Room to Read Trek, Cambodia, Nov 2015
I had the opportunity to travel to Cambodia with 11 other co-workers from Atlassian, who is a large sponsor of Room to Read (RtR), a foundation that helps low-income countries improve literacy and girl’s education and equality. Every year, Atlassian sends employees on a RtR trek in Cambodia, the country where we’ve focused our funds, to visit the schools and learn about the programs our donations support. I kept a journal during the trip in which you will find our trek activities, photos and thoughts provoked throughout the experience.
Trek — Day 1
Cambodia Office Visit
After a long flight from San Francisco to Phomn Penh (through Seoul, South Korea), I arrived!! Dreary-eyed, I walked off the plane, into the small airport of Phnom Penh, grabbed my bag and headed outside, where I was instantly consumed by the airport crowds and humid air. I found a taxi quickly which took me to the social enterprise hotel, Hotel Boutique, just 30 minutes away.
The next morning, I woke up to find my fellow Atlassian trekers downstairs in the lobby where we greeted each other and shared some ice coffees to help fight off the heat and jet-lag. The only person I had met Face-to-Face before the trip was Brendan, who is from our Sydney office and visits San Francisco quite frequently, and the two of the Room to Read San Francisco staff, Jay and Bridget, who I met at a pre-trek meeting. The others from Atlassians — Otto, Andreas, Ruthanne, Brendan, Melissa, Matt, Will, Linda, Andrew, Nam, and Mary — would all be traveling together for the next 4 days.
The plan for the day was to head further into the city to enjoy a welcome lunch at another social enterprise restaurant, Friends Restaurant, with some of the Cambodia Trek leaders, and then head to the Room to Read Cambodia Office to meet the rest of the team.
At lunch, we met Geetha, the Chief Development officer for RtR and Kall, the Country Director for Cambodia. Introductions were made around the table and our trek leader, Jay, briefed us with an overview of RtR and their mission, and then explained the rest of the day’s itinerary.
After a delicious lunch, we headed to their office for a quick tour and to meet with the staff. We sat around a large conference table to learn more about their literacy programs and girls education programs specific to Cambodia. To read a quick overview of the programs and progress RtR has made in Cambodia, visit Room to Read in Cambodia.
Trek — Day 2
Pring Chum Lower Secondary School & Home Visits
We woke up bright and early as the busses were leaving at 6:00am, myself waking up even earlier due to jet lag and plenty anticipation for the day ahead. Nevertheless, bags were packed and off we went to the first school, Pring Chum Lower Secondary School, about a two hour drive from our hotel in Phnom Penh. Pring Chrum serves grades 7 through 9 and is located in the Cherng Prei district of Kampong Cham province.
When we arrived, I was not expected the welcome and celebration we were greeted with; hundreds of children lined up, singing, clapping, handing us gifts like origami flowers and finger rings. With no anticipation nor idea of how to act in this situation, I smiled the largest smile I could and said “hello” to each girl I connected eyes with, catching on quickly, from all of the children, to the appropriate greeting of prayer-hands and a slight bow.
We were first brought into get a quick glimpse of the Room to Read library where Kall explained the books and the check-out system. While we were inside, all the students gathered under an outdoor assembly areas made of a long hatch roof with straw mats on the ground. Once we were all seated in front, a few girls greeted us with a beautiful traditional dance and then Kall translated the greeting of the head of their school and explained a little about why we were visiting.
The students were wide-eyed and eager to be apart of the greeting and assembly and much less fidgety than I remember students at assemblies to be. Kall had explained earlier that the primary school (1–7th) didn’t have school that day, but many of the children were there regardless because they were eager to meet us.
Girls Education Program — Debates
After the assembly, we split up into three groups with the older secondary school girls for a debate session. The three topics were : More Education equals more money, illegal migration equals more opportunity, and getting married equals an easier life. Atlassians were supposed to be on the supporting side of these issues while the girls practiced the opposition. The debate session I was a part of was ‘migration equals more opportunity’. I was amazed that the teacher of the session had little instruction to do at all, but instead, an older girl from secondary school was actually leading the debate, explaining the issue at hand and spelling out the rules and structure of the sessions. She explained that the point of the debate was not to find a winner, but to debate in order to find understanding and help us come to an agreement.
