COUNTRY: Cambodia
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Education
WRITTEN BY: Caitlin Boyd
Where did the last four weeks go?! During our final farewell dinner last night with our in country partner Dayvy, we unanimously agreed that our time here in Siem Reap has just flown by! Take note, future Antipodeans, that time on your placements is fleeting so make the most of your time abroad!
To shake up the final few weeks of our placements, the Cambodian government brought forward the school holiday period, (thus closing school) following the outbreak of a new form of foot and mouth disease, affecting children in Cambodia. Nevertheless, we took this change of plans on board, with both the SHCC and MDHC teams setting new goals for their communities.
At SHCC, Maeve and Caitlin switched from teaching students to teaching teachers, constructing and implementing their own Training Course, an initially daunting task considering our lack of pedagogical knowledge as unqualified uni students! However, we feel that our own experiences in the education system in Australia provided us with new ideas and options for the teachers at the school.
Over at MHDC, the girls were able to continue teaching the adult classes, with both the men and women demonstrating great progress with the English classes. They also covered healthy eating and the dangers of tobacco and alcohol in their health promotion classes. Without children present, they instead worked on a handover system for future volunteers.
They coordinated the distribution of 6 water pumps and 4 water filters, and a variety of seeds and plants and health promotion booklets for the 120 homes in the community. Needless to say, its been an intense last week!
Luckily we were well rested with our ''All-Play" visit to chilled out Battambang the weekend before, with the Blind Massages and rickety bamboo train ride being the highlights of our time away.
With only 3 remaining Antips here at the guesthouse, its a little quite and we are already missing those not around. We are greatly appreciative of everyone that has made our trip here so smooth sailing and memorable, with shout outs going to Dayvy, Sandy, Bota, Bontheon, the teachers at SHCC and of course the Antips team back home.
Hope as you read, we have inspired you to take the plunge and be involved in something as amazing as a volunteer program such as this. I know we will all return that little bit more aware of the world beyond our bubbles and its complexities, but know that small and possible changes can be made.
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