Cambodia
21 Days
High School Service Program
Educational Projects & Rebuilding in Southeast Asia
Embracing Projects That Matter
Many schools in Cambodia lack the basic infrastructure needed to care for and educate children. Working with community partners, VISIONS high school volunteers have built bathrooms and hand-washing stations at primary schools, and renovated classrooms and libraries in disrepair. Hands-on work is mostly cinder block and mortar construction, with local builders teaching you the necessary skills. When you’re not hauling cinder blocks, you’ll help with teaching English, leading arts and crafts, and some sