ElectricAid are delighted to meet our SeeBeyondBorders Cambodian Education Technology Partners in F27.

In September 2022, ElectricAid announced our partnership with See Beyond Borders and signed an MoU to pilot an Education Technology Programme in 11 schools in Cambodia. 

SeeBeyondBorders(SBB), an Irish education charity has been operating in Cambodia over the last 13 years and has trained over 500 teachers in 199 schools, transforming education for more than 27,000 children in rural northwest Cambodia. 

This event will be a great opportunity for all our members and colleagues to meet the CEO and Chairperson of SeeBeyondBorders together with the visiting team from Cambodia, who plan to share with us the impact that our partnership has made in the 11 schools.

ElectricAid committed to €40,000 to year one of this innovative education programme aimed at building technology skills and digital resources. By February, 23 teachers and 27 mentors had improved their technology knowledge and skills in all  schools, providing 728 children with a more engaging and quality learning experience. 

Commenting on the pilot, grade-one teacher Khoun Sophon added; 

“I never thought that something I found so challenging at first could become so helpful to me, especially in my classroom management. It really has increased my students’ participation and attendance.”   

Attending the ElectricAid / SeeBeyondBorders Presentation:

Phath Blung is the Country Manager and he will talk about the education system in Cambodia, providing context and explain why he is motivated to ensure Cambodian children have access to a quality education.

Mel Cashen – Mel is the Programme Design and Development Advisor and she will talk through the impact of the SeeBeyondBorders approach of focusing on the mentoring and upskilling of Cambodian teachers and how access to educational technology improves Cambodian children’s learning outcomes.

Phath and Mel will be supported by;

SreyPhet Phan – whose work as Project manager/Educational Changemaker with SeeBeyondBorders has supported a new generation of young Cambodian female leaders. 

Boumy Thanh – Boumy has worked very closely with teachers and District Office of Education staff in Bavel and Ek Phnom and Boumy became the Project Manager for our Embedding Mentoring and a core member of the team supporting programme implementation.Thanh Boumy/Project Manager – Embedding Mentoring.

Pov Pheung  – Pov has over 15 years’ experience as an educator. He supports the Cambodian Leadership Team as a mentor while completing his Masters in Education in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick. Pov is due to return to Cambodia in May. Cambodian Leadership Team Mentor.

People

PEPY Empowering Youth

Also accompanying our team with be four students from PEPY Empowering Youth. PEPY is a non-profit working in the Siem Reap district of Northern Cambodia that provides personal and professional development training to rural youth.

PEPY have had links to Irish schools for 10 years and over that time have worked closely with Chair of SBBI Maeve Corish.

Attending the ElectricAid / SeeBeyondBorders Presentation:

Phath Blung is the Country Manager and he will talk about the education system in Cambodia, providing context and explain why he is motivated to ensure Cambodian children have access to a quality education.

Mel Cashen – Mel is the Programme Design and Development Advisor and she will talk through the impact of the SeeBeyondBorders approach of focusing on the mentoring and upskilling of Cambodian teachers and how access to educational technology improves Cambodian children’s learning outcomes.

Phath and Mel will be supported by;

SreyPhet Phan – whose work as Project manager/Educational Changemaker with SeeBeyondBorders has supported a new generation of young Cambodian female leaders. 

Boumy Thanh – Boumy has worked very closely with teachers and District Office of Education staff in Bavel and Ek Phnom and Boumy became the Project Manager for our Embedding Mentoring and a core member of the team supporting programme implementation.Thanh Boumy/Project Manager – Embedding Mentoring.

Pov Pheung  – Pov has over 15 years’ experience as an educator. He supports the Cambodian Leadership Team as a mentor while completing his Masters in Education in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick. Pov is due to return to Cambodia in May. Cambodian Leadership Team Mentor.

People

PEPY Empowering Youth

Also accompanying our team with be four students from PEPY Empowering Youth. PEPY is a non-profit working in the Siem Reap district of Northern Cambodia that provides personal and professional development training to rural youth.

PEPY have had links to Irish schools for 10 years and over that time have worked closely with Chair of SBBI Maeve Corish.

PEPY: A better future for Cambodian youth starts today!