Three Atlassians faced the three debating girls with a judges table to our left and the other girls surrounding us in the room. Through the debate, the girls explained why they believed that Cambodians should not illegally migrate to other countries in hopes of a better life. Their points included the poor working conditions of illegal immigrants, unfair, low salaries of illegal immigrants, the dangers of crossing the boarders and traveling to unknown countries, the lack of support they have from the government, and the opportunities they have in their own country if they have an education. We, of course, had weaker, made-up points to refute them. It’s hard to come up with fake arguments about something you don’t believe!
Career Opportunities
After the debates, we went back down to the assembly area for a role-playing activity on career opportunities and aspirations. Around 10 girls came up, dressed as their desired profession and told us what they need to study in order to get there. The girls walked out dressed as a doctor, judge, nurse, teacher, accountant, police officer, pilot, flight attendant, etc. Check out their costumes!
After the girls were done, Atlassian was asked to give a presentation on what the company does and what each of our roles are. Andrew first attempted to explain what Atlassian is by giving an example of how a computer is like a human: “a computer has exterior pieces, the hardware, a frame, keyboard, screen and mouse, just as we have arms, legs, head and eyes. A computer also has an inside, which acts like the “brain” of a human, powering the exterior. Atlassian creates the brain, the software.” He then invited the engineering team to come up to explain what they do and then I was then asked to explain what marketing does.
I tried to explain that marketing is what drives people to buy our product. So if you own a bike store and you want people to come and buy your bikes, there are many things you could do to get them to come. You could hang up signs, you could go on the radio, or create a website. I then asked the 350 students, who has heard of Google. Zero students raised their hands! I was shocked. I, at least, thought the older secondary school girls had used a computer and had used Google before. We later found out that majority of the kids hadn’t even seen a computer, let alone use one.
The rest of the team went on to explain customer service, accounting, and HR. I’m not sure that the kids totally “got” what we were trying to explain. I don’t think many of us were prepared to give presentations to kids that knew very very little about technology or even had used a computer. Then again, even kids in the US would’t understand business functions right off-the-bat either. Nevertheless, the goal was to inspire them to think more broadly about what they could be if they had an education. Majority of the kids when asked want to be teachers. I think this is because it’s the only thing they see on a day-to-day and we are also promoting education to these students, so the value of a teacher’s role is very clear to them.
Social Mobilizers
After the career session and lunch, it was time for a discussion with the Social Mobilizers — these are the girls that work for RtR as mentors and coaches for the girls in the program. Many of them have been through the RtR program themselves. The Social Mobilizers coach girls on issues such as how to approach parents when they are encouraging them to drop out of school early, how to handle domestic violence situations, and health and hygiene. We asked them questions about how they are supported by RtR, what motivates them to be Social Mobilizers, what is most challenging in their work, how they deal with specific circumstances with girls.
The social mobilizers we met were helping anywhere from 60–200 girls. They are really at the heart of the Girls Education Program, dealing first hand with the communities and families of these girls and making a huge impact.
Home Visits
We broke up into groups to visit a few of the girls homes. My group went home with Sreyphen, a 15 year old girl in grade 10. Her family lives off many winding roads, surrounded by rice marshes (with millions of ducks everywhere — really strange!). At her home, we met her mother, father, brothers and sisters. She is the second oldest with five brothers and sisters.
We sat in a circle and asked questions of each other with Kall translating the conversation. Her mother and father seem very proud of Sreyphen, but it also felt like a lot of pressure for the one girl of the entire family to be the “anticipated” provider. Her brothers dropped out of school in grade 9 to work with her parents as farmers. She told us she loved math and science and wanted to become a teacher. I had asked her in the car on the way to her home earlier and she said a doctor. She probably changed her answer when around her family and peers because, I later found out you need to have an A average in school to have a chance to study medicine in university. The family asked us questions like what education is like in the US, what do we want in return for our donations to RtR, why we chose to come to Cambodia.
I was surprisingly quiet during this time, letting other ask questions. Every time I thought of a question I felt it was going to bring up a negative subject so I would decline from asking. I wanted to ask her: what she was nervous about, what is most challenging when it comes to navigating school and life at home, what scares her about graduating and the future? I found ways to ask these questions in more positive light, but didn’t feel like I got to the very bottom of the question.
She seemed like a very bright girl, but still, that’s a lot of pressure for one girl. You could tell she felt close to her father and mother and to Kall. It was beautiful to watch how Kall interacted with her and her family. He is so genuine, kind and understanding of the girl’s circumstances.
An older lady approached the area we were sitting at. She realized that we were with RtR and wanted to share that her daughter was apart of the program and had just graduated from high school and went onto university. It was really sweet. She encouraged Sreyphen to “break the cycle!!”.
The woman explained that so many of the girls parents value a girls looks or how well they can dance or sing, instead of their education. They think if she is good looking, she will marry and be provided for or if she can sing or dance, that maybe she’ll be lucky and be famous. The woman said the communities need to stop, start thinking about educating young girls and empower them. It was really cool to see a lady from an older generation understanding the problem and encouraging Sreyphen to break the cycle.
Room to Read Student Alumni
We drove back to the school and were greeted by RtR student alumni, who told us about their own experiences in the program. One girl told us her parents wanted her drop out of school at grade 6. She negotiated with them, with the help of RtR, and tole them RtR would provide her a sponsorship. If her parents allowed her to stay in school for 6 more months and she could prove she was getting support and successful, her parents would have to let her stay in school. Her parents listened and now she is in her 11th year and going to college!
The girls spoke about what they are doing now after graduation — one was a teacher in primary school, one waiting to get her grades back from a university board standard, one was a Social Mobilizer, one was in university studying to be a doctor. We asked the girls what made it so hard to get through school and many explained the pressures of their families to drop out of school to start work, the poverty, the negative comments from neighbors about women, or violence at home.
One of the girls stood up and suddenly I saw tears forming at her eyes, choking up on her words. She said she came from such a poor family and there was so much pressure to drop out and make money and provide, but RtR connected her with a network, friends she could count on and confide in and the confidence to stick up to her family to stay in school. Sitting next to her was one of her friends, tearing up as well. She explained her friend gave her the strength to ignore the people who said she couldn’t do it.
At this point, I broke down. I could’t hold it in watching this girl cry, and the huge lump in my throat formed. All the emotions from the girl’s stories, from Kall’s inspiring connection with the girls and his inspiration in their lives, from all the gratitude these kids had, from everything we had seen that day; I couldn’t hold it in.
One girl asked us, how did today make us feel? I knew I had to say something, but I knew it was all going to come running out of my heart and my face, but I did — I said, “You make us proud. I just met you and I’m so amazed and proud at the strength you have within you, your openness to share your darkness, your dreams, your strength. It’s truly moving”.
Heart
These girls have so much heart, much more heart and compassion than kids in the US, but they’re given so very little opportunity to succeed. If we can give them access to the fundamentals of survival, like education and literacy, they will have the hearts to change the world, to make a great difference.
Getting through school is enough for a child. Imagine also having to negotiate and battle parents and communities that tell you to drop out, on top of working everyday part time for your family, on top of having a mother or father who may beat you, on top of a community who tells you you will fail because you’re a girl, on top of being told you’re only worth your looks and who marry. They deal with so much, but still find the strength to battle to get an education. All they needed was a little encouragement and coaching and they become these well spoken girls, so confident and driven. I compare their emotional intelligence to those of high schoolers in the US and it’s fascinating how far apart on the spectrum they are, bad or good, they should’t have to be exposed to these issues so early in life, but it does, however, give them drive and give them heart and RtR helps them to get to that point.
Beautifully naive
As westerners, we want to know the solution, we want to automatically throw technology at the problem. The schools don’t have books, give them computers. The students don’t know English, give them the internet. Time and time again, at almost every issue within literacy we were faced with, we thought of either the internet or computers/tech as a solution. But what struck me, is something Andrew said, instead of trying to think of a solution, first just seek to understand the issue, seek to understand the people, their culture, what they’re facing.
