Crunchy numbers

The stats helpers at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 4,100 times in 2010. That’s about 10 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 15 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 19 posts. There were 99 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 15mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was January 31st with 119 views. The most popular post that day was Kampot Cookies.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, mail.yahoo.com, idealist.org, mail.live.com, and wiserearth.org.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for devi house, devi house cambodia, devi cambodia, and strey khmer.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Kampot Cookies November 2009
1 comment

2

About DEVI October 2009
3 comments

3

Staff April 2010

4

Products February 2010

5

Contact January 2010

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Click here to read Bon Soty’s story. Hear about how she came to be a part of DEVI House and how her life has changed since moving to Phnom Penh. Soon DEVI House will post profiles for all the women that work with us here. 

   

We apologize to our readers for this long period of silence! The last few months have been rather busy here at the DEVI House, in a very good way!

DEVI Micro-Business, the micro-franchise side of the DEVI organization has been doing very well these last few months. The team has been working very hard on the organization and expansion of DEVI. We have applied for further funding for the training of the women and general support and development of DEVI. Kim, our business manager, assisted by Victoria, our project manager, have been working forcefully on promoting the expansion of DEVI products all over Phnom Penh as well as Kampot and Battambang. Kim has also been working very closely with the women sellers on their training, understanding the barriers they face and finding solutions together. For example, the women were being prohibited from selling at certain market selling points by the local police. Kim helped them in finding and bringing their carts to other markets.

In terms of organization, the DEVI business model now consists of two branches, set up in Phnom Penh, with the prospect of expanding to other cities and provinces including Kampot and Battambang. The micro-franchise organization helps Cambodian women set up their own food cart businesses, mainly in markets around the city. The second branch of the DEVI Micro-Business focuses on distributing all Kampot food and textile products to different channels. 

In terms of expansion, DEVI Micro-Business offers cookies and fruit chips made from local and organic ingredients.  Customers can now choose Banana and Potato (sweet and savoury) chips and between different 8 cookie flavors including Coconut, Ginger, Coffee and Chocolate. And the team continues to experiment with other local ingredients, working with the women cooks in Kampot. Savory flavors are also being added to the range. The cookies are now offered in redesigned (by Megan, our graphic designer) simple plastic packaging or a DEVI designed box with information about the organization and the ingredients used. After only 3 months of reorganization, DEVI business is already making some good profits and has a very large and diversified number of customers all over Phnom Penh. Customers include cafés, restaurants, supermarkets, NGOs and petrol stations, all of which have a high sales turn-over, ideal for the 2-month shelf life of DEVI food products.

DEVI House is proud to announce that our founder, Mu Sochua, has been announced as the winner for the 8th Annual Human Rights Award, hosted by Global Exchange. See their website here: http://humanrightsaward.org

Thank you to everyone that voted! Last time we were able to check before voting closed, she had secured almost 870 votes! Congratulations Sochua!

Our founder, Mu Sochua, has recently been nominated to receive the 8th Annual Global Exchange Human Rights Award as the People’s Choice Award Honoree.

Her nomination can be viewed here: http://contest.humanrightsaward.org/entries#39103

She has the opportunity to be honored along with other 2010 honorees Van Jones and Raúl del Águila.  The 2010 People’s Choice Award recipient will receive $1,000 toward their work and will be announced at the 2010 Human Rights Award Gala in San Francisco. 
 
Please vote for Mu Sochua! Instructions can be found here: http://contest.humanrightsaward.org  Follow the instructions to register,  search for Sochua under the nominees and place your vote! (If you have difficulties voting, try closing the window and logging back in. Once you sign in the option to vote should become available.)

The deadline for voting is April 26th. Tell your friends!

DEVI House is lucky enough to have a primary staff filled with talented, motivated and dedicated women who work full-time as well as spend their evenings completing their Bachelors/Masters degrees. Currently they are funded by WAVE: Women Against Violence Everywhere, however we are hoping to find new donors to help cover all their fees. Check out our staff page and read their individual biographies by clicking on their names. Within each biography is a chart of their current and future financial needs. Contact us for more information!

DEVI participated in a local goods fair from Friday, March 19th to Sunday, March 21st. Our booth was packed all three days! The event was to support local products and promote local businesses. DEVI is excited at how well our cookies were received. Foreigners and locals alike were buying cookie packages by the bag full. Here are some pictures from the event!

 

 

DEVI House and our current volunteers, Trisha and Allison, recently met with the women of Kampang Kroeng near Kampot town to discuss their businesses, funding needs, and how DEVI may be able to help in the future.

We are pleased to announce our first volunteers, Allison and Trisha from Goshen College. They arrived just before our ‘Experience Kampot’ event at the Living Room and have since moved to Kampot to work with the local women. 

Here’s a little more from Allison:

“Trisha and I came to Cambodia through a study abroad program offered by our college, Goshen College. This semester long program is called SST, or Study Service Program, and Goshen sends students to many different countries all over the world. Other locations include Peru, Ecuador, Senegal, Germany, China, Egypt, and many others. For the first half of our three month stay in Cambodia, we studied language and culture in Phnom Penh, living with Cambodian families. The second half, our group of 19 students split up to travel to more remote locations in the provinces of Cambodia. Trisha and I were assigned to the village of Kampong Kroeng in Kampot province, to work with the DEVI House project.

So far, our work here in Kampong Kroeng has been to help in the sale of cookies and other DEVI House products to the Western restaurants and shops of Kampot town and Kep, as well as teaching various English classes throughout the week. We have really enjoyed working with the DEVI women, and getting to know many children and young women who are very eager to learn English. The family we have been staying with in Kampong Kroeng is extremely welcoming, which is a common trait among Cambodians.

DEVI House has obviously had a very positive effect on Kampong Kroeng. The living standard, in comparison to other villages of the same size, is much higher. The women who work with DEVI have the opportunity to help support themselves and their families. Trisha and I have both been very impressed with DEVI’s dedication to improving the lives of these women, and women throughout the Kampot province. DEVI’s work is definitely making a difference, as we have seen first hand over the past few weeks.”   -Allison

We are so grateful to have them on our team. Their hard work and dedication to our projects is exciting to everyone here at DEVI.