If you have any questions about this event please contact electricaid@esb.ie

In March 2021, The Loving our Elderly parents (LEOP) project in Kenya received a donation of €5,216 to help them with their plans of providing food and shelter for the elderly and vulnerable in Kenya, while also trying to improve the standards of hygiene and provide home renovations. This project was targeted at people over the age of 60 and has benefitted them, their families and caregivers within Holy Redeemer Iruma Catholic Parish, Catholic Diocese of Meru in Kenya.

This project required the implementation of two activities, the first was to provide food and decent shelter for the elderly people. This feeding program entailed giving basic food for the elderly, LEOP project provided a package of Maize flour, cooking fat, sugar, tea leaves, green grams, wheat flour, rice and salt to the beneficiaries. The food was presented to family members who were living with and taking care of the elderly parents. Renovation and Maintenance of Homes Initially proposed that 10 houses were to be renovated. However, the condition of the houses was terrible and beyond renovation and therefore they had to be fully reconstructed. Forty- four elderly people also received blankets, assorted kitchen utensils and energy saving stoves. 

The second activity was to improve the health and hygiene of the elderly in Iruma Catholic parish. This included providing elderly people with emergency health kits which supported their general health, they were also able to get out-patient treatment in nearby health facilities. LEOP also disinfected and fumigated the home of the elderly which were infested with different parasites that include fleas, lice and bedbugs. Spraying and treatment were done by the caregivers in conjunction with the community health volunteers (CHVs) within the parish. 

Feeding program has improved the nutrition of the Elderly persons and hence improved immunity. There are fewer elderly people seeking treatments for nutrition related ailments at the nearby health facilities. This year, Kenya has been experiencing high inflation causing rising cost of food stuff. This has been compounded by the COVID 19 pandemic and the food shortage due to scarcity of rainfall in the country. The food packages curbed the elderly from hunger and reduced economic strains on the caregivers who live with the elderly people. The reconstructed homes protected people from harsh weather such as the extreme heat which can lead to poor health. 

Thanks to the help of our doners we were able to achieve the goals set out by the Loving our Elderly parents (LEOP) project and achieve 5 of the 17 SDG’s set out by the United Nations including goal 2 Zero Hunger, 3 Good Health and wellbeing, 6 Clean Water and Sanitation, 7 Affordable and Clean Energy and finally goal 13 which is to take Climate Action.  

On the 21^st of January 2021 Sightsavers Ireland received a €13,000 grant from ElectricAid to support the Bangladesh district eye care project, Khulna district. The main aim of the project was to increase eye health services, particularly for cataract surgery in the community. A focus was also placed on increasing community awareness to help shift societal attitude on eye health services and to increase patients seeking treatments, particularly among women.  

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries with a population over 164 million. Extreme poverty, inequality and poor healthcare in Bangladesh has resulted in more than 6 million people suffering from cataracts and refractive error. Women are more likely than men to have cataract blindness and vision loss, accounting for up to 72% of people living with cataracts, yet they are much less likely to access cataract surgery than men for several reasons including gender-based discrimination and the lack of awareness on health rights. 

Sightsavers, with support from ElectricAid, have provided training to community health workers on gender and disability to identify patients, increase patient treatments and community engagement activities on eye health care, particularly among women. Activities included distributing leaflets, running eye screening camps, radio announcements, training community health care workers and leveraging key international days such as international women’s day to increase awareness of eye health care.  

Over the course of the project, SightSavers reached a total of 95,136 people (59% women) received eye healthcare screenings and 35,898 cataract operations were fulfilled (54% women). 181,399 were screened for refractive error. 161,615 people were given sight tests to see if they need glasses and from this 40,924 people received them. 403 community health workers were also trained on various courses. On average, 58% of people reached through this project were women. 

“As always, Sightsavers are so grateful for the monumental support ElectricAid continues to provide. We hope you can continue to help us save and restore the sight of many more people, particularly women, children and people with disabilities in the year ahead” 

On behalf of ElectricAid we would once again like to that out generous donors without your help and support we would be unable to aid in projects such as Sightsavers. We were also able to achieve several of the sustainable development goals set out by the United Nations including Goal 3 – Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 5 – Gender Equality, Goal 9 – Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure, Goal 10 – Reduced Inequalities, Goal 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities and finally Goal 17 – Partnerships for the Goals.