The real reality is, we’re dealing with literacy. You don’t need technology nor the internet to improve literacy. Yes, for a fact, technology does help our world become more efficient in the ways we can spread knowledge, language, ideas, etc. But, for a community that doesn’t even have full functioning toilets, let alone electricity, how do we expect them to adopt the internet and have that improve literacy? Who will guide them to use it properly when teachers and parents don’t know how to “Google” themselves? Who is going to fund wide-spread computer adoption at schools that can’t even afford books; it’s just not scalable.
However, I can’t lie, my thoughts often come back to the following:
- Communities, and this country, will fall even further behind if they ignore technology.
- Studies done by Sugata Mitra who proved by giving unknownly children a computer and the internet, children were able to teach themselves, not only, to learn language, but learn how to code, with zero instruction.
But then my thoughts turn back, once again, RtR cannot get the support of the government to implement their strategy when their plans are so expensive, and for that matter, so hard to scale. Giving and maintaining computers and internet in rural areas is just too expensive. Giving them books is not.
In conclusion, I don’t know. I do know that a valid approach is to keep experimenting. Keep experimenting with how technology works in rural undeveloped counties and communities. We’ll get there. But for now, let’s teach them to read, the best way we know how: words on paper.
Why Room to Read and Literacy?
There are a million things you could focus on in developing countries — water, healthcare, birth control, government, waste management, and so on. But education is at the root of it all. Education allows communities to be self-sufficient and create the world they want to live in, to better themselves, to grow themselves. Giving children the power to change their future and stand up to parents, communities and government in order to change their own outcome. If we can empower them, they will figure out the ways to fix the other issues.
You can’t just hand over an iPad to a kid or computers to a school. Give children books, allow them to be curious and learn to love to read, let them realize what learning can do, what it can provide. Once they can read, they have the choice to research, explore, make informed decisions, and educate themselves. Without literacy, computers and iPads won’t change anything. Start from the ground up.
Fireworks of ideation
One of the most amazing things to watch during the trip was how it effected everyone there. The emotions, the questions, the realizations, but most interesting, was the amount of ideas and inspiration the experience provoked. Each bus ride after a home visit or a school visit, the ideas in the car radiated like fireworks. Atlassians were trying to figure out all sorts of solutions for the issues at hand, how we could make a bigger difference, what we could do to provide more. It was incredible. We’re a group of well-educated and successful adults that have been so privileged in our lives. We’re able to work out complex problems, to focus, and all it takes is the inspiration to let it all come out. It was so incredible to watch and be apart of. Not to say, that we discussed or thought about would actually make a difference or work at all, but we were getting somewhere and I have hope that there’s much to come from each and every person on the trip.
Trek — Day 3
Lo Ve & Ta Ong Primary schools
I woke up early again, at 3am, probably because of jet lag and overall exhaustion. We headed down to the lobby at 6am for another take-away breakfast and had a two hour drive to the first school, Lo Ve Primary school. This school is very very rural and was deep in, what felt like, the jungle. Roads were extremely bumpy as we drove past many small homes spotted along the way. We finally arrived and again were greeted with a warm and busy welcome, many students, administrators and community members. As we walked in, the kids were singing and handing us gifts including straw hats, bamboo-shoot-made rings and flowers. The kids at Lo Ve are younger than at the Secondary school girls we met in Kampong Cham. This school is grades 1st through 6th.
As we walked in, the kids sang a song, which at first, because it was in Khmer, I had no idea what they were singing about. After the third chorus, I realized that they were singing “Atlassian, Atlassian” as part of the chorus. Once we sat down in the assembly area, they handed us sheets of paper with the lyrics of the song. It was very sweet.
In front of us, sat three monks, dressed in traditional orange robes. As the ceremony started, three men walked around chanting and tossing water and flower petals over us and the students in the assembly area. This was the first time I had a glimpse of any sort of Buddhist experience while at the schools. The monks said a few words and left the assembly. Kall then translated the greeting between us and the head of school.
