Sina says

my overall experience of living and working in Cambodia has been very positive and attractive

Name: Sina Brod

Date of report: 24/07/11       

Work place/community at SCC: head office, Phnom Penh

Position/function: HR & Media Advisor

Education: BA culture & management, MA cultural sciences

Years of post-graduation work experience: -

Work experience abroad: 1 year

Duration of voluntary service: 1 year                                          

Accommodations during voluntary service: apartment (self-arranged)   

Feedback

It has been about eleven months since I arrived in Cambodia and started living and working in Phnom Penh. SCC staff became a family to me, with whom it is really nice to work with, go on trips and to share daily life issues. My area of work switched from Public Relations to the field of Human Resource back again to Public Relations. For Public Relations purposes I designed a folder with Photoshop to give to donors or partners in order to keep promotion material or even reports. Further I assisted in the organization and conduction of a workshop on HIV/AIDS sustainability including other NGOs of SCC's network. I also organized and accompanied the production of film footage with a local film crew of the Royal University Phnom Penh (RUPP) and SCC at our children basic education centers in Phnom Penh and Somroang Mean Chey as requested by our British donor CAFOD. 

I also wrote a welcome map for new volunteers working with SCC and experiencing the huzz and buzz of Phnom Penh and Cambodia ;)  Additionally Lalin and I gave presentations about SCC’s work and the situation of HIV/AIDS in Cambodia for VAC volunteers at STAR Kampuchea. I also worked together with Lalin on his time management in order to development a guide for staff appraisals and renewal of contracts and so on. Moreover one of my continuous tasks are to edit guidelines, reports or letters for my colleagues, to follow up on the media updates such as the homepage and the social network like facebook and the blog for volunteers. 

I have occasionally visited the communities in Phnom Penh and teach English to my colleagues three times a week. My English lessons run well with a firm number of students. This makes me feel happy and satisfied as I experience mutual respect from SCC staff towards me as a teacher, as a colleague and as friend. Concerning my work at SCC, I recently got a deeper insight in structural development of an NGO, such as working on a strategy, evaluating programs according to the objectives and looking for the enhancement of staff capacity together with the line managers. Our director Mr. Thoeun shared his point of view in terms of strategic planning and the enhancement of SCC. This is basically to constantly develop sustainable projects for the beneficiaries in order to improve our services and help the beneficiaries  become self-reliable. Further it is important to keep in mind the broad picture and objectives of the NGO and follow these in line with international trends in development work in the Kingdom of Cambodia and the region. Therefore networking with local authorities, other non-profit organizations and international non-government organizations plays a key role, too. 

On account of the enjoyable time at work and the common leisure activities with colleagues I feel very comfortable working and living in Phnom Penh and would like to continue staying here.

Mara says

 

working with the children was extremely rewarding, and the support network was very helpful

Name: Mara Budgen

Date of report: 18/07/11       

Work place/community at SCC: Boeung Kak Centre

Position/function: English teacher

Education: High school diploma, second year undergraduate studies

Years of post-graduation work experience: -

Work experience abroad: -

Duration of voluntary service: 1 month                                            

Accommodations during voluntary service: guesthouse (self-arranged)     

Feedback:

My role was to teach English to Primary and Elementary school children every day at the Boeung Kak Community Based Education center. Although I didn’t receive a lot of information prior to my arrival about the organization or the children’s level of English, I was able to adapt adequately to this challenge. Working with these children was very rewarding and I was extremely satisfied with my experience, also the teachers at the school were very helpful and supportive.

Although it is hard to measure what I achieved, as a lot of the work done will emerge later in the children’s lives, I am very satisfied with what they have learnt. In terms of personal growth, I learnt a lot about teaching children (something I’d never done). I was able to structure my lessons by adapting the work day by day, as a consequence to the children’s response to the work done.

The challenges I faced during my volunteering were related to the teaching, per se. In particular, in the Primary class, some children are very young, and have a difficult time concentrating, and absorbing information. They would be better suited for a class with a younger age-focus. However, I realize that this may be impracticable, and in any case, I am confident that the things learned will show themselves in later life.

What I found most rewarding about my experience volunteering with SCC is that I grew so close to the children, and contributed to their academic achievements.