WELCOME TO PHARE
Phare Ponleu Selpak – meaning The Brightness of the Arts – is a Cambodian non-profit art school located in Battambang, empowering children, youth and communities through artistic, educational, social support and outreach programs since 1994.
Phare Ponleu Selpak – in Khmer, The Brightness of the Arts – is a Cambodian non-profit arts school located in Battambang, offering support to children, youth and the surrounding communities through artistic, educational, social and community outreach and engagement programmes.
Over 1000 students are empowered every year through our schools and programmes: performing, visual and applied arts leisure classes, and vocational training aid children and young adults to develop their creativity, communication and concentration skills, and to access a sustainable artistic career whilst preserving and promoting Cambodian arts and culture.
Support us
Help us spread a passion for the arts across Cambodia. We believe that all children, regardless of their background, deserve to have access to the healing powers of the arts. Our artistic training provides art therapy as well as professional skills that lead to lasting employment. Your donation directly supports these programs.
Help our community escape the cycle of poverty and contribute to a modern cultural Cambodia.
Sponsor a child
Volunteer with Us
Sponsor a child
Do you want to sponsor a child? When you join our child sponsorship program, your monthly gift gives our most at-risk students the aid and support they need to stay in school and pursue their passions.
Volunteer with Us
We welcome committed and passionate volunteers who have specific expertise or experience which fills a current need. Those needs change over time, but some examples of skills often needed are in social media, communications, IT, lighting and sound design, merchandising and customer service.
News & Stories
Read the testimony and tribute to Lok Kru Bandaul from Kunthary, a fervent supporter of Phare and Cambodian Arts
“My family’s connection to Phare, as I came to learn, dates back to the 1980’s when my father, as a Member of the Executive Committee of one of the resistance groups at the Thai-Cambodian border, had an oversight responsibility of the civilian affairs of all the refugee camps the group was overseeing, of which Site 2 – where Phare founders grew up and started drawing classes – was part of.”
Creating during the pandemic – Check the latest works of our visual artists!
It’s been more than a year our visual arts students have been on and off school following the Government’s protocol as the pandemic spread over the Country. We had shown you back then how the first home confinement had provided Phare artists with time to reflect on this huge wave affecting us all. While Cambodia is facing a new outbreak, they have been expressing their insights and their appeal to pay closer attention to protect ourselves and others. Have a look at their latest works!
Phare Ponleu Selpak grabs 4 gold trophies at the prestigious Stevie International Business Awards
After the most difficult year in our history, including the closure of our circuses with disastrous impact on funding, we have triumphed against the odds to win four gold awards at the Stevie International Business Awards (IBAs)! Phare has just been recognised once again for our audacious 24 hour circus World record attempt and fundraiser.
While Cambodian schools remain closed, Phare tries new ways to keep the students, teachers and parents engaged
This June 2021, the Cambodian Ministry of Education announced that all schools will remain closed and children will continue learning through online classes. For rural and less privileged communities, it still means a lot of active participation from teachers and parents to compensate for the lack of access to internet and digital devices, and the long term gap it is digging to reach back the standard education level all children are entitled to get.
LOVE DOES NOT HURT: Phare is advocating for children rights and wellbeing at home and in school
Phare is still taking an active role in the ‘Love Does Not Hurt Campaign’: a three-year advocacy campaign launched in 2020 to push for an end to Humiliating/Corporal Punishment and to promote Positive Discipline in the Southeast Asian Region. In May and June, our social support team conducted a new series of awareness sessions in 16 villages of Battambang Province, to which more than 330 persons attended. You might not be familiar with the concepts of Corporal Punishment and Positive Discipline? Read our article to know more!
We keep enhancing the quality of education of the youngest and less privileged children
This pandemic has brought the inequality and inequity in education to the forefront. While we did our best in extending kindergarten classes to the communities with “home” schooling, this reality gave us the motivation to take a fresh look at our Kindergarten serving 200 children.
We did it!!! Phare artists performed 24h 10min and 30sec to try and set a Guinness World Record
History was made at 08.10AM on Monday 8th March, when no less than 90 Phare circus performers took a final bow after a continuous circus performance that lasted 24h, 10min and 30sec in a stunningly ambitious Guinness World Record attempt in the category of Longest Circus Show.
Read the testimony and tribute to Lok Kru Bandaul from Kunthary, a fervent supporter of Phare and Cambodian Arts
“My family’s connection to Phare, as I came to learn, dates back to the 1980’s when my father, as a Member of the Executive Committee of one of the resistance groups at the Thai-Cambodian border, had an oversight responsibility of the civilian affairs of all the refugee camps the group was overseeing, of which Site 2 – where Phare founders grew up and started drawing classes – was part of.”
Creating during the pandemic – Check the latest works of our visual artists!
It’s been more than a year our visual arts students have been on and off school following the Government’s protocol as the pandemic spread over the Country. We had shown you back then how the first home confinement had provided Phare artists with time to reflect on this huge wave affecting us all. While Cambodia is facing a new outbreak, they have been expressing their insights and their appeal to pay closer attention to protect ourselves and others. Have a look at their latest works!
Phare Ponleu Selpak grabs 4 gold trophies at the prestigious Stevie International Business Awards
After the most difficult year in our history, including the closure of our circuses with disastrous impact on funding, we have triumphed against the odds to win four gold awards at the Stevie International Business Awards (IBAs)! Phare has just been recognised once again for our audacious 24 hour circus World record attempt and fundraiser.
While Cambodian schools remain closed, Phare tries new ways to keep the students, teachers and parents engaged
This June 2021, the Cambodian Ministry of Education announced that all schools will remain closed and children will continue learning through online classes. For rural and less privileged communities, it still means a lot of active participation from teachers and parents to compensate for the lack of access to internet and digital devices, and the long term gap it is digging to reach back the standard education level all children are entitled to get.
LOVE DOES NOT HURT: Phare is advocating for children rights and wellbeing at home and in school
Phare is still taking an active role in the ‘Love Does Not Hurt Campaign’: a three-year advocacy campaign launched in 2020 to push for an end to Humiliating/Corporal Punishment and to promote Positive Discipline in the Southeast Asian Region. In May and June, our social support team conducted a new series of awareness sessions in 16 villages of Battambang Province, to which more than 330 persons attended. You might not be familiar with the concepts of Corporal Punishment and Positive Discipline? Read our article to know more!
We keep enhancing the quality of education of the youngest and less privileged children
This pandemic has brought the inequality and inequity in education to the forefront. While we did our best in extending kindergarten classes to the communities with “home” schooling, this reality gave us the motivation to take a fresh look at our Kindergarten serving 200 children.
We did it!!! Phare artists performed 24h 10min and 30sec to try and set a Guinness World Record
History was made at 08.10AM on Monday 8th March, when no less than 90 Phare circus performers took a final bow after a continuous circus performance that lasted 24h, 10min and 30sec in a stunningly ambitious Guinness World Record attempt in the category of Longest Circus Show.
*For US tax payers, donations through Give2Asia are tax-exempt according to the guidelines set out on Give2Asia’s website.