During the assembly this time, Atlassian members were asked to present where we are originally from. In our group, we had people from Sydney, the Philippines, Vietnam, Austria, the Netherlands, and the US. We each gave introductions to the students in the assembly about each of our respective countries. This is when I realized that software developers and business people are not the most naturally gifted “teachers”, especially to young students :). We did win them over, however, when Matt from Sydney proceeded to act as a kangaroo and invited students up to jump around the stage.
Kall, thankfully, seemed to translate our presentations into more engaging performances. Brendan gave a second presentation on five ways we use computers. I don’t think any of us were prepared to speak to students who had never seen computers before so, his presentation, to say the least, was a bit over their heads, I think.
After the assembly, we met with the community’s construction committee, made up of about 6 men. They explained how Room to Read renovated the school’s main classroom building which was to our right and added the library behind us. They also explained how the Room to Read engineers taught them proper ways to construct buildings and bridges, and prior to this, they weren’t constructing buildings safely and inefficiently.
The women in the community prepared a huge array of traditional Cambodian desserts for us, including sticky-rice with roasted banana, rice balls, like Mochi, with coconut shavings, purple potato, fresh fruit and coconut juice.
We toured the newly renovated classrooms and the school library. The librarian spoke about how RtR taught her how to set up and organize her library and implement the monitoring of students and books. She showed us how the books were divided up into grade or proficiency level and placed at the appropriate height of students — low grade level books on bottom shelves, while advanced books were placed on the top shelves. She showed us how she tracked how many students at each grade level were checking out books and how she planned for the new incoming books.
We were running late so had to hurry off to the next school which was about 1.5 hours away, north of Phnom Penh. On the way, we stopped at one of the student’s homes nearby and his mother showed us her trade of weaving silk into garments. Generously, she gave each of us sheets of the weaved material.
Ta Ong Primary School
The next school was Ta Ong Primary School, a K through 6th school located in Chamkar Leu district of Kampong Cham province. Again when we arrived, a huge welcome from the students and community.
This community seemed to be way more involved in the school compared to the previous two. The assembly consisted of another translated greeting from the heads of school who explained how grateful they were for RtR and Atlassian’s contributions to their school which included classroom renovations and a school library. During our visit we spent time in the library with the students who read to us. They asked Atlassians to act out the characters of a book called, the little car named Ting Tong.
We also played a competitive game where we were split into groups and the kids were asked to listen to a short story and then put a stack of about 10 pictures describing the story into order.
We met with the community members of the school made up of about 12 women and a few men who explained how grateful they were for RtR and how they felt it has improved the level of literacy in the community. They even explained how some of the mothers would go to the library after taking their kids to school so that they could check out books to learn to read themselves. They were encouraging of their kids and understood the importance of education and had aspirations of their kids becoming doctors, teachers, or business people.
I realized that RtR had been involved at this school for about 3 years which is maximum amount of time they spend at each community. They start with the formalization of community school committees that act as ambassadors for the school. After this year, RtR will slowly fade out of their intervention with the community, but find ways for the schools to continue to be distributed new books for the library.
Fried Spiders
It was a long drive back to Phnom Penh for our final farewell dinner. On the way back, one of the Cambodia office RtR employees, Tonin, asked us if we had ever eaten fried spiders. He told us that there was a local stop along the way that served fried tarantulas. Ruth and I were up for the challenge! We stopped at the vendor on the side of the road and after seeing the buckets and buckets of friend insects — crickets, spiders, maggots, etc. my bravery declined quickly. Tonin didn’t hesitate to purchase 5 fried tarantulas and popped a few in his mouth. My courage returned and I decided I’d try a leg. When going to prick off a leg of a spider from Tonin’s bag, it looked like the spider had come to life and moved and I screamed and flung the thing. After realizing that the spider was likely not alive, I tried again. I popped one little leg into my mouth and exclaimed, “oh, it’s quite nice”. It tasted like friend tereake sauce. We took the remaining spiders and planned our scheme to scare the rest of the group with the spiders at dinner.
One Word.
At dinner that evening, RtR asked us to share a word that we felt described the trip and then a few words about what we would say to someone back home who asked about the trip.
Words shared by the group were: grateful, moved, honored, proud, powerful, exhilarated, respect…
My word is inspired.
