Annual Report 2018

Human and Hope Association

Hear our stories and success

Table of contentsA nice story of Savy Preface Director's note Success Highlight in numbers Financial Overview Program Overview Education English and Living Values Khmer Preschool Art Library Vocational Training Sewing Program Home Sewing Business Community Support Workshops Outreach and Opportunity Scholarships Family Farm University Scholarships Working toward Sustainability Fundraising Sources Vision 2019 Sokha's story Lay's story Thank You

3 4 5-6 7-8 9-10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

A nice story of Savy “I am very excited after I completed sewing course. I can help my family to earn more income. I am confident and brave when I am around the people.”

Savy lived in a very difficult life. Her father is an alcoholic who drinks almost every day. When she was around 10, her mother sadly passed away.

Living with her father, she didn't have enough good care. One day, she wanted to stop studying because she didn't have money, but fortunately, her aunt supported her as she took care of her aunt's daughter, so she could go to study until graduating from high school. After graduating, she just stayed home to take care of her aunt's daughter. She wanted to have a job, but as she didn't have a skill, she could not find a job. Actually, in Savy's mind, she wanted to learn sewing, but there was no opportunity for her. Fortunately, one day, through the community outreach, our Vocational Training Coordinator met Savy at her house and told her about free sewing class at Human andHope Association. She was very happy to hear that and decided immediately to register into the program. Living far away from HHA, Savy, rode her bike for about forty minutes to learn every day with a hope of having her dream's skill. She was very committed and willing to learn. She came to class almost every day unless she was sick or had an urgent issue. After three months of learning, Savy applied for the sewing machine loan from us, which she could practice her lessons more and started to earn her first income. With her commitment, she completed our 10-month sewing course, which not only provided a full set of sewing, but she also learned many life skill lessons, which developed her self-confidence and leadership. We are proud of her that she is now working as a seamstress in an ethical company, which she can earn a good income to support her family.

PrefaceHuman and Hope Association came about in March 2011 when a group of villagers saw an absence of education in their commune. They knew that education was the key to alleviating poverty in Cambodia, as many had not received the opportunity to be educated themselves. This group of local Cambodians decided to teach English at a Buddhist pagoda to community members at a small fee of 50 US cents per student each month in order to cover their costs. Over the next 18 months, the volunteer team recruited students through word of mouth, posting announcements at the local primary school and gaining the support of the Monks who preached to the community. In October 2012, an Australian living in Siem Reap was introduced to the team through her best friend who volunteered there. Observing how motivated the Khmer volunteers were, she started working as their Operations Manager, with the goal to initiate new projects, support the team with new skills and ensure a sustainable future for the organisation. Two years later, with financial support from their Australian partner organisation, Human and Hope Association Inc., a new community centre was built 4km away from the pagoda. They now focus on education, vocational training and community support and are committed to achieving great outcomes rather than just focusing on outputs. Human and Hope Association is a unique NGO as not only do they no longer accept foreign volunteers, but as of July 2016, through the empowerment driven by these programs, they have become entirely locally-operated.

Director's note

I have been part of Team HHA for almost eight years and this year, we are celebrating two years of being entirely Khmer operated. I always feel great to see the growth of our organization and the positive change in our community. I not only feel proud about the outcomes we have achieved with children and women, but I am also proud of the wonderful team of HHA in Cambodia and HHA Inc. in Australia who has a big passion and commitment to change the community together. This year, our Khmer board welcomed one more member, Sina Tho, the owner of Easy Tour company as our board advisor. We also had a vote to select new board president after Sreylin Chum had been the president for five years and Dara Huot, our board advisor, and CEO of Phare Performing Social Enterprise, was selected. We also have had a wonderful team of volunteers join our fundraising partner, HHA Incorporated in Australia. I am so delighted and grateful with the great jobs and support from the volunteer board members who have spent their valuable time with us. As every year, we are very excited to reflect on our major achievements and challenges of our work. This year we are proud to share the great news with you that 17 families have broken free of poverty bracket due to the increase in their income and knowledge. More than 300 people have attended our programs, which is a big increase number of nearly 30%. You will find the success highlight in numbers of our project below my note. You know that apart from the donations, we have been trying so hard to generate ourown income such as our handicraft business, farm and community fundraising. This year, we received 32% of our income through our self-generated income, which is increased 6% from last year.

