Meet Annette Jensen | Founder of non-profit

We had the good fortune of connecting with Annette Jensen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Annette, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I would not characterize myself as a big risk taker, but I’ve taken some risks in my life and they have all worked out well. When I was 28, I took a leave of absence from my job in Copenhagen (I was born and grew up in Denmark) and went to San Francisco to work for a year. During the last month of that year, I met my now husband (we met river rafting). I moved back to Denmark, but 1 1/2 years later, I packed up my life in Denmark and moved to San Francisco. My parents saw it as a big risk, but we’ve now been married for 31 years, so it worked out. After many years in the Bay Area my husband and I decided to quit our lives there and go traveling – he was a partner at a law firm and I worked in business. He ended up being offered a job in Cambodia, and I was offered a job there as the Executive Director of an international nonprofit which supported children who were garbage pickers at the Phnom Penh garbage dump. My husband and I don’t have children of our own and I have little to no experience with children, so it seemed risky to accept this position. But it is the best job I ever had and it changed my life.

Working in Cambodia led us to take the next big risk: starting our own non-profit in Cambodia, Education First Cambodia, which supports bright young women from poor rural families to study at university. Starting an organization was a risk, but we started “EFC” in 2015 and the project is going really well. At this point, we have 56 alumnae and 44 current students. We provide the students with living stipends, computers, weekly leadership classes and computer classes, daily English classes, medical care, educational trips, and more. We now also have a dormitory for our students and an Alumnae House for recent graduates. 

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My professional background is as a translator and my one and only job in Denmark was working as a translator in the international division of a bank. When I moved to the U.S., I got a job in an export business, and since it was a two-person business I did everything from accounting to sales and customer relations. I learned a lot!

After 16 years in the Bay Area we moved to Cambodia, and my job as the Executive Director of a non-profit gave me valuable experience in that sector. The business background and the nonprofit experience were both incredibly helpful when my husband and I started our own nonprofit, Education First Cambodia.

I don’t take a salary for my work with our nonprofit, and I know it is a privilege to be able to work without being paid (my husband has a full-time job in addition to being involved with our nonprofit). But I can honestly say that when you work with what is your passion, the money is not that important. Years ago, as the Executive Director of the project that worked with young Cambodian garbage pickers, my salary started at $400/month. I never worked as hard for as little money, but I loved every minute of it.

It is not always easy to know what your passion is or where you belong, and it may take years to get there. But we encourage our students to really think about what they enjoy doing and, if possible, make that their living. I never imagined that Cambodia and the non-profit sector would be my calling, but I’m lucky I found it and it found me.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
This is a hard one. I am currently living in Tbilisi in the Republic of Georgia, and since 2006 we have been living in Cambodia, Myanmar, Uganda, and Georgia with minor “spells” in the Bay Area. Our home is a houseboat in Sausalito, and I absolutely love the area and community there. But I’m not up on the latest restaurants and sights. However, anyone going to Sausalito should go hiking in Marin Headlands and on Mt. Tam, do a bike ride, visit San Francisco and Sonoma, get on the Bay if possible in a kayak or by boat, and go down the coast to Big Sur.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
We are incredibly lucky to have friends, family, and total strangers who believe in our work in Cambodia and are supporting our project, Education First Cambodia. A few have traveled to Cambodia and are moved by what they saw, but most support us because they see a need to help impoverished young women gain an education and know we will spend their donations wisely. So far we have supported 54 students through their Bachelor’s Degree; 17 more students graduate this summer and another 28 are on their way. We obviously couldn’t help so many students without the help of many sponsors and supporters. We are grateful for all of our supporters and our Board of Directors, and especially those who have convinced their friends to support us and are expanding the project’s network. We haven’t done fundraising events, it is all word of mouth and we have been very fortunate.

Website: www.educationfirstcambodia.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EducationFirstCambodia

Image Credits
Neil Weinstein