Cambodia Trip 2009

I first heard about the Cambodia Trip during a school assembly. Every year Mr. Rayne takes a group of Junior's to Cambodia for roughly 10 days, to help out with the situation over there in various different ways. Ever since I heard about it in my freshman year, I knew that I wanted to participate in my junior year. The trip is organized with the help of Hope International (a non-profit organization), so that we make the most of our time in Cambodia. The link below will bring you to Hope's website:

http://www.hope.or.jp 

     The process of planning this trip started in about November of 2008 when Mr. Rayne put out an announcement to the whole Junior year asking who would be interested in the Cambodia Trip. Since there was a lot of enthusiasm shown, he decided to set a day when everyone could sign up. I was already set on going on this trip, so I got to school extra early so I would be guaranteed a spot. Once I had learned that I made it into the group of 16 going on the trip it was time to start fund raising for it. Each person going on the trip was expected to raise Â¥50,000 (roughly $500) to donate to Hope's well fund. None of this money was used to fund our travels or anything like that. It was all put towards building more wells throughout Cambodia.

Goals:

     I had a few simple goals going into the project.

• I wanted to volunteer outside of Japan.
• I wanted to help children.
• I thought it would be an interesting way to get to know my classmates better.

     In order to raise this money, we had to plan and initiate activities such as "Starbuck's Runs" for the teachers at our school. Some of my friends from the Cambodia group and I took the teacher's orders, and during our breaks or lunches we would go down the hill to Starbucks and retrieve their orders. All of the money raised was split up between the group and put towards our individual well funds. As you can imagine it took quite a while to reach our goal of Â¥50,000 each but in the end, every member of the group reached that goal. Another way I decided to raise money for the well fund was that I sold sandwiches to some of my peers at school. Ms. Wilson (A teacher at YIS) agreed to let her students eat these sandwiches during class, in order to help raise money for the wells. I made about thirty sandwiches each week in total and I often had to wake up early to make them in order to keep the bread fresh. I believe that this shows perseverance and commitment in my activity. After about three weeks of making sandwiches I was finally finished with raising the money.

     Raising money took quite a while and towards the end of the fundraising it was quite rushed. This happened because I didn't plan all of the fundraising as best as I could. If I could do it again, I believe that I would have planned it all better, so I could have raised more money to donate to the well fund. As I previously stated though, i did reach my target of Â¥50,000 so in that sense I believe that i succeeded. This can show how I increased my overall awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth. I did raise the desired amount of money, but i know what I could have done a bit better. Hopefully I will be doing more charity work in the future, and I will be able to use this experience to help me.

     The main reason for our visit to Cambodia was to help build a school for some of the children who were not lucky enough to have one. The school's site was only about a 30 minute motor bike ride from where we were staying, and so we traveled there to help build the school on two occasions. The plan was to go on a total of three trips to the school's site, however due to bad weather conditions, we were only able to make two trips. While building the school, there was a lot of heavy lifting involved. Our main task was to move big rocks from one area to another, so they could be smashed up in the flooring of the school. At one point a whole lot of us made a chain line, to speed up the process, and I thought this was a perfect example of how I worked collaboratively with others. Of course through out the whole trip we constantly worked together a lot, especially since there were only two chaperons, however I feel that this is a perfect example of how I worked with others. It was a lot of work building the school however it was a great experience. As I said previously we were quite unfortunate, and only got to work on the school for two days. This meant that we did not get to see the school finished. We did however get to write all of our names in the wet cement on the last day of building, which I thought was quite nice. Below are some pictures of the group and I building the school:

While in Cambodia we went to go visit a local orphanage when we weren't building the school. The orphanage unfortunately had very few visitors a year, and so this was quite a big event for the kids there. On the first day we visited, there was a bit of awkwardness in the air. Many of us had brought simple toys to give to the kids, and one of my friends had brought a soccer ball. After about five minutes of just standing around trying to talk, we started to play soccer and instantly our language barrier was broken. From then on, through all of our following visits there were hardly any awkward times. This is a perfect example of how I undertook new challenges whilst in Cambodia. It was often hard to communicate with the children, however we always managed to get our ideas across to each other. I feel that this also shows that I developed new skills, learning how to communicate with children better.

     Overall, the group made three visits to the orphanage. Over those three days everyone grew a lot closer to the children. We played sports and games with them, made bracelets and necklaces and sometimes just talked. I personally grew quite close to a few of the children. One thing that I noticed about all of the children at the orphanage was how happy they were with all the simple things. I found it amazing how they appreciated every little thing. One of the items I brought with me to give to the kids was some origami. (colored paper that you can fold to make little objects) When I was giving them out to some of the children, I noticed how they couldn't stop smiling and how they always said thank you. I was very impressed by this especially because most of them were under 10 years old, but at the same time I felt quite sad. The reason why they were so happy was because they weren't used to having much at all. I believe that from then on I always considered the ethical implications of my actions when giving out little gifts.

Conclusion

My interest in the Cambodia trip started with a few simple goals that I easily achieved. Looking back over it here I realize how much more I learned. I think I went in with the expectation that I'd be helping other people out a lot. Maybe part of me thought I'd feel like a gave something to the people that they couldn't get themselves. It sounds cliche but I know I benefitted more from the trip than anyone else could have benefitted from me volunteering. I do think I addressed the criteria I mentioned above but maybe the biggest thing the people I met taught me was to just be happy with what I have no matter how much or how little it seems at times.