A Lesson Learned in Siem Reap
“It’s like a lesser known Thailand, right?” I once said to a friend.
“Just go there,” she said. “Do some volunteering and come back to me.”
So, imagine running around barefoot in sandy play yards, a warm sun on your back and a company of happy children wearing famous football shirts laughing and enjoying a basic human right — freedom. They come to your hour lesson, not by compulsion, but by choice, and with an eagerness to learn. You forget the seriousness of your own life to play with no inhibitions, like you’re one of them. And when it’s all over, 30 kids queue up, bouncing with excitement and high five you as a token of their gratitude for your time and effort.
Sounds amazing, right?
Whether it was kids outjumping me to win games of volleyball, them laughing hysterically because my attempts at speaking Khmer were so dreadful, or them chasing me back to my Tuk Tuk at the end of sessions, one thing will always remain the same — a wonderful, long lasting memory of nine-weeks volunteering with the children of Siem Reap.
During a six-month backpacking trip across southeast Asia, I decided my friend’s advice was probably sound (I hope she never reads this). For £1,400 Globalteer enabled me to experience first-hand how non-profit organisations (NGOs) positively impacted children’s lives in Siem Reap. I joined a wonderful team, worked with local Cambodian coaches and helped deliver a sports education program to ten NGOs across the city.
The aim of the project was to teach sports with underlining health and wellbeing messages. We played football, volleyball and rugby alongside other simple games like tag. Each session became a lesson in teamwork; the more people tagged, the more they came together to catch the others. When a kid fell, others would come over, dust them off and the games would carry on. Relay races where running to wash your hands and returning again became lessons in fighting diseases. No-one was ever left out. Laughter and smiling were natural inclusions of our games and always left me convinced that my efforts were making a difference.
Amidst all this fun, it was always reaffirmed to me that many of these children were not lucky enough to have a full-time education. These NGOs were the closest they’d ever come to a schooling system. Private funding, teachers and volunteers worked hard to help these kids; to keep them away from labour and work, to offer them the chance of a positive future.
Children from 2–16-years-old were learning alongside each other. There was no impatience from the elders when the younger ones didn’t understand the rules; no shyness from the younger ones when competing against the elders. They just engaged in the activities, side by side — an innocent and fun-loving childhood as it should be.
Every child was grateful for their place at the NGOs — smiling, eager to learn more and wanting the lesson to go on beyond our permitted time. It was a complete contrast to how I remember sports at school. Dust in the air seemed to swirl around them, chase them, but never caught them as they rarely stood still. Even in the rain (it was wet season), they jumped in puddles and made games out of a bad weather day.
I was addressed as ‘Mr. Dan’. Despite numerous variations of ‘Englishman’ or just plain ‘Mister’, the pupils always had a level of respect for their coaches and I as an assistant, which I’ll always greatly admire.
I’d never really considered that countries like Cambodia had such obstacles to overcome in the core national services, such as education and healthcare. I learned the political system offered no real democracy for the Cambodian public — a privilege we often take for granted.
It’s been mentioned many times that travel broadens the mind, but an experience like this does so much more. It gives you time to reflect on a period of your life where you can actually see how commitment and time to a worthy cause can really change outcomes to societies completely unlike ours.
Whether you choose to follow me to Siem Reap or another part of the world where help is needed, I’d greatly advise you take up a volunteering opportunity (even just for a few days) to experience for yourself just how life changing it can be for you. I have since supported other Cambodian initiatives and feel more assured that my money is working to help the people, especially the children.
Seriously, volunteer and (Siem) Reap the rewards!
(SUBMITTED TO PUBLICATION WITH COVER LETTER: WORLD NOMAD ON 11.10.19)
