Thursday 20 November 2014

Edith Cowan students begin eye-opening nursing placement


 COUNTRY: Cambodia
PROGRAM: UniBreak Groups
PROJECT: Edith Cowan University Nursing Placement
WRITTEN BY: Megan Stoney

Our first impression of Siem Reap, Cambodia was that it's HOT! The first morning consisted of an introduction to the country and the Khmer language, given by the translators and our in-country partners. That day we visited one of the villages where we saw a temple and spoke to an elder. In the evening a welcome dinner was provided, and we got to see some traditional Khmer dancing.

On Monday we attended a talk about child protection in Cambodia, it was very interesting and opened all our eyes. Night time in Siem Reap has been called the Las Vegas of Cambodia. During our first week of training and learning here we taught health education lessons about hand hygiene, brushing teeth and first aid. The other groups of nursing students were at the health clinics.

The school and clinics were minimal standard and had minimal supplies. The school did not have enough classrooms, supplies or sport toys. One clinic that delivers a lot of babies had no electricity at night and so pen torches were used to deliver the babies! Unbelievable.

Dinners were lovely and exploring Siem Reap at night was fun and interesting. We walked around a lot of the time, but used Tuk Tuk’s to get to places further away. Our first week was exciting, exhausting and a real eye-opener to what Cambodia is like. I am looking forward to the weekend exploring temples and shopping and next week’s learning experiences.

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