How to make the best possible use of a gift

In March 2010 Econocom offered Passerelles numériques (PN) a new 25-seat truck. Since that day they have been using this convenient gift in many different ways:
When students arrive. About 90% of students of Passerelles numériques’ students come from the countryside of Cambodia. At the beginning of their 1st year at school they move to Phnom Penh. On their first day they arrive at the train station, usually accompanied by their parents or other members of their family.

In general they carry quite light luggage with some personal items (basically a few clothes and the national scholar uniform). However, some of them also bring a sack, 10 to 20 kilos of rice [1]  that they are going to use all along the year [2]. They use the truck to transfer students, families and of course the rice to the school for this orientation day.

Integration Days. At the beginning of the new school year, PN organizes the ‘Integration Days’ for new enrolled students. During these 2 or 3 days students have the opportunity to introduce themselves and to meet the other students. This is also the occasion for them to become familiar with PN’s center rules and to meet some of PN’s staff and alumni. The ‘Integration Days’ also include a visit of some of the main places of interest in Phnom Penh (as most of students have never visited the capital before): the truck comes in handy in these occasions as well!

Company visits. The ‘Econocom’-truck is also very useful during the ‘Company visits’. One of the main concerns of PN is to get students ready to face up to the responsibilities and the commitment demanded in a working environment. Helping them to better understand what a ‘working environment’ is in view of their internship, they organize some visits of local and/or international companies based in Phnom Penh.

Every year PN organizes 11 visits for each class.

Cultural visits. Passerelles numériques regularly organizes some special visits for its students (often conducted by our History and Geography teachers) to the Royal Palace, the Independence Monument, the National Museum, the Museum of Genocide, etc.

Helping a partner. Passerelles numériques also lends the truck to its partner ‘Enfants du Mékong’. They basically use it during cultural visits for their students.

[1] Cambodians eat rice at almost every meal, either steamed, fried or as noodles. Rice flour is a useful ingredient in cakes and pastries. Rice is so important to Cambodians that they have over 100 words for it in their language. Most people eat it several times a day. For poor families, rice may be their only food most days, and an adult might eat as much as four cups at one meal. Cambodians have been growing rice for over 2000 years. Source: http://cambodia.worldvision.org.nz

[2] The average person in Cambodia eats about 160 kg of rice each year. Source: http://www.rice.ws