I feel inspired by the girls from the Girls Education rograms, their commitment to education, their futures, their families and their community. They are so strong and courageous, well-spoken and open. I feel proud of them for accepting the help of these programs and building the confidence to break the difficult cycle of generations before them.
I feel inspired by the Room to Read trek leaders, Geetha, Jay and Bridget and the Cambodian RtR staff, Kall and Socheata. They’re so committed to their work with these children and believe in what they’re accomplishing. They have a way of expressing the mission of RtR that makes so much sense and I’m grateful I was able to experience it first-hand. Watching Kall interact with each and every student, family, and community member, you can feel his compassion and commitment to the mission. He works so hard to enable others to understand the mission and enables the community to understand why they’re there.
I’m inspired by the communities, parents and families of the villages, for opening their minds and preconceived notions about how they should run their communities and schools. It takes a very strong person to be able to accept the help of westerners and be able to change their mindset. They took it all in and accepted responsibility for their children’s and country’s future.
I’m inspired by the Social Mobilizers who have committed to taking on and spreading the work and knowledge of RtR, creating the self-sustaining system that will build upon each generation to come. They are at the heart of the solution to girl’s equality and education. They have chosen to not only embrace education themselves, but also chosen to go back to their communities and help younger girls embrace it too.
I’m inspired by all of them to do more. How can we scale the inspiration that I felt on the trip to other people? How can we bring more awareness to people back home? How can we help RtR not only raise more money from donors and sponsors, but help them create a more efficient business? How can we defeat ignorance of people in the United States when they think about developing countries? How can we inspire people to question and bring curiosity to the way things are instead of assuming something or someone is at fault? How can we share the knowledge that RtR and communities have developed to other undeveloped countries? How can we inspire compassion? How can we inspire other successful technology companies to do their part?
These are all questions I’m inspired to try to answer.
Our big project
The first thing my group will be doing for our “big project” starts with motivating fellow Atlassians. Let’s get all Atlassians involved in the Atlassian Foundation. The first part of our plan is to raise awareness for the Dollar-a-Day program where employees can elect to have $1 taken from their paycheck each day and donated to the Foundation. We’ll do this by campaigning at each office — setting up fliers, speaking at all-hands events, sending emails to each person who hasn’t elected for the program yet and implementing an in-product banner on Confluence, our collaboration wiki software, promoting the program. Our goal is to get 500 people to sign up in the first month.
Secondly, I want to know what else I can do personally to help local RtR chapters bring awareness to their programs and events and get others involved.
I’d also like to get more involved in the Foundation at Atlassian. Currently they’re piloting many different charitable programs in Cambodia — More about this to come…
There are also so many people at Atlassian who have skill-sets that could help RtR as an organization. We should enable Atlassians to donate their time in whatever skill they have in order to help RtR scale as a company.
After the Trek
Sihanoukville
On the Saturday after the Trek, I flew down to Sihanoukville which is on the south-western coast of Cambodia. I spent my time on the beach running, writing and reading. I enjoyed having the downtime to reflect on the trip and digest everything before heading back to work.
I met a 15 year old girl, Sarah, who was selling weaved bracelets and trinkets on the beach in front of my hotel. I asked her if she was in school and she said she studied English in the evenings in the city, but she told me dropped out before secondary school, at about grade 3, because her mother was very poor and needed her to work to make money for the family. I asked her if she wanted to go to university someday and she said she couldn’t because she couldn’t afford it. I told her that if she graduated from secondary school with higher than a C average she could go to university for free. I’m not sure whether she will be able to go back to secondary school or not at this point, though. She spoke English well which will give her opportunity too.
We chatted throughout the day about various things. I listened to my audible book and I asked her if she could read the title from my phone. She recognized the english letters, but didn’t know the sound each made. She would say, “A-L-L — whats that?” and I would say A, — aahh, L, — ell … aaallll”. And we continued like this and she made it out, “All the Light We Cannot See”.
When I went to give her a hug goodbye at the end of my stay she pulled out a flower from her bag and gave it to me, she said “Come back soon, maybe with your family, or your boyfriend” :)
