Reflection

As the final week of my Social Sabbatical in Phnom Penh comes to end, I am reflecting back on the month and the many events, activities, and moments that contribute to both the professional and personal experiences that I will take back with me to my home in US….a month that feels like a year’s worth of experiences, and new relationships with people that I feel I have known for years. Now, to pick up from my last post…

Weekend Trip to Siem Reap —Our group of twelve set out on our second weekend to Siem Reap to visit the Angkor Wat temples. I have to say, it was a most memorable weekend for many reasons. It started with the fact that we chose Chinese New Year for our trip. We had booked our hotel more than a month in advance through Booking.com, only to find out the day before our arrival that our hotel had issues with their booking system and had no rooms for us. It seems this was a problem across all of Siem Reap, and so after trying to find rooms in more than five hotels, we finally were able to get rooms across three different hotels, though not the highest quality :-(. Nevertheless, we packed ourselves into a tour bus for Saturday and Sunday to visit the Angkor Thom, Bayon, Ta Prohm, Pre Rup, Angkor Wat, Banteay Srey, and Prea Khan templates. Angkor Wat is the earthly embodiment of Mt. Meru the home of the Hindu Gods – or Heaven on Earth. The Hindu Trinity comprises Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Sustainer and Shiva the Destroyer. The largest religious complex in the world began life as a Hindu but is now – like 95% of Cambodians – of Buddhist persuasion.

Week 3 — I explained in my previous post that the project which my team of three is supporting has the objective of developing a strategy for the NGO EYC (Empowering Youth in Cambodia)to improve job placement for their high school and university students that will better enable them to put their knowledge into practice and become more competitive, as well as to earn an income to be able to sustain themselves and their families, as well as their continued education. Following our first two weeks of gaining an understanding and perspective for the EYC schools, the students skills and abilities, as well as the current job market, we began in our third week to develop solutions for the job placement program, including the following:

1. A database and application for capturing student information and skills and employer/job information that can support better matching of qualified students with job opportunities.
2. A career planning program that will help students to understand themselves, their career goals and interests, how to achieve their goals, and how to develop a career plan/roadmap.
3. Incorporating into their school curriculum training related to CV writing, interviewing skills, as well as essential skills such as communication, problem solving, leadership, adaptability, creativity, ability to continuously learn.
4. A private Facebook group connecting EYC university students to learning, career sites, recruiters, employers, and to fellow EYC students, alumni and staff.
5. A mentoring program leveraging alumni who have a desire to give back and will become mentors for job seeking EYC students, sharing their experiences, lessons learned, tips for success, and coaching on CV writing & interviewing.
6. Developing a framework for employer and job agency partnerships that can build a stronger network between EYC and employers who will provide job placement opportunities for EYC’s students.

We continued with developing prototypes for these solutions that were used to validate/test them with a select group of students, alumni, and employers. Our testing helped to confirm that our solutions could be of value to EYC’s students and to employers, and we then proceeded with developing implementation plans for the solutions.

Remembering

After a successful week of solutioning, prototyping, and testing, our SAP team spent the weekend further exploring Phnom Penh and some of the recommended highlights. I spent Saturday along with some of my SAP colleagues visiting the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (also known as the S-21 prison) and Killing Fields where both Cambodians and foreigners were tortured and executed under the Khmer Rouge revolution just over 40 years ago. In 1975, Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over by security forces and turned into a prison that soon became the largest center of detention and torture in the country. S-21 has been turned into the Tuol Sleng Museum, which serves as a testament to the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. Between 1975 and 1978 more than 17,000 people held at S-21 were taken to the killing fields of Choeung Ek where they were further tortured and executed.

This experience was a profoundly depressing one, seeing photographs of the victims during their imprisonment, the rooms where they were tortured, and the mass graves that were later discovered in the 1980’s. The museum is a memorial to remind us all of the tragedies that occurred and to never forget. The saying on the memorial monument states “Never will we forget the crimes committed during the Democratic Kampuchea regime”.

Game On! — Sunday provided a much more positive experience for the SAP team as we supported a first ever soccer tournament hosted by EYC for nearly 100 students aged 8–18. Most of us played on teams with the children for nearly four hours of tournament play and a final match. The EYC soccer program is one of several sports related programs they provide to their students to help them build confidence and develop teamwork skills. What an amazing experience it was to see the excitement of the children and to share in the fun. And after the tournament, I was ready for an afternoon at the spa with my female colleagues.

Final Week —Now we are winding down the project, developing implementation plans, timeline, and roadmap to hand over to the EYC staff. Our recommended approach for EYC is to “start small” with pilots for all of the solutions. They are a small staff with limited resources, so this approach will allow them to move forward immediately with some achievable solutions on which they can build and grow in 6 months, 1 year, and beyond. As we conclude the hand-over process to the EYC staff, we prepare to deliver final presentations to the staff, and to the broader SAP Team and NGO’s with who we have been partnering this month. The final activity this week involved a workshop, led by EYC staff with students and employers attending, leveraging Design Thinking techniques which our SAP team had educated and coached the EYC staff to deliver. It was a success, and we celebrated with a dinner at a local restaurant Mok Mony, which was described to us as the best restaurant in Phnom Penh. I will agree that it is probably one of the best restaurants I experienced all month.

Celebration & Farewells— To conclude our social sabbatical, we plan on Friday afternoon a celebration boat cruise along the Mekong River, followed by a team dinner to say our farewells, as most of us will depart on Saturday to return to our homes around the globe.

What will I miss? — While I am looking forward to being home again, when I think about what I will miss about my experience in Cambodia, it will be the people who almost always seem to be happy and greet you with a smile, the warm sunny weather, the interesting foods, the low cost for things (at least much lower than the US), the wonderful spas, hanging out at the pool at the end of the day, the amazing SAP colleagues I had the pleasure to get to know and to work with, and especially the opportunity to experience something I had never before experienced.

What will I take back with me? — Besides the many souvenirs that I will take back to the US, when I think about what I have gained during my social sabbatical experience, the greatest is the connections and relationships. I learned so much from the many people I met, whether it was the EYC staff and students, the SAP colleagues who I did not previously know, the Pyxera Global staff that supported us throughout our experience, expats and non-Cambodians that are living in Cambodia, restaurant owners, tuk tuk drivers, and many more. I feel that I have many new friends who I will remain in touch with via Facebook, and especially 12 within the SAP family. I have also learned a great deal about myself and my desire to live life with a purpose. Our rapidly changing world can be frightening at times, especially for our youth. If we all do more to help each other, it can help to make the world seem a little less scary and a better place for our future generations. I learned that the youth of today have a much more altruistic spirit than our older generations. This is what will drive change for the good.

Good-bye Cambodia. Till next time!