Volunteering at Happy Chandara School in Cambodia

I discovered Toutes à l’école seven years ago when we were a host family for one of the Cambodian students, Tola, who came to study in France for a year. My family also sponsors a girl who is now in grade 6 and who I was so lucky to meet while I was there. I had already worked with this NGO by completing a one-week internship in the offices in Paris, mainly doing administrative work and translating letters for the sponsors. As I knew that the school was looking for people to organise a summer camp and I really wanted to help on the ground, I applied to become an activity leader for the school’s summer camp.

The first week, we prepared the summer camp activities, we met the other activity leaders and the Cambodian team, and we visited the village with the school’s social team to understand which conditions the girls live in and to see the houses which have been built by the NGO. For the three following weeks of the summer camp, I taught theatre in English to 15-16 year olds in the morning, working with six different groups of ten girls over the course of three weeks. In the afternoon, I was with 5 year olds doing activities like yoga, dance, arts & crafts, singing in English, and playing games. In the evening, I spent time playing with the girls staying at the boarding school. 160 girls are at the boarding school, either because they live too far away, they might have lost their parents, or because they are the most vulnerable. Some of the girls living in extreme poverty suffer from malnutrition, or sometimes experience violence at home, often because their fathers have drinking issues.

At the end of the three weeks, there was a sports day and a performance day, which we had prepared throughout the summer camp. For the kindergarten show, the girls were dressed up as fish, having made their own costumes, and performed a dance, sang a French song, and did a little fashion show. The older students, who I was teaching for the English Summer Camp, performed a play about environmental issues which we had practiced and made props and decorations for. They also performed a traditional Khmer dance which we had prepared together.

I learnt a lot from my volunteering in Cambodia. Building on my experience in the Paris HQs, I learnt more about how an NGO, specifically a school structure, works by going on the ground to see the results of the backstage work of searching for sponsors. It was great to see the involvement of the local community and to meet the large team of Cambodians who work there, such as the human resources team, the social team, the green team, the cooks, the cleaners, and the teachers. I also saw both the day-to-day challenges and the structural organisational challenges of working in an NGO.

Besides, I think this experience really helped me to develop as a person. I learnt to work in an international team, with people with very different working cultures, Cambodian and French, and to work with people of all ages for the first time. I became more confident in taking on responsibility, organising events and performances and I learnt to adapt to each group of students and to the different teams I was working with.

Mostly, I learnt so much from the people I met and I made friends for life: the students, the staff, the other volunteers. I was inspired by all the students who have a bright future ahead of them despite having such a difficult start in life, and who dream of going to university. Their enthusiasm to learn was really impressive, as well as their generosity and their desire to share their culture and traditions. We shared lots of moments of joy, like when they taught me Khmer traditional dance and Cambodian songs.

I would like to thank the Trinity Hall Association for their generous support which enabled me to undertake this enriching humanitarian project which I care so much about.