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| This is Ponheary (right) and Lori (left) |
Comprised of two powerful women, the Ponheary Ly Foundation (PLF) is a mix of both “western” and “eastern” philosophy. Ponheary Ly is the founder and mastermind of this NGO. Born in 1962, Ponheary was born into an educated family. She started school, but that was quickly interrupted by the conflict with the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge influence dictated her life until 1979 when Vietnamese military liberated Cambodia. However, Ponheary lost her father and years of education during this time.
In 1981, she started school again and it was soon after that Ponheary became a primary school teacher. Ponheary worked hard to became a teacher, which included learning how to speak English, French, and Russian. To make ends meet, Ponheary and her siblings also became tour guides. This was when Ponheary became more aware of the problem of child beggars in Cambodia. They are forced to work for money and are robbed the opportunity to go to school. Ponheary saw the problem with this and used the opportunity of being a tour guide to education tourists about the problem.
Ponheary also started funding children to go to school. In 2001-2005, her and her family helped 200 children afford the uniform to attend schools. It was around this time Ponheary also met Lori on one of her tours. Lori was inspired by Ponheary’s story and mission to allow more children attend school each year. Lori, who was in banking, was able to help Ponheary financially and eventually started the Ponheary Ly Foundation. Lori eventually moved to Siem Reap full time to help Ponheary manage the foundation and now they support nearly 2,800 students.
PLF works with 5 primary schools and are following their students as they continue to secondary school, high school, and even university. Currently, there are 50 students who are attending a university with the help of PLF, including 1 medical students.
PLF has no intention of growing. They are aware of their size and the scope of work they can accomplish with their budget of $500,000 USD. They want to continue to fund children through the entire education journey, instead of dropping support after primary or secondary school. Lori discussed the challenge this presents with some of her donors that are more interested in funding young children, but lose interest as they grow older. They also have a social enterprise to manage. PLF is partially supported by a guesthouse in Siem Reap called Seven Candles. This is also where Lori and Ponheary Ly’s family live. With all these moving parts, PLF is growing their staff and donor reach. They want to continue to support children through their education journey, which included providing meals and clean water at school, IT and computer classes and giving them a sense of consistency and peace while expanding their minds.
Started by Cambodians, PLF is an inspirational story. As they grow in size, PLF has hired a multinational staff made up of Cambodians, Americans, and British, just to name a few. With the help of Lori, Ponheary was able to bring her dreams into reality and now manages a large NGO that helps thousands of young students every day.
