Organization

Ponheary Ly Foundation


The Ponheary Ly Foundation (PLF) is a nonprofit that helps children in rural northwestern Cambodia go to school and stay there.[1][2] It grew from the work of Ponheary Ly, a Siem Reap teacher and tour guide who survived the Khmer Rouge, and was set up in Austin, Texas, with Lori Carlson, a visitor she met at Angkor in 2005.[3][1][4] As of 2026 it supports nearly 3,000 students in Siem Reap and Preah Vihear provinces.[5][6]

History

Ponheary Ly grew up in a family that valued education, and her father was a teacher. The Khmer Rouge killed her father and 13 members of her family. In 1977, at the age of 14, she survived being buried alive by Khmer Rouge soldiers. She, her mother, her grandmother and five siblings survived.[1][7][4]

Under the Vietnamese-installed government that followed, she became a teacher, learned French and English in secret, and was sent to Moscow to learn Russian. As a teacher she began supporting students and extra programs at the schools where she worked.[3][1][7] In 1998, as Cambodia reopened to Western visitors, she became a guide at Angkor, working in three languages. She saw children selling trinkets at the temples instead of going to school. She used her tips to pay for one student, then more, and she asked the tourists she guided to pay for children's schooling instead of buying from children at the temples.[3][1][7] Before the foundation existed, her work had helped 200 children attend school.[7]

In December 2005 Lori Carlson, a tourist from Austin, Texas, met Ly at Angkor Wat. On her return to the United States she registered a foundation to channel funds to Ly and widen her work.[3][1][8] Sources give different founding dates. Federal records show tax exemption granted in December 2006, and PLF Canada dates the founding to 2005. One 2016 account says the foundation began as a private foundation and became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2007.[9][10][11] In 2007, after two years of visits, Carlson left a career in publishing and moved to Siem Reap to work full time with Ly and her family.[3][1]

Koh Ker Primary School lies in Preah Vihear province, about two and a half hours from Siem Reap, near the Koh Ker temple complex. The foundation dates its arrival there to 2006, when 40 children attended grades 1 to 3. A 2010 account dates the adoption of the school to December 2007, when it had no clean water, supplies, books or trained teachers, and its children were malnourished and sick.[12][13] The foundation brought in clean water, which the whole village later adopted, and Carlson has said that in the year after its first year of work no child in the village died.[14]

Children began staying in school through grades 4, 5 and 6, and the first supported class finished grade 6 in 2009. Because the nearest secondary school was ten miles away, the foundation built a residence so they could keep studying.[14] By September 2010 it supported more than 2,000 children at four schools.[8] Ly was named a CNN Hero in 2010.[3] By 2011 about 2,400 children were in school with the foundation's help.[4] The lives of students at its schools were told in the film The Sunflowers of Srayang.[14]

Romchek Primary School joined in 2015, with uniforms and supplies early that year and a lunch program and English classes that fall, and work to improve Prey Kuol Primary School began in 2017.[12] Ly received the World of Children Education Award in 2016.[3][7] That year the foundation chose to focus on keeping its existing students in school through graduation before expanding.[11] The Srayang Learning Center opened on January 11, 2021, in place of the old Srayang dormitory, and the Urban Learning Center in Siem Reap opened in 2022.[12]

Programs

The foundation supports public government schools staffed by Khmer teachers rather than running schools of its own.[5] It works to keep rural children in school and moving on toward higher education. Its work includes school sponsorship at rural primary and secondary schools, university scholarships, placements in technical and vocational training, school supplies and uniforms, bicycles to help students reach school, and health and nutrition support at schools.[12][1] It gives children food, clean water and basic health care, and it pays teachers stipends to replace the extra fees that teachers in poorly paid public schools would otherwise charge students.[7] In 2010 each student received two uniforms and two pairs of shoes a year, and graduating sixth graders and top fourth and fifth graders received bicycles.[8]

Students move through the Primary & Middle School program from kindergarten to grade 9. As students finished grade 6, the foundation added Learning Centers, which offer extra classes and activities alongside the national curriculum.[6][12] The tertiary team tracks high school test scores, runs tutoring, scholarship and leadership programs, and supports students through vocational training, university and entry into work.[3] A 2016 account counted university scholarships for 47 students and two students who passed the medical school entrance exam.[11]

Where it works

As of 2024 the foundation worked in four pathways in Preah Vihear and Siem Reap provinces.[12] Its sites include:

