Established in 2008, Pencils of Promise (PoP) has been providing opportunities for quality education to pre-primary and primary students in developing countries by building schools and providing support to both students and teachers. Because of its emphasis on early education, Pencils of Promise has been predominantly providing opportunities for students to improve their literacy skills.
Pencils of Promise was founded on the idea that local participation and on the ground staff was needed in order to form collaborative and sustainable relationships with local communities. Pencils of Promise also works closely with local governments in order to ensure long-term success of their projects. Thanks to its close partnerships, PoP is able to build to 60 to 80 schools per year with an average of three classrooms in each.
The process of building schools involves identifying partner communities and building schools with a 20% contribution from each community. PoP then provides supplemental programming in order to ensure a quality-learning environment. These programs include providing scholarships, ongoing teacher training, and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) programming.
Since 2012, over 2,000 scholarships have been distributed. PoP’s approach involved identifying eligible students using data to target high needs schools where students are at risk of dropping out and providing scholarship packages which include tuition costs and school materials. PoP also provides teacher training by providing materials, engaging teachers in one to one training as well as workshops. In order to prevent missed school day due to preventable illnesses, the WASH program was developed. This program involves building bathrooms and washrooms, and teaching students basic sanitation. Throughout these programs, PoP tracks student achievement and behavior in order to asses the quality of its programs.
Impact: Since its founding in 2008, Pencils of Promise has built 312 schools in Laos, Ghana and Guatemala and continues to build. Thus far PoP has served over 30,000 students.
Pencils of Promise has grown to work successfuly in three different countries in three different regions; Laos, Guatemala and Ghana.
Pencils of Promise utilizes Salesforce and monitors a wide array of qualitative and quantitative measures in order to analyse and assess the success of its programs. It also invites external consultants to asses the schools and programs.
PoP is in the process of supporting existing infrastructure in Laos, Guatemala and Ghana for the purpuse of continueing to strengthen local community and government parternships and to be able to provide opportunities for quality education in places the organization currently has roots. There may be plans in the future to expand outside of current countries.
