Pencils of Promise

PoP Profile: Leslie Engle

What makes Pencils of Promise unique is our approach.  While 51% of our mission is purely dedicated to the global education crisis, 49% is dedicated to empowering people to create social good.  We refer to this as The Global Generation, which is comprised of Gen Y-ers on our side of the World and the students we are helping across the globe.  Each week, we’ll highlight a different member of the PoP Movement in what we call “PoP Profiles”.

This week’s PoP Profile features Leslie Engle, PoP’s Laos Country Director.

#1: What is your role with PoP?

I’m the PoP Laos Country Director. My job here consists of a lot of awesome things. I visit villages, check-in with schools, run assessments, write blog posts and internal and external updates, and, occasionally, get to play a game of ‘chicken, chicken, rooster’ with my favorite preschoolers in the world. I’m coordinating our SHINE program with a group of local, very high-potential teen girls and all in all, spend my time doing the best job ever.

#2: How did you first get involved with PoP?

I like to think that PoP and I found each other. I knew Adam through friends of friends through the Facebook world. At the time we met, my partner and I had just decided to move to Laos–a country we visited a couple years ago and fell in love with. A little online research and one phone conversation with Adam later, and I know PoP was what I wanted to do in Laos. As a writer, a former preschool teacher, and a perpetual traveler, we made a perfect match.

#3: What is the most exciting thing about working with PoP?

A few days ago I was out at the Nong Kiau Children’s Center playing with some kids after school. Nith, 6, sat down to read a book with me. We looked at pictures of fruit and told one another how to say their names in our respective languages. After a bit I got wrangled into a game of frisbee with some other kids. Later, I found Nith again. She was sitting at a desk drawing pictures of each fruit we talked about in her journal. She asked me to write out the word pineapple below her pencil drawing of the fruit. She then copied my letters, each line and curve executed with extreme concentration and perfection. She finished, set her pencil down, and said, ‘pineapple. Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple!’ the new word rolling in her mouth, flowing out in a gasp of excitement. She then folded up her notebook, tucked it in the band of her skirt, and scampered off to play frisbee, chanting her newly mastered word the whole way. ‘Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple!

Every single day this job is exciting.

#4: What else are you passionate about?

Good books, well-told tales, home cooked food, old friends, my partner, my family, travel. And education. I’m thankful everyday for my education and passionately believe that  access to global education will change the world.

#5: What else do you do outside of PoP (hobbies, work, etc)?

I spend time learning Lao, reading, exploring my new country and writing. I’m a former vegan who seeks out new foods and is continually learning the correct ways to cut raw pork. Oh, and my motorbike! I can’t imagine ever traveling by car again. I love long countryside rides, complete with a flat tire, a near run-in with a water buffalo, and a roadside stop for a soda.

You can also follow Leslie and her exciting adventures in Laos on her (other) blog, howlaobrowncow.com.

Tags: From the Field, Laos, Leslie Engle, PoP Profile