Leslie Engle, PoP Laos Country Director, writes about the power of a pencil.

About a week ago I sent out an email to our internal team of 100+ members across the country to share all of the recent progress that PoP has gone through. Based on that response, I figured it would be best to share it with all of you as well.

(Photo Credit: Bryce Eriksen)

So today village elders tied me up and got me drunk, then sent me off to shoot the monks, until I discovered that the monks were, in fact, shooting me. Oh, and I crashed my motorbike.
The awesome part about all of this is that I’m not even kidding.
Thanks to the underground marketing campaign of a pair of friends (I owe you, Wilsher/Johnson), I have been granted the extreme privilege of shooting documentary materials for Pencils of Promise in Laos as they get set to turn over control of several …

When you first see Kua, she’s at the blackboard, the teacher admiring her work. She’s sporting a baseball cap and t-shirt with her school skirt and is undoubtedly smiling.
When they break for lunch, her classmates fall into a familiar stride behind their friend and leader. Kua knows everybody in Pha Theung school and village.
And everybody knows Kua. She is a confident, intelligent and friendly female who loves her village and her school.
As they file out the door, she announces to all of them that they’re going to take the falang, …

One night after leaving the Seeds of Learning facilities recently, I found myself peering over the edge of an active volcanic crater in Nicaragua, sharing gasps of awe with fellow travelers from every corner of the globe. We next ventured through the dark to explore a large cave, normally a place where you would feel as far removed from all familiarities as possible.
As we approached I heard two American accents, which led to a casual conversation with two fellow travelers who told me they worked in advertising. The conversation went …

For the past week I have been spending time in Dario, Nicaragua formalizing our first partnership in Latin America with an incredible organization called Seeds of Learning. We share a common approach to community development, which is grounded in the belief that each village must be deeply entrenched participants in the construction of their school, library or community center.
These structures we build neither “belong” to Seeds of Learning nor Pencils of Promise. They belong to the community; we are merely facilitators towards this end. Sustainability lies in local ownership, not …