Cambodia
A Little About Cambodia
• Develop your teaching expertise alongside Khmer instructors to a classroom full of students from rural communities.
• Assist the broader community with vocational development and improving conversational English.
• Enhance your own leadership skills and personal growth by engaging in impactful workshops in scenic locations.
• Immerse completely in a new culture by engaging in Khmer language lessons, understanding the local history, and tasting Khmer cuisine and being a daily part of a village community.
• Explore historic sites, such as the ancient temples of Angkor Wat.
• Enjoy an additional week experiencing the pristine beauty of Cambodia’s coastline and island life, sunset rice paddies, and vibrant markets.
• Emerge as an individual with broader perspective, and greater understanding of your own potential and ability.
What’s Included?
- Every meal including breakfast, lunch, and dinner and unlimited water will be provided.
- Your daily accommodation.
- All airport transportation and transportation to volunteer projects and designated activities.
- Building materials, educational resources and local labor costs as needed.
- Local cultural activities (see itinerary for specifics).
- Community donations.
- Tuition for Leadership development course.
Your Role in Cambodia
Teach
What makes the EDventure Cambodia program unique and powerful are the connections it has within the community and the focus we have on improving education. With the recent completion of the Phum Ou School and Community Centre, EDventure is able to direct resources and your in-country efforts towards providing education to the local children and structure job skill development for the adult members of the community.
Our current project’s focus involves working alongside the Khmer teachers to develop curriculum, enhance current teaching strategies, and support a sustainable teaching model that will assist each lesson to have a greater impact.
You’ll have trained facilitators alongside you to guide you to create the most positive impact with your skillset. Your current knowledge from your own progressive style of education is very valuable to teachers here and enhances their classroom teaching. With your volunteer efforts, schools can provide the opportunity for students to have an education that they would not otherwise have. If you have your TEFL certification, or would like to earn this qualification, you can enroll in our online course and be able to bring professional training to your Cambodian classroom.
The students are eager to learn and to create an opportunity for a better future for themselves and their families. Every day they ride their bikes down long, dirt roads, which is a large part of the culture in Siem Reap. It means that getting to the school isn’t always easy, but for these students, the education and care provided through the efforts of the school and its volunteers make every muddy pedal worth the ride.
Build
EDventure is a very strong believer in sustainability. We plan for the long term and each project leads into another. Participants’ efforts here nurture relationships with the local community, and support the village infrastructure as needed with each season. We work with local community leaders to ascertain the best possible projects to sustain the ongoing growth and development of the Phum Ou Community.
With the newly built school in Phum Ou, there is much to be done to ensure the sustainability and accessibility of education to this community. Your daily efforts will assist in achieving this. Every day, every effort enables these communities to become empowered, less impoverished and more sustainable, as the friendships formed between a Cambodian and a participant become more enduring.
Lead
Through your engagement in the leadership workshops you will truly appreciate being able to develop a deep teaching and learning connection with the local Khmer community through your volunteer efforts, which is essentially what it’s all about. Teaching or assisting in the building, painting, planting, or other helpful activities here does not only provide the students and staff with a more solid base for education, it also deepens the understanding of what life is like in Siem Reap.
Your own leadership skills will be shaped and strengthened while creating positive change in these communities. During your time in this community, our qualified facilitators will assist you on your path of personal development to ensure you feel the positive impact of the deep connection you develop in Phum Ou; as well as enable you to apply your leadership skills directly to the needs of this community. An invaluable life experience will be gained along with a sense of achievement in an environment where your volunteer efforts and leadership abilities truly matter and make a measurable difference.
Explore
The sunrise visit to the largest religious site in the world, Angkor Wat is visually, architecturally and artistically breathtaking. The Khmer temple is admired for the splendour and magnificence of the medieval architecture, and is a colossal symbol of Cambodian national pride. It is surrounded by a huge, water-lilied moat, which holds back the encroaching jungle, leaving it well preserved. You will feel very small against the giant, stone faces carved into the temple walls of Angkor Wat, the stoic reminders from the previous empire that once thrived here.
Cambodia challenges you to explore, to understand, and to fully discover the meaning of the great empire it used to be. On a day-long exploration, you can walk among the stone-built temples carved of hundreds of different faces. You’ll wander along the formed ranks of stone elephants and stone walls hugged by giant roots of trees and jungle vines. The view from climbing the ancient temple steps rewards with a breathtaking panoramic of misty jungle treetops and a splish-splash of rice fields sprawling across the Cambodian landscape. In the villages and bustling city of Siem Reap, you will culturally connect and communicate, try new foods, experience new settings and new ways of life as you learn how to make some coconut rice in the village or how the community fish the local streams for their food.
Immersion
Enrich your Cambodian cultural experience with a visit to the Old Market. The market is popular for its variety of Cambodian cuisine selling various rices, dried fish and pork sausages, and various vegetables and fruits, as well as local crafts. If you are keen for a taste of the more unique local cuisine, some stalls sell baguettes and spiced frogs, as well as various Khmer soups, red chilli slices and peanuts. Sampling the exotic cuisine may be just the perfect way to spend the afternoon. Because Siem Reap’s main source of economic support is through tourism, there are plenty of restaurants and cafes. With a vibrant main street through the city there is ample entertainment for anyone in search of food, shopping or live music.
Despite the fact that many Cambodians live a challenging life, come from a diverse history, and tragic recent past, the Cambodian people have a warm nature and approach to everything. They are endearing people you will want to engage with during this exciting time of their social growth. Surprises and unexpected cultural differences abound, but all the warm smiles and laughter will soon make you feel relaxed, and very much a part of a vibrant community.
Program Itinerary
Orientation – Participate in activities to help you become familiar and comfortable with the local environment and location. We will also meet the individuals you will be working with throughout your project, and ensure you have a full understanding of what to expect and how to get the most out of your experience.
In the afternoon we’ll take a walking tour of the local community of Phum Ou led by the Director of our Phum Ou school, Saraht Proeun, to familiarize yourself with your surroundings and learn a brief history. There will also be a local cultural event organized by EDventure International staff that introduces you to the charms of the Khmer culture.
In the afternoon you will have the opportunity to engage in a language class where you can learn the local Khmer language, chat with local monks who will be just as interested in you as you may be of their lifestyle, and taste a true Khmer curry!
Each day you will engage in various volunteer tasks. This will include preparing lesson plans with the local school teachers and teaching English in the Phum Ou Education and Community Centre, newly built by EDventure participants and supporters.
During the evenings we will enjoy some local cuisine, and you will be given free time to explore the local night markets or engage in organized cultural activities. During this first week of volunteering, we will also host a “movie night” where we will watch a film on the recent Cambodian history that will give you more insight into the local community’s past.
In the early evening, we will build on your new perspective developed from your first week engaging in your volunteer project by participating in a Leadership workshop focused on social leadership skills.
You will then be given the remainder of the day to either spend freely or take the opportunity to engage in local cultural activity, such as visiting the lively Night Market.
This week we will also spend a morning visiting the Land Mine Museum. This visit is important because it will provide you with more of an understanding of the hardships still faced by the locals, and emphasize even more the important work you are undertaking through your volunteer project.
During the evenings participants will be given free time to explore the local community or engage in organized cultural activities.
Today EDventurers will be up early to catch a shuttle south. We will drive across the flatlands of Cambodia and through villages and small towns. We will pay a respectful visit to the Killing Fields, a dark, but important part of Cambodia’s history.
We will then continue our journey onwards to begin the final week of your EDventure.
