Cambodia Service Trip 

Nadia Masulans, Year 11, Ridgeway Campus

 The Cambodia Service Trip was an incredible experience for not only myself and my fellow students, but also the students, families, and organisations in Cambodia. The build up to the trip involved a few meetings in school time and two on the weekend, where we worked with our teaching groups to plan cohesive and fun lessons for the Cambodian students. I found this very interesting as it involved researching and putting together a plan of what certain age groups can learn, and English phrases that would be valuable for the students in their everyday life. Upon our arrival in Cambodia, I was shocked about how warm it was, and I knew I was going to be sweating for the next two weeks. 

Our first day was mostly uneventful, we went to the markets, practised bartering and learnt the value of the American dollar, and then went out for a lovely dinner next to the Mekong River. 

The next day, our first full day, had to be one of my favourites, we woke up bright and early and I, along with the rest of Team 3, headed down for our first session of teaching, at Neak Krawan school, where we taught kids aged around 12 to 14. Some of the kids in the class I taught were very good at English and some didn’t know any English at all, it was very interesting to see the differences between students in the same class. Due to the students age, we were able to relate to and become friends as lots of the students enjoyed the same things that we do, for example, TikTok and Taylor Swift. Despite the differences in English speaking levels, my teaching group and I all had a great time with the students, teaching them important phrases, playing silly games, and making friendship bracelets. My overall favourite experience, however, was the village stay. 

Our first day in the village we spent digging out and laying bricks for new garden beds, and the new cafeteria at the school, we also met some of the children, with one of them running and getting us books from the school library for us to read to him, unfortunately they were all in Khmer, so we couldn’t actually read them, but he really enjoyed us teaching him the English words for some of the things in the pictures, which was very cute. 

On the morning of our second day at the village, we continued to lay bricks for cafeteria, in the afternoon however, some of Team 3 visited a high school in the village and played a game of soccer against the students, which we very drastically lost. We severely underestimated their skill level and the weather, as we showed up to play with no shoes on a muddy field in the rain. It was still very fun for both us and the school kids, with the majority of the students staying late after school to watch us play and laugh at those that slipped in the mud. 

After we finished our days of service in the village, the next two days were spent teaching the young kids that really enjoyed learning 'heads, shoulders, knees, and toes', and playing tag outside in the very hot sun. 

I truly enjoyed the Cambodian service trip and could talk about how it influenced me, my favourite days or experiences, and what I learnt for hours. I highly recommend it to other students as you can gain a new level of independence that you can’t experience anywhere else, having to deal with the hot weather and many other new experiences, in a foreign country, far away from your parents. I was also able to learn about how others live in countries that are much less privileged than Australia, and what some students and families must endure every day. For me, this made me much more grateful for what I experience in my daily life, from where I live, to the resources that surround me and my education at Ivanhoe Grammar School.   

Isabelle Pini and Archie Toy, Year 11, Ridgeway Campus

Cambodia was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It gave us the opportunity to fully experience life in a world so different from ours, and gain so many life lessons from it. What I most enjoyed was the village stay where we stayed at a remote village for 4 days at the AKC English School and taught, learnt, ate, and essentially lived alongside with the local people. 

Prior to the village stay we had been in Phnom Penh for a few days and taught at a couple schools, however we did not stay at any one place for too long. The village stay was really enjoyable in that we got to really familiarise ourselves with the local people, making great friends and learning so much about one another over the course of a few days. We got to learn and develop such a deeper appreciation for the sheer hard work that goes on in the lives different to ours. Leaving was the hardest part; it was really difficult to leave a place and people with whom we had forged such a connection with. Cambodia really opened our eyes to a hands-on experience into the lives of others that we cherish so much and will remember forever.