Thai San co-founded the Human and Hope Association (HHA) in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province in 2011, as a high school student, with the purpose of empowering local communities through education, vocational training, and community development. The organisation is run entirely by young local Cambodians passionate about alleviating poverty through a comprehensive approach to tackling issues affecting underprivileged households in their province. HHA’s educational programme began by offering English language lessons to the community before expanding to include Khmer, as well as pre-school classes, art, hygiene, community workshops, sewing programmes, and farming. Thai served as Managing Director of HHA until 2022, and he remains a board member.
Thai attended the One Young World Summit in Munich, 2021. Before attending the Summit, Thai received funding from One Young World via the 2020 Covid Young Leaders Fund for his pandemic education and prevention project with HHA. This programme educated 30,000 students and teachers on COVID-19 and hygiene, and gave each participant two masks and two bars of soap, produced by 45 women from the local community.
Through the work of HHA, 34 families have successfully transitioned out of poverty; 35 children have graduated from their preschool; over 600 young people have taken language courses, with 300 students receiving a scholarship and 94% of their programme’s graduates passing assessments. In addition, 117 women received vocational training through HHA’s sewing programme, with HHA distributing 88 microfinance loans to help these women establish their own sewing businesses, culminating in a 90% reduction in domestic violence suffered by participants. The organisation has also established 1,167 home and food gardens to tackle food insecurity, and provided training and resources to look after them.
“I really loved how One Young World organised the Summit and I learnt from the speakers. I was a recipient of One Young World’s 2020 Covid Young Leaders Fund, which helped me make an important contribution to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in my community as well as creating economic opportunities for them.”
