VSO/ICS programme, July-October 2014, Stung Treng Cambodia

Experiences during the ICS programme

The workshop on the Effective Readiness for Job employment Opportunities, 7-8 September 2014

After the ICT, the team departed to Stung Treng province to work with the NGO I had selected. My team has 3 Khmer volunteers and 2 UK volunteers worked with PyD which focus on job employment and to promote the Women’s Development Center service. The group had to move away from the initial ICS team plan which had a focus on supporting the work of the job employment service. This was due to PYD making it clear to us that they felt the service was not at a stage yet where they could handle an influx of interest in it, which would be generated by holding events promoting it. As such, it was brought to the group's attention that another focus of PYD’s is supporting the work of local CBO’s, especially around issues to do with gender and education. Cycle one had also highlighted in their handover report that lack of education was a major impact on jobseekers. As such the group moved its focus to working on the proposals of the local CBO’s.  We worked with the CBO on their proposal with two activities. For the first, we focused on the importance of the education for children which was conducted on August 28th 2014. It was run successfully, since we cooperated well with CBO, or CWGG.

To achieve this the team and I had a meeting and negotiated for almost 3 hours, to discuss and find out the point which one CWGG wanted to do and which one PyD team want to do on the session (meeting was in Khmer due to CWGG could not speak English). On the other hand, all every event succeeds because of the team work, even I sometimes had challenges in the team, but I still worked with the team to find the solution. In the team, I had worked so hard, although I had different language barriers with the UK volunteers. I tried to listen and think carefully. I had good relationship not only in the team, but also with the NGOs I worked with. I can say that my communication has been improving throughout this program. For instance, before doing the event the team and I always had the meeting with CWGG and BBU to hold the workshop. I had contacted and talked and chit-chatted along in a good way; it was great that I could do it with my team to run the events smoothly. Moreover, it taught me about the public speaking (even on GCD, events run by team..). I did not believe that this program gave me a lot of opportunities to talk in front of many people. I did not feel confident enough before giving a talk, yet during the GCD session I could make the session more interesting to all volunteers. My other partner and I worked and understood each other so that my GCD run smoothly and the other pairs followed the activities of my session. On the other hand, during the workshop I could do it, especially when I was giving a talk at the University event that I could make all participants laugh and interested in my session. More experiences were learnt from cross-cultural; as we were born with different perspective, I  still learnt from each other as from the UK volunteers that some of them worked very quickly and came up with many ideas that I sometimes really appreciated them so much. Last but not least, about solving   problem and exactly, whatever we do, it always has mistake or problem, just it is small or big. Even it is small if we do not deal with it in time, it would become a big one that affect to the whole team. So as I experienced during working with the team or with the other, the team and I discussed to find the solution. Example, One of the small issues was when the team had a meeting with CWGG about the event, first the team thought that it was great that we can make the event with them, but after the meeting, CWGG had talked with PyD that CWGG should have involved more than this. However, after the team knew the problem, I had phoned to CWGG to have another meeting again in order to know about the main problem and share the responsibilities equally. That’s why the team and I had a long meeting due to the team had many things to discuss. And lastly, both teams found the solution and we worked together well during the event. All in all, I have been changed because of joining with the ICS program for three months and this was another step that I can move myself to be more productive in the near future. Everything can be changed and changing started from me. Try it do it, face it solve it with positive thought even it cannot be solved a hundred percent, yet at least it is better than nothing. 

And this video shows you about the activities what we had done! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zScZta9Nb7c