The PEPY Ride 2006

Setting out on 9 January, the PEPY (Protect the Earth, Protect Yourself) Ride is biking its way across Cambodia in a five week “education through action” program that’s bringing environmental and health issues to the country’s most rural areas and raising funds along the way to support a rural school that the organization has built.

Two Americans, a Canadian, a Brit, a Kiwi, and a Finn make up the team riding their bikes across Cambodia、dropping in on schools, delivering educational materials and visiting de-mining initiatives that are trying to rid the country of the continuing threat. The current event is just one of a number of rides planned for the year, with the next covering Siem Reap to Phnom Penh on March 27th -April 3rd.

After a year’s intense fund-raising in 2005, The PEPY Ride School was opened in Chanleas Dai, Siem Reap province, and supports 541 local children. 35 volunteers from around the world visited the school in December to mark its opening and spent a week interacting with the teachers and students, teaching about environmental and health issues, distributing materials and decorating classrooms.

Currently the school offers 5 classrooms, a hand-pumped well, bathrooms and is furnished with solar paneling that has brought electricity to the school for the first time. A satellite dish and generator power the first five computers in Chanleas Dai and the PEPY Ride have provided educational supplies, as well as hiring a full-time, highly trained English/ computer teacher from Phnom Penh.

Current projects include the construction of a shade house, the building of a compost heap to fertilize the garden, organic farming training for the students and weekly health education classes for students and the local community on water safety, malaria/ dengue prevention, child nutrition, etc

More volunteers will descend on the school in March and August to continue improving the facilities and help implement the project’s future plans that include weekly environmental classes with environmental teacher training, scholarships for PEPY Ride School graduates to high school (in the next town) or to other training programs, expanding the computer room, and constructing a small apartment on the school grounds to house the full time English /computer teacher and other volunteers/ teachers that visit the school.

To learn more about the program or volunteer contact teamleader@pepyride.org or see the official web site at http://www.pepyride.org/

Source: The PEPY Ride http://www.pepyride.org/

LINK :
The PEPY Ride