As Pon Heary was mentioned early on... it's actually Ponheary Ly and her Ponheary Ly Foundation is supported by FlyerTalk (Community Buzz! Forum has extensive information). She offers guide services, lodging and of course, operates her foundation.

Searching for keyword Ponheary will reveal other threads (one person was unhappy s/he got caught in a booking mess, but most have been quite happy and appreciate the oppirtunity to give something back to the children of a country as hammered by the Khmer Rouge and continued corruption as Cambodia.)

Talking about booking messes, I referred Kim San to a colleague of mine. He switched out with another tourguide without letting my colleague know. While I know this can happen anywhere and with anyone, it's extremely poor form for not informing the client. :td:

Ponheary Ly
 

Just wanted to clarify that Ponheary Ly is NOT associated with any of these "Amazing Race" phony posts. I had read about her and the foundation she started. When I was planning a visit to Siem Reap last year I contacted her for her for guide services and a visit to one of the schools she supports. She was professional, warm and friendly, and she does fantastic work supporting more than 2000 Cambodian children, especially in some of the more rural areas. I was so moved that I nomimated her as a CNN Hero. You can read more about her at the link below...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/06/18...dia/index.html

Sounds like distemper to me. That this thread has blatant promotional posts is not much of a surprise to people who have been there more than once. Crass commercialism is alive and well, just not quite so refined as in other places.

Ponheary Ly is in another league altogether and deserves our support. There is so much misery in the area and so much residue of the wars. Anybody who devotes herself to improving education and general welfare of children there is to be applauded.

Further her guide services and accommodation arrangements work well fro nearly everyone, it seems. Count me in with her fans. If this be blatant commercialism, so be it.

Original Post in this thread:
 

Anyone who would like Ponheary's current email is welcome to PM me.

After internally debating weather or not to bring this up my decision is, at the moment, obvious.

While Ly and other NGOs have a desire to help people they also maintain the status quo politically, enrich the established uncaring gov/elite folks, and potentially create as many detriments, long term, to the people as they attempt to alleviate social ills.

You can praise these people all you want, and I'm not trying to demean Ly, I'm sure her intentions are great, but there are potentially sinister unforseen effects from all these NGOs plying their trade in Cambodia (and elsewhere).

I feel I must jump in here, as I have personally met Ponheary Ly and after some research, specifically signed her up for a mission to Ko Ker (school visit focus). I think she is the real deal, and I would not lump her efforts in with the "other NGO's." Her efforts are local, small-scale, pretty focused, I saw little to nothing spent on maintaining a classic (expensive) NGO systems apparatus. (I'm sure any questions on that could be put to the US woman who moved to Siem Reap, set up and presumably administers the Ponheary Ly Foundation.) I didn't see how what she is doing does much to maintain political status quos or enrich the elite. Although I do generally agree with your comments on NGO's and that they can be a mixed blessing (or a curse), I'm not sure that really applies here. She is a Cambodian local, focused on educational projects that have a future multiplier effect...I'm reminded of the old "teach a person to fish rather than give them a fish" saying. Of course, over time mission diversion or outright corruption can creep into even small organizations, and publicity can have negative effects, but until I get clear signs of this either personally or from people whose opinion I trust and who have also dealt with her, I'm inclined to give Ponheary a thumbs up and a recommendation.

To my knowledge, she isn't into self-promotion on forums like this, so most mentions you see of her here are likely to be from FT'ers who have used her either for Angkor guide services, or for non-tourism mission-specific visits.

There is an odd situation here on FlyerTalk because we prohibit commercial promotions but have approved charitable activities such as the one we're discussing, Kiva and others. The reconciliation is fairly simple, IMO. The rules don't apply touting our own vested commercial interests. The do not appear to prohibit charitable activities.

No person who has seen many NGO's in action can avoid healthy distrust. No responsible person can either dismiss all of them because some are venal, inefficient or ineffective.

I am reminded of the Meryl Streep character Sister Aloysius in "Doubt" who when faced with a ringing lack of evidence for her position said "But I have my certainty!".

I've never met Ponheary Ly and I indicated my intent not to demean her. Perhaps lumping her in with others was a mistake, but as jbcarioca points out, NGOs in general garner a "healthy distrust".

I think we have demeaned you quite enough on this issue. We are probably not so far apart, just defending one of those we believe in.

^ I feel I need to echo jiejie's sentiments. As I stated before, I met Ponheary and hired her for guide services and for a charitible visit to one of the schools she helps. To further illustrate...before we went to the school we stopped at a distributor and bought food. We paid for it directly, took it to the school in a van, and distributed it to the children. They ate, packed up the rest to bring home to their families, played, and then they went back to class and we went on to visit the sites. It was a beautiful day.

Other than the blatently obvious and annoying fake posts in this thread, I see nothing wrong with sharing this kind of information with other FT members looking for recommendations for guides.

I appreciate the passion, seriously. And your demeaning is but a flesh wound. :D I've had worse!

Kidding aside, I didn't take offense by it. Anyway, differing opinions are great. The world is a boring place when nobody has differing beliefs... so long as people are able to listen to each other at least.

i dont' believe my criticisms dug into 'this kind of information' whatever that might mean. And there are very few recommendations for legitimate guides other than Ly. The rest, almost to a one, is self-promotion.

"This kind of information" means recommendations for legitimate guides, as opposed to the "obviously phoney ones". :)

And how many legit guides are even mentioned in this thread? My percentage of quality guides through Ly is exactly the same as randoms that my local TA in PNH can set up.... for what it's worth.