Discovering real life Cambodia

I’ve been back in the field again this week which is always something of an adventure. We were hosting some guests from a British foundation who asked to come and see Youth Star’s work and real life Cambodia first hand. As always, the first step when visiting rural communities is to seek the approval of the local community chief and councillors. They seemed quite happy to welcome us though!

A village chief – love those glasses!

Once the formalities were dealt with we visited the local school where one of our previous volunteers taught local youths how to be good citizens. The president of the youth club volunteers her time teaching local children English, for example.

We also visited some local youth club members who were trained by one of our volunteers about combating domestic violence, which is something of an issue in the countryside. It is done in an engaging way though, through role plays or quizzes, to get through to the community.

Another youth club we visited planted some eucalyptus trees in their community as part of an environmental awareness raising campaign, something which our community partner clearly got very excited about…

We also got to spend some time with villagers so we could see the type of conditions ours volunteers would be living in. A little basic by modern western standards, but our volunteers were more than happy with the arrangements. I loved the experience of witnessing real life Cambodia and visiting all those lovely and smiley people in rural Cambodia.

Old fashioned water pump

Outdoor shower

Outdoor kitchen

Vorsprung durch Technik

Have you been able to witness real life Cambodia on your travels? What was it like?