Volunteer Kate’s time in Cambodiawith

Volunteering in

Cambodia26th July - 27th August 2014

As I left home I was feeling nervous but also very excited. My daughter drove me down to Gatwick airport for my flight to Cambodia.

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The journey of 6,200 miles to Cambodia took me about 14 hours on the aeroplane.

I stayed in a place called Siem Reap in north west Cambodia.

When I arrived at Siem Reap airport I was met by Mr Kim who was to be my tuk tuk driver for the next few weeks. We left the airport and travelled along the main roads towards the town of Siem Reap.

After about half an hour I arrived at my hotel, The River Garden.

It was a beautiful place set in a lush, green garden, a mini rain forest.

The next day, after a lovely long sleep, I was given a brief tour of the town of Siem Reap. We saw many markets and I couldn’t believe how many tuk tuks and mopeds there were whizzing around!

After a while we set off on the journey to Grace House. It was amazing to see what mopeds were being used for – mattresses piled high and yes, 5 children on one saddle!

After about 20 minutes we arrived at the entrance to Grace House. . .

Do you remember me telling you about Grace House Community Centre? It provides a service to 3 villages where most of the community live below the poverty line. This means they earn very little money, have very little food and have poor living conditions.

The children who attend Grace House are very lucky because here they are taught English and lots of different subjects that they are not taught at their primary school. The teachers at Grace House are very kind to the children whereas they are sometimes hit at their primary school if they are a bit slow to learn or simply do not know the answer to a question.

As I arrived on that first day I knew I was to be working at somewhere very special. There was a warmth and happiness that made me smile whenever I was there.Here you can see some of the classrooms, the kitchen and library.

Each day Mr Kim picked me up in the tuk tuk at 8.15am for the journey to Grace House where I worked with the children in Class 2 and their young teacher Salas.

Over the next 4 weeks Salas and I worked together on lots of different activities with the children.There was . . . Maths

English . . .

Drawing and painting . . .

Making puppets . . .

Football and cricket . . .

Parachute games . . .

Stories in the library . . .

Sometimes we’d get some visitors in the classroom . . .

And sometimes the children would just get so tired they needed a little nap . . .

One of the activities that Grace House provides for the children is teeth cleaning. Everyone has their own toothbrush and is expected to clean their teeth between lessons because they do not have toothbrushes and toothpaste at home.

• I can honestly say that very day while I was working at Grace House I woke up and bounced out of bed as I really looked forward to the day ahead. The children were so enthusiastic in all their lessons. They had great concentration and listened attentively. They really appreciated the education they were getting as so many children in Cambodia do not go to school and cannot read or write.

The children of Grace House inspired me every day and I couldn’t stop smiling when I was with them. I will definitely be going back to work with them again.