitants (around 4.000). Specially focusing on children. | ||||||
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13) Noteworthy achievements/awards in the past year: · Providing daily English lessons to 500 children in 2009. Prevision for 2010 is to get to 1000 children. · Scholarship funding provided for two children in 2009. Prevision for 2010 is to get to 10 scholarships. · 147 water pumps built in 2009 -2010. This means that around 3087 people now have clean water access every day. Prevision is to build other 100 more in 2011. |
B. Detailed Application For Project
1) Details of the project/program we require funding for including background and purpose: Background: Sophy village is located 25km north east from Siem Reap town, people living in this village. 95% of the people in Sophy are farmers. Sophy was a battle field during the civil war until 1998, and it was an area where the rate of illiteracy was very high. Due to the war all the educational systems were destroyed. After the integration between the guerrilla of Khmer Rouge and the government, the people were able to return home and live together in peace. However, the war brought very bad consequences: the highest illiteracy rate ever, a lack of main infrastructures and general poverty. Despite the difficulties, the population grew very fast within the last 10 years. Later on, thanks to the solidarity of the community, a 4-room school could be built to let the children in the whole community study. With the collaboration with an NGO from Spain, we were able to build another school in 2006. Nowadays, these two buildings are in service for 270 children. HVTO is playing a very important roll by collaborating with the commune leader and the school principal to bring modern education to the children in the community. HVTO mainly provides them with Free English Education Programs. After one and a half years of providing Free Education, we realize that we need a library in our village to speed up the learning process of the students. Additionally, the commune leader has requested that HVTO work to build this library in order to help the community. Purposes: Our aim is to build a library (size = 7mX5m) in Sophy primary school. The Sophy school has managed to operate without a library for the past 10 years. However, the need of having a place where children can read and become informed through the use of books is steadily increasing. The children and the families of these communities have no access to books at all. This is why providing them with a library would enhance their possibilities of acquiring new and useful knowledge. Project: 1st step: To build a library in the Sophy village school. 2nd step: To put useful and important books in the library (we already have a donor for that) |
2) Objectives and Goals of the project/program including, if applicable, information on: Objectives: Give support to rural Cambodian areas (Sophy & Sreth villages) by advancing the education level of its youngest members. Goals: To provide the community with basic facilities for educating the children: - 4 room school was built in 2000 - Another 4 room school was built in 2006 - To build a library to be ready by the end of 2010 To fill the shelves of the library with the most important and useful books possible. We have a donor that will provide more than 1000 books of general knowledge and specific subjects, both in Khmer and English. Implementation plan: Due to the complexity of building a library, an external building company should be contracted. The steps to be taken are as follows: 1. To define the design of the library by an architect. We already have a first proposal (see attached file: library plan) 2. Carry out an open auction to select the construction company. 3. Analysis of the terrain and its viability for constructing. 4. Construction of the library 5. Quality control 6. Furnish the library with all the books provided Timing: after receiving the funds the library will be built within 3 months. Cost: First cost estimation is the following: 15.880 USD* * Take into account that construction prices are very unstable and the final cost could slightly change depending on when the project is carried out. Staff support needed: As previously stated, the complexity of this project forces the participation of an external construction company as mandatory. There are no partners in this project. Beneficiaries: All people in Sophy & Sreth villages and others will benefit from this library . However, we are conscious that the main beneficiaries will be the 500 children students that attend HVTO school. |
3) Grant amount requested in USD: 15,880 USD |
4) Breakdown of grant including all relevant items of expenditure: Estimation costs $15,300 building construction $ 300 administrative expenditures (government approvals, legal documentation, communications,…) $ 200 inauguration event (we invite the community to see the new library and provide lunch) $ 80 books transport $15,880 TOTAL COST |