  • Koh Ker Primary School, Preah Vihear: more than 180 students through grade 6, with a kindergarten since 2016, breakfast, English classes, a library and monthly lunches.[12]
  • Romchek Primary School, 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Koh Ker: just over 250 students from kindergarten to grade 6, with a clean-water system, library, kitchen and dining hall built by the foundation.[12]
  • Prey Kuol Primary School: 130 students, reached by road only part of the year, with clean water, toilets and larger classrooms added from 2017 and classes extended from grade 3 to grade 6.[12]
  • Srayang Learning Center: trucks carry students from Preah Vihear villages to high school at Srayang, where the center offers lunch, English, extra Khmer and mathematics, computer classes, a library and life-skills workshops.[12]
  • Chey Primary School: more than 800 students from kindergarten to grade 6, with uniforms and supplies, bicycles for sixth-grade graduates and a Learning Center with computer, English and exam-preparation classes.[12]
  • Wat Bo Primary School, Siem Reap: an urban school of more than 6,000 students, where the foundation gives uniforms and supplies to more than 600 students from poor families and bicycles to sixth-grade graduates.[12]
  • Knar Village Learning Center: more than 200 students, with a lending library, English, science, IT, ukulele, chess, arts and crafts and a health station, plus classes for parents on domestic violence, family planning and human rights.[12]
  • Urban Learning Center, Siem Reap: the foundation's headquarters since 2022, with a lending library of more than 2,500 titles and a 14-terminal computer lab open seven days a week.[12]

The Preah Vihear projects are run jointly by PLF Canada and PLF USA.[12] The foundation's own counts have varied: more than 2,800 students across four pathways, and 2,800 students at four primary and five secondary schools. PLF Canada counts more than 3,000 students at nine locations.[12][1][10]

Organization

PLF has a board of directors in Austin, Texas, and program staff in Siem Reap.[9] Ponheary Ly and her family lead its field work in Cambodia.[9] Its support comes mainly from private donations, and local volunteers and visitors from abroad have taught, given first aid, cooked and delivered supplies.[5] The foundation once ran the Seven Candles guest house in Siem Reap, which housed many volunteers and hosted computer classes.[4][11] By 2013 The New School had sent students to work with the foundation for five years.[14]

PLF Canada was set up in 2010 by the Canadian travelers Greg Nelson and Patti Shedden so that Canadians could support the work.[10] PLF is registered with the IRS under EIN 20-4277315.[9] It is accredited by the charity watchdogs Great Non-Profits and Guidestar, and it posts its tax filings on its website.[5][15] Its funders have included the Edward E. Stone Foundation and the Not Yet Foundation.[16]

Finances

The foundation's fiscal year ends in September.[9]

  • Fiscal 2025: revenue $705,080, expenses $552,762, net assets $2,227,410
  • Fiscal 2024: revenue $942,133, expenses $753,784, net assets $2,030,375
  • Fiscal 2023: revenue $566,615, expenses $497,149, total assets $1,698,023
  • Fiscal 2022: revenue $918,605
  • Fiscal 2021: revenue $1,003,592

Federal records list a mailing address of PO Box 17034, Austin, TX 78760.[9]

Team (2025)

Ponheary Ly and Lori Carlson are the founders, and Carlson is president of the board.[3]

  • Christin Spoolstra, operations director
  • Graham Smith, tertiary education director
  • Cassie Gravett, development director
  • Theada Seak, library director
  • Sothea Et, field director, Srayang Learning Center
  • Ravuth Neak, field director and teacher
  • Hub Chhay, administrative officer and field director
  • Sotheara Ly, IT manager
  • Vannak Los, life-skills workshop leader and student counselor
  • Sothy Soun, teacher coordinator and trainer
  • Samnang Eam, student counselor
  • Sherry Trailor, accounting and HR
  • Sophean Ley, bookkeeper
  • Kate Allen, communications officer
  • Kao Ay Koeuy, workshop and tertiary assistant
  • Thida Chhay, purchasing controller

Board (fiscal 2025)

Officers and directors listed in the federal filing for the fiscal year ending September 2025.[9]

  • Lori Carlson, president
  • Sharon Miro, secretary
  • Nina Davis, treasurer (part of the year)
  • Cas Gravett, board member (part of the year)
  • Caroline Stafford, board member
  • Dave Claunch, board member

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Ponheary Ly Foundation, Ponheary's story
  2. ↑ Ponheary Ly Foundation, home page
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Ponheary Ly Foundation, Our team
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 National Geographic, From the killing fields to a future (2011)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Ponheary Ly Foundation, About
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Ponheary Ly Foundation, Donate
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 World of Children, Ponheary Ly
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Shine Global, Ponheary Ly Foundation (2010)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Ponheary Ly Foundation
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Ponheary Ly Foundation Canada, About us
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 My Little Vagabonds, Ponheary Ly: Healing Cambodia through Education (2016)
  12. ↑ 12.00 12.01 12.02 12.03 12.04 12.05 12.06 12.07 12.08 12.09 12.10 12.11 12.12 12.13 12.14 12.15 Ponheary Ly Foundation, Where we work
  13. ↑ Wired2theWorld, CNN Hero Ponheary Ly (June 2010)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 New School Free Press, Ponheary Ly speaks on her mission for education in Cambodia (March 2013)
  15. ↑ Charity Navigator, Ponheary Ly Foundation
  16. ↑ Impala, Ponheary Ly Foundation (EIN 20-4277315)

Sources

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This page was last edited on 2 October 2026, at 01:35.