Volunteering

Volunteering

With minimum preparation and the appropriate skills, any volunteers can contribute to any of the KF project activities above.

We aim to exemplify the values that to the children through the volunteers that we host, who work in the local communities, as well as with the children.

 

Visit or Volunteer – How can you help?

 

Help the children of Cambodia as part of your visit to Cambodia or your professional mission;

 

Live the experience by staying close to the Children’s Home in Sre Ampil or Battambang and experience their lives;

 

Experience the peaceful environment in the countryside, either a few minutes from the market town of Battambang, or 27 kms from Phnom Penh;

 

Battambang is worth a visit – 3 hours drive, or a boat ride across the lake, from Siem Reap and Angkor Wat;

 

Flexible: You set the dates;

 

Experience and safety: The KF has been welcoming and working with international volunteers for more than 10 years.

 

Volunteering – Benefits:

 

The Khmer Foundation sees many benefits and opportunities in the ‘Volunteer’ experience. Its Volunteer program goals are:

 

  1. To provide help, and medical and educational support to the children;
  2. To provide assistance in the maintenance of the buildings and facilities;
  3. To host volunteers who can work with local people in the surrounding communities and local NGOs;
  4. To improve international understanding by exposing the children and the volunteers to other cultures
  5. To set examples to the children of the value of helping others;
  6. To give international volunteers the chance to experience other standard of living, way of life, and to witness how happiness is not tied with materialism.
  7. To give the children a chance to hear more English and other languages spoken, and to practice what they are learning in class;
  8. To permit visitors and outside volunteers to experience the lives and routines of the children in the Homes, by living in the new Home 2 Guesthouse, close to the very pleasant market town of Battambang;
  9. To give volunteers the chance to experience much more of Cambodia than any normal visitors would.

 

 

Volunteering – Activities (non-exhaustive list in the children’s homes):

 

In the Children’s Home:

 

  • Directly contributes to one of the KF listed projects.
  • -Help the children learn formal English in the classroom setting.
  • -Help the children with English conversation, educational games, songs, etc.
  • -Help the children learn formal English in the classroom setting.
  • -Help the children with art, music, drawing and painting;
  • -Play games with the younger children;
  • -Help the children learn life skills (critical thinking, planning, decision making, motivation, communication, etc.;
  • -Help the children learn and use gardening skills.
  • -Help the older kids set up their own garden projects
  • -Teach the children First Aid, oral health and hygiene.
  • -Help the older children improve their management and leadership skills (team building, time management, organizing committees, managing projects, etc.)
  • -Help the children in the library (reading, writing, listening, and speaking)
  • -Assist the student librarian to stimulate even more use of the library;

 

In the neighboring Community:

– Work with the local volunteer team of the Initiative of Change (IC) in Battambang, to design community development projects.

– Work with local volunteers on outreach projects such as

  • Environmental care
  • Water and Sanitation Awareness
  • Oral Health
  • Hygiene
  • Home Based Care for HIV/AIDS people
  • HIV/AIDS Awareness
  • Small Business Development
  • Road accident prevention and response
  • Career opportunity awareness
  • Community Mapping

 

Volunteering – One Example

 

Doreen Bakstad, a Canadian volunteer, from near Parksville on Vancouver Island, spent 6 weeks (Dec 2010 and Jan 2011) with the children in Home 2. She had visited a year before, and felt so strongly about the needs of the children in Cambodia, that she went home and, with friends, raised money to help the children at Home 2 in Battambang. Her activities and contributions, during the 6 weeks, give a very good example of what a volunteer is able to do:

  • -Ploughed part of the garden, and helped the older children mix 10+ trucks of sand with the clay;
  • -Purchased shovels, hoes, watering cans, buckets, and wheelbarrows
  • -Taught organic gardening techniques and compost making
  • -Built a tool shed/compost facility
  • -Took the older children to a nursery for a gardening workshop
  • -Purchased seeds and ornamental plants and flowers
  • -Dug and hoed and planted and watered
  • -Organized fruit for the children every week
  • -Did art projects – coloring, beading, and drawing
  • -Played games and read with the children
  • -Helped to organize the Library
  • -Practiced English conversation with the children
  • -Purchased clothes and dance costumes for the children
  • -Added to the kitchen and cleaning supplies
  • -Helped in the kitchen
  • -Repaired the bicycles that the children need to get to school
  • -Cleaned, sorted and organized the storeroom
  • -Repaired the kitchen cupboards

-Took children on outings: pagodas, bamboo train, and circus