Words of the day!

Words of the Day!

Obstacle

A short video of the ICS Cambodia volunteers -Cycle 2-Stung Treng -July-October, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zScZta9Nb7c&feature=youtu.be

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

VSO Cambodia

International Youth Day-VSO/ICS 2014 (ទិវាយុវជនអន…: http://youtu.be/Plw8bav9xSg

Community Action Day-VSO/ICS Cambodia

សកម្មភាពរបស់យុវជនស្ម័គ្រចិត្តរបស់​VSO/ICS Cambodia: http://youtu.be/2j8bFjSuRsE

VSO/ ICS Cambodia-Stung Treng Team

VSO/ICS programme

After a week training, on 25 July 2014 our group left Phnom Penh to Stung Treng and Ratanakiry province where we are going to work for three months. A day after we arrived, in the morning the team had a meeting in order to set up team contract and team committees (MPR, CAD,Debrief, M&E, Social, Media and communication). At the night time, the team prepared some stuffs to welcome our host families who we are going to live with. Welcoming pictures drawn by UK counterparts as they are at the first time in Cambodia, yet they could do it well, like how to bow when we meet old people. In the morning, before we met our host family, we traveled by tuk tuk to see where our NGO is which we base and to see some places in the town of Stung Treng. Around 10 am we arrived at the guest house where we temporarily stayed to meet our host families. We waited them around 2 hours, th

en at 11.30 am our host families arrived, however, we had not known who are our host family.  Host families arrived we said the welcoming words to surprise them; they were happy. The first thing, the team was given a game in order to play before knowing our host family.  After playing game, my UK counterpart also another national were provided a piece of paper which was written fingers on it and so did our host family. We did not know who our host family, we called them host dad/mom, unless we found those who had the same sign. Spending a few minutes to find our host dad/mom then we found our host brother, he does not have wife so we call him host brother, he is handsome, friendly, and he also has his own small business whose name is Guitar Milk; it seemed that we were very lucky to live in this host family. We talked, shared some knowledge and introduced to each other; my host brother can also speak English well, so we did not have any difficulty in conversation with him and my UK counterpart. After talking we had lunch together at that guest house with the other host families before going to our host home. Lunch time was gone, we all were sent to our host family separately. Arriving at the host home, we felt very excited to be at this host home.

My host home in which i live during this programme.

First day here, we were welcomed by host family and the best thing is that we were provided a free of green tea for each. In the evening we had dinner with host family and seemed that we have known each other and talked happily.

My UK counterpart and another national volunteer had dinner with the host family together .

International Youth Day ICS 2014 (ទិវាយុវជនអន្ដរជាតិ​------0- -202014- 2014-ICS)

hhttps://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=rZ-sE2VRrbk&video_referrer=watch

VSO/ICS Cambodia

VSO Cambodia/International Citizen Service program (ICS)

A short brief of VSO-Cambodia/International Citizen Service program (ICS):

VSO/International Citizen Service (ICS) is a volunteering experience for young people who want to make a real difference in some of the world’s poorest communities. In Cambodia, ICS runs projects in the North-eastern part of the country. Twelve Cambodian youths will spend three months working alongside twelve youths from the United Kingdom (UK) in a team to tackle issues that really matter to the local community (for this circle we are working at Stung Treng and Ratanakiry province. (Source from VSO’s page)

For more information about how to apply this program:

http://www.eurocham-cambodia.org/index.php?option=com_jobboard&view=job&id=33&catid=1

Or

https://www.facebook.com/304557379666133/photos/a.334094906712380.1073741827.304557379666133/557161661072369/?type=1&theater

 This is my experiences during the ICS for the second cycle (started from July 18^th, 2014 to October 08^th, 2014) in Stung Treng province, however, for those who went to Ratanakiry is the third cycle. The training from July 18th, 2014 to July 18^{th 2014} for Cambodian and Uk’s volunteers. The first day, Cambodian volunteers prepared stuffs to welcome UK counterparts for their arrival in Cambodia. We, Khmer volunteers, sang Khmer song, danced, we did a great job, to welcome them and UK volunteers were very excited, yet UK volunteers said Khmer words, Chom Reab Sur, means how do you do to Khmer volunteers; we, Khmer, also excited for their their speaking Khmer words! --A day after, both Khmer and UK counterparts were trained together in the Karitas's office, in Phnom Penh, for a week. During this training we did learn many things about ICS program, learned how to adopt the other culture. Khmer-UK volunteers learned how to live with indigenous, community people. Being told that some host families could not even speak Khmer or English (some families are Kreung, Jaray, Tom Poun...), we still felt well with these challenges. We also had many activities such as energizing to break our bad feeling that we felt sleepy because of the long days training, some were exhausted, and some got sick. Yet, we enjoyed it. For breaking time, either Khmer or UK talked to each other about its culture, studying, and experiences and so on. After a week training, on July 25^th, 2014 we, except me, leaved Phnom Penh to Stung Treng(2nd cycle) and Ratanakiry province (3rd cycle)  to know our host family in which we live, NGO which we will be working with to start our project on Awareness Raising in Stung Treng and Training in Ratanakiry.  

Welcoming UK volunteers arrival 

Activities during In Country  Training days (ICT)