Hello ‘CHUMREAP SUR’ from Cambodia! First of all, thank you so much to everyone who has supported us, so we can continue our wonderful work to give big smiles and hope for ourunderprivileged children, women and families. Your support and love have inspired us here to continue to tackle the challenges we are facing in our community.

Director's note This year, we held the fundraising event at HHA and invited our friends and communitymembers to join. As a result, we raised USD$1,500. A big thanks go to the artists from Phare Ponleu Selpak for providing us with a free theatre show on "My problem, My solutions". Next year, we are going to gain more support from the community by holding events and approaching the local businesses. We also faced some challenges with our work as well, which we have learned to improve next year. The first issue was that we had expanded our curriculum in order for our students to gain more English ability, however, after the trial, it didn't work well because of their attendance, so we decided to discontinue the classes. Also, our team have identified some ways to better our education curriculum, so next year, they are going to work together again to update the curriculum and this time with the support from some experts in the field. And the second issue was that through the feedback from the graduate sewing students, a few of them were not really confident to us their skill. We found out that, during learning in class, they didn’t have much time to practice the lessons. Due to this, we decided to cut some lessons in the sewing curriculum and let the students practice the popular lessons a few more times, such as men and women shirts and trousers. Lastly, thanks again for joining with our local team to empower our community members. It is part of your contributions, so you should feel proud of these achievements. We need on-going support from you, so if you haven't sign up as our monthly donor, we would like to invite you to sign up HERE. A donation of AUD$10 a month can provide a child living in poverty access to daily education. We look forward to working with you as we continue our journey to break the cycle of poverty in Siem Reap. Best wishes, Thai San

Success highlight in numbers

11

students graduated from our sewing program 240

children joined our English and Living values classes

10

children graduated from our preschool class 105

villagers attended our community workshops

children joined hygiene workshops 155

children were supported with scholarships 74

Success highlight in numbers

95

students joined social events

32%

sewing machine loans were provided

20

development workshop were provided to our staff

90%

of students passed their final exam

of income was self- generated

of graduate sewing students earned an

income 91%

19

Financial Overview 2018

Our Income = USD$65,564.97

52%

16%

32%

Operations/Admin 30%

Education 22%

Vocational 38%

Community 10%

Our Expenses = USD$63,196.27

Self-generated income

Donations HHA Inc. Australia

Donations in Cambodia

Financial Overview 2018

Notes: 1. Self-generated income is sourced from sewing handicrafts, sewing microfinance

repayments, stationery shop, tuition, farm, bank interest, and misc. supplies.

2. Donations in Cambodia include community fundraising, visitors, and grant organisations.

3. Donations HHA Inc. Australia is received from our fundraising partner, Human and Hope Association Incorporated in Australia through grants, handicraft market stall, events, monthly donors, and corporate partnerships.

Programs Overview

Education Aimed at children aged 5-18 years old, these programs supplement their public school education, setting them up for a brighter future. We provide the following classes in: English, living values, Khmer, preschool, art and library. We also provide ongoing programs in staff development. Vocational Training Aimed towards all community members, many of whom were unable to complete high school and most of whom are illiterate. While this proves challenging at times in delivery of the program, the results are wholeheartedly worth it upon seeing improvements to their confidence. We currently have a sewing program and a home sewing business program. Community Support The community projects at Human and Hope Association are targeted towards the most vulnerable community members who are the poorest of the poor. Whilst challenging, we believe in empowering the community with knowledge and skills to achieve a sustainable future. We currently run workshops, outreach and opportunity scholarships, family farm programs and university scholarships

Education

English and Living Values

English class is successful this year as 90% of our students passed the exam and most of them can communicate well with teachers in English in and outside the classroom. We have also maintained the appropriate number of students in each class. This year 240 children from surrounding villages have been studying English with us. As a result, we have seen a remarkable improvement in their English ability through the test results and their interactions in English with teachers. We have expanded our curriculum in order for our students to gain more English ability, however, after the trial, it didn’t work well because of their attendance. Therefore, we are going to update our curriculum again and this time with the support from some experts in the field of English education. The behavior of our students has also improved consistently due to our living values class. Most of them respect each other and are improving themselves to become better students, children, and citizens.

