IN CAMBODIA – Article 2

Volunteering in Cambodia

Fran Healy is Chair of the Volunteering Tasmania Board. She is currently volunteering in Cambodia through Australian Business Volunteers (ABV). She and her husband Jamie Bayly-Stark are volunteering with a local NGO called Peace and Development Aid Organization (PDAO). They are based in Takeo, a large country town about 80 kilometres south of the Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. The three-month assignment is to build capacity in project development in the area of climate change adaption. Fran will send us regular updates on the work they are involved in, as well as life in rural Cambodia.

IN CAMBODIA Article 2

30 August 2011

 We have been in Cambodia nearly three weeks now and are starting to settle in and find our way around both the town where we are staying and the organisation we are working with.

We have now moved out of the guest house and into our new “home’. What a contrast. The people at the guesthouse were friendly but not that interested in us as customers – evidenced by not changing the sheets for over a week and us having to ask for clean towels after several days. We weren’t sure why but figured it out after a few nights when the noise levels increased dramatically after about 11 pm with people coming up and down the stairs and lots of banging and other noises from the neighbouring bedrooms. We came to the conclusion that their other customers were more lucrative than us. So now we are ‘swimming’ around in a six-bedroom house, five-bathroom house, just using one bedroom/bathroom and the garage as the fabricated kitchen. Seems a bit ridiculous but it is cheap and quiet and (we think) safe.

The other day we had a great but challenging experience. In the Takeo province (where we are based) there is an NGO network of about 30 organizations. They get together to discuss relevant issues and share information and ideas on a reasonably regular basis.  Jamie and I were asked to give a half-day presentation on climate change at one of their meetings. This in itself might not seem like all that much of a challenge except that only two of the 35 people attending spoke English.  We weren’t going to let that get in the way so we prepared a three-hour program for delivery with an interpreter. Jamie started the session delivering an overview presentation on climate change and what it might mean for Cambodia. I followed up by running a facilitated session with the group to work out what they considered might be the best ways that NGO’s can help the Cambodian people deal with climate change. It was reasonably challenging as using an interpreter makes things much more time consuming and complex. We thought that it all went fairly smoothly but it was difficult to assess how well the session was received. We did get some good feedback but the best indicators we got were that Jamie was asked to give a similar presentation to another group and there was lots of discussion and smiles during the facilitated session. For us it was a great learning experience.

Part of our project is to train PDAO staff on grant writing and project development. As we don’t really know what everyone’s role is and what skills they have so we are starting to develop a training plan. We have circulated a survey to the relevant staff to try and assess their current skill level in the various aspects of grant writing and project development. From this information we hope to be able to put together a training plan for the remaining time we are here working with PDAO.

The other afternoon we left work at about 5.30pm and rode our motorbike towards our house. Big black clouds were accumulating and the atmosphere was becoming quite threatening. We decided to stop at a small street stall to get a bite to eat before going on home hoping to beat the storm. We had not been under the shelter of the street stall (sheets of corrugated iron) for 5 minutes when the sky opened up. We were treated to an incredible “sound and light” show – huge claps of thunder startled the living daylights out of us and brilliant flashes of lightening lit up the sky – and buckets and buckets of water fell from the heavens. We managed to remain pretty dry but it was 45 minutes before we could venture to our house.

Last weekend we went to Phnom Penh. It was a combined work and recreation trip. We had an excellent meeting with one of the Ausaid people and managed to get a number of good “leads” for PDAO in relation to potential funding opportunities and also some good contacts for their technical aspects of their work.

We were able to stay with fellow ABV volunteers based in Phnom Penh who had a spare room. We visited the Royal Palace – really worth a look.  We were invited to join a Cambodian families 4-year-old sons birthday party. It was a really pleasant evening where we met a lot of local people and had the opportunity to be a part of a local social activity. The same family took us to the “Killing Field” and jail that Pol Pot used to exterminate thousands of Cambodians in the 1970’s. It was an extremely sobering and emotional experience but one that everyone who visits Cambodia should experience. It is mind boggling that this could happen and in such recent times. The man that took us was a baby at the time and was evacuated from Phnom Penh with his family. His father and a number of other family members were killed but he and his mother survived. I think having him with us made the experience even more poignant.

Well, on that cheerful note we will sign off now.

Cheers
Fran

Below: Children at Palace Phnom Penh; Climate Change workshop; Palace Phnom Penh; Fran participating in the Climate Change workshop.