90% of our students passed their final exam

Education

Khmer

Our native language, Khmer is the first important language for our children. These classes aim to improve the students who are poor on reading and writing. Moreover, on Friday they learn mathematics and they spend a large portion of their free time studying in the library at Human and Hope Association. This year we started testing our students' reading and writing skills as it is important for them to see the progress of their ability with those skills. Also, the result of this test is useful for our teachers to adjust their teaching to make sure the students can learn in the best possible way. As a result, 94% of students moved up their grade at public school. "Their attendance is good and they are so brave to raise their hands and answer the questions." - Salin, Education and Community Manager

66 students joined our Khmer class

Education

Preschool

This year we taught 10 students and all of them already made a transition to public school. They are now continuing their study in our Khmer class to improve their reading and writing in Khmer and also basic mathematics. Slowly but surely, they will join our English class to expand their knowledge for a better future. On the first day of school, they knew nothing about Khmer knowledge and their behaviors were rude and unacceptable. However, after one year, all of them have improved their knowledge and attitude noticeably. They have learned how to read and write Khmer alphabets, children songs, arts and crafts, funny activities, coloring, and basic mathematics. As for their attitude, they’ve known how to respect their friends and the elders, how to play happily with each other, how to take care of their health, rubbish control, and so forth. We now have 10 new students studying in the class, who will graduate in October 2019.

10 children graduated from our preschool

Education

Art

The art class at Human and Hope Association aims to instil confidence and creativity in children. For the past several years, attendance has always averaged out at around 15 students. As the only available time to hold this class is Sunday afternoon, our team struggles to increase attendance as the students often have to fulfil their responsibilities at home on Sundays, such as cooking, cleaning and walking their cows. They learn to create arts and crafts with recycle stuff and some provided art supplies. And another half an hour, they enjoy their cartoon and snack. We have seen the improvement of our student’s creativity as most of them can use their own ideas to create new arts and crafts just with the minimal support from their teacher.

10 to 25 students joined our Art class each week

Education

Library

This year the average of 150 students join our library each day. We have a schedule in the library to ensure students have equal time to read and play. The result is that more and more students are interested in reading books, which is a good habit to develop, as it is very important for their lives. The habit of reading opens their mind to explore the world. Our creative writing competition is not working well this year as the older students are busy with their study at public school. Therefore, next year we are going to change our target to small children and update our criteria for selecting the best work.

An average of 150 students joined our library each day

Vocational TrainingSewing ProgramThis year, we retained all the students in our program. All 11 students completed the course; four of them secured the job to work in sewing shops, three are planning to apply for the jobs and others set up sewing businesses at home. Through the support from Sumar Lakhani Foundation, we provided 14 loans to our sewing students. We still receive 100% repayment rates from them and have maintained this repayment rate since 2013. This year, we had a small issue with a few graduate students who didn’t have the confidence to use their skill and didn’t pass their probation at work. After doing a survey, we found that the students didn't have much time to practice their lessons, so next year, we are going to cut some sewing lessons which are not so important to let our students practice the most popular lessons more in class. Moreover, we are going to start a mentoring program with our students in order to follow up their learning and address their problems. This will help our students a lot with their skill and confidence. We have started our new term. 12 women have joined, six are in our advanced class and other six students are in our beginner class.

15 graduate sewing students have moved out of poverty bracket to date

Vocational TrainingHome sewing businessThe home sewing business was founded in 2014 with the aim of providing part-time employment to sewing graduates, and making a sustainable income for Human and Hope Association. This past year has seen an exceptional growth of the program, with an increase in wholesale buyers, custom orders and stockists. There are four seamstresses in this program, and recent assessments have seen three of these seamstresses have broken out of the poverty bracket thanks to their income. Human and Hope Association's products are stocked at the following locations in Cambodia: Cambodian Creations, Very Berry, Phare, the Cambodian Circus, Peace Cafe, Xinh Creations, Kabas and Phare Ponleu Selpakment shops. This year, we have two new consignment shops, Genevieve and Cambodian Living Arts. Our sewing collaboration and sewing business has been running well. This year, we increased our handicraft sales and we have received a lot of order from our ongoing customers. We are thrilled to have wonderful partners who always assist and support HHA. Furthermore, it is such a great help from our seamstresses who have done a very job on their work.

We earned a profit of USD$5,200 through our handicraft sales

Community Support

Workshops

The community workshops at Human and Hope Association aim to address a wide range of social issues that are a result of poverty. This past year, several workshops were held, including domestic violence, child protection, hygiene, parenting, health and road safety.

More than 300 villagers attended community workshops

The hygiene workshops are held at the beginning of each semester to reduce illnesses and disease in Human and Hope Association's community. Every student receives a soap bar courtesy of Eco-Soap Bank, and hygiene has significantly improved.

This workshop is packaged as 'family happiness' and aims to reduce domestic violence in the community. The most recent workshop saw 19 villagers attend, including nine men. Thanks to active discussions, 95% of participants increased their knowledge about family happiness.

185 children attended the most recent workshop. 100% of participants were reported to feeling empowered through increased knowledge about child protection. This workshop focused on 'Good Touch, Bad Touch', children's rights, types of abuse and young love.

The parents of 30 students from Human and Hope Association attended the most recent workshop on parenting, which educates parents on the most effective ways to encourage their children to study and have good behaviour. As a result, 94% of them had an improved knowledge about parenting.

Hygiene

Domestic Violence

Parenting

Child Protection

Community SupportOutreach and opportunity scholarships

We have 85 scholarship students, who are classified as poor level one, two, and three, in our program. We provide them with free access to our education program and study materials needed for their learning. In this program, we don’t only work with children, but their parents as well. Therefore, we have arranged a quarterly meeting with their parents; as a result, there were 30 scholarship students’ parents joined the meeting this year. We also visit their homes to follow up when they have problems with their attendance and any issues. We have some challenges working with their parents because of their lack of participation such as not coming to our meeting and not having time to meet us even we go to their home as they are busy working. Nevertheless, we persist.

85 children were provided with opportunity scholarships

Community Support

Family FarmOur family farm program encourages families to improve their standard of living. We provide them with training, knowledge and resources for farming so they are able to grow chemical-free food for their own use and to sell. Six villagers our program in 2018. We reduced our training time to only 4 hours as they have limited time to join, and are not used to studying. The time is not sufficient for the whole training so we can only train them the basic knowledge of farming – land preparation, making compost fertilizer, making natural insect repellent, and the importance of chemical-free farming. After the training, we continued to support and train the participants at their homes so they could improve the quality of their crops.

6 villagers graduated from our family farm program

Community SupportUniversity ScholarshipsThis is the final year that the university scholarship program will run. It was launched in 2013, as staff members were earning just $80USD a month, and were unable to afford to pursue further education. Now, with full-time salaries for the education staff being a minimum of $300USD a month, the team can afford to pay for their education and have a good quality standard of living. The two remaining staff members on the scholarship program, Bunrong and Salin, graduated with Bachelors of English Literature in July 2018. The remaining funds will be used to send staff on external workshops to keep their skills current. “As the oldest son in a poor family, I have never imagined I could pursue a bachelor degree at university. Fortunately, through HHA university scholarship program, it became possible for me. I was able to pursue my further education at a university. Studying in university for four years, I have bettered my teaching skills and have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge. Armed with these tools, I commit to using them to develop my profession and life. Thanks HHA for providing me a scholarship to study at university; it makes a big difference in my life.” - Salin, Education and Community Manager

3 staff received 'top student'

awards at university

Working towards sustainabilitySustainability Financial In addition to your donations, we have been working hard to generate our own income through handicraft business, community fundraising, stationery shops, and farm. This year, there was 6% increase from our handicraft sales and was successful in a community fundraising event. Next year, we are going to continue with our existing methods and try new methods by doing events, approaching the support from local businesses and community. Local Leadership This year, we celebrated two years of being entirely Khmer operated. We are proud that what we believe in local empowerment has been working well. We believe that local leadership is the best approach for the sustainability of an organisation and community development. Exit Strategy Through our empowerment work, we believe that our community will be moving out of poverty bracket. However, in order to achieve this, we must have a clear strategy, so this year we created an exit strategy. This strategy indicates clearly about goals, outcomes, outputs, activities and the risk management of our projects. With this clear strategy, we have the end date in 2029, means that in 10 years from now, our community will be empowered and they will be no longer needed our support.

PartnersWe wouldn't have been able to achieve everything this year without the support of our wonderful partners.

Vision for 2019Our Major Objectives

In 2019, we aim to achieve the following outputs: 200 children are provided with English, Khmer and Living values 10 children are provided with preschool 12 villagers are provided with Sewing and Life skills 300 villagers are provided with workshops and training Our self-generated income is increased by 5% Initiate new Student Development Program We wish to establish a Student Development Program in 2019. The aim of this program is to inspire our students to become leaders through mentoring and exploring the world around them. Our student development program consists of four activities: - Mentoring program - Immersion Excursion (Study tours) - Youth Leadership Scholarships - Leader of the Year Awards Community fundraising The support from the community is very important. Next year, we are going to do three activities to receive donations from the community. - Holding events - Approaching the support from local businesses - Asking villagers to donate their rice

Sokha's story

*Sokha Sokha is the daughter of our seamstress. She was brought to learn at HHA when her mother joined our sewing program. Sokha was a shy and silent girl. She didn’t like talking and playing with friends. When she was five-year-old, she was registered into our preschool program. As her mother studied sewing with us, we were easy to work with her parents. Our teacher invited their parents to join the meetings and parenting workshop a few times, so they understand well to educate Sokha more at home and worked collaboratively with us to track Sokha’ s improvement. After joining our preschool for one year, she progressed to our Khmer class. Currently, she is studying grade one at public school and studying English level 1 with us. Sokha has dramatically changed both her knowledge and attitude. She has done a great job with her study. She is one of the outstanding students who ranked number 1 for Khmer class at public school and for English class at HHA. She has become really mature. She stopped being shy. She talks and plays with her friends. She can read and write Khmer children book very well. Apart from learning in class, Sokha mostly spends her time reading book with her friends in our library. *Name was changed for the privacy purposes

 I am very proud of her because

she received a good grade for her

study and also, she respects me

and helps some of my housework

as well.” - Sokha's mother

Lay's story

Lay Lay's father died when he was young. Living with his mother and step-father with a big family of 9 people, he had worked hard on the farm and studied at the same time. Due to his family financial problems, he had to stop studying at school to work as a security guard at night time. Working as a security guard was not easy as he worked the night shift. One day, through our staff community outreach, we met Lay at home. When we told him about the free sewing classes at Human and Hope Association, he was so happy and decided to join the program as he liked this skill so much. Lay was very committed to his study and did a great job, although he was the only male in the class. After three months, Lay applied for our sewing machine loan, so he could practice his skill at home and earned some income through fixing clothes for his neighbors. Through his willingness and commitment, he successfully completed our 10-month sewing and life skill courses. After he graduated, Lay was introduced by his friends to work at sewing shop. His job was challenging for him at first, but after a few months, he could do a great job. He now earns around USD$200 per month and has the evenings free to relax with his family and friends.

“My dream comes true, because

I have a job as a tailor after I

completed sewing course. I can

earn a good income to support

my family.”

Thank You

Due to the support from you, HHA enable to continue our work to empower our villagers to create a sustainable future. We are so

grateful for your generosity and you should feel proud of the achievements we have done together. We are looking forward to

working with you in the next journey.

Best wishes, Team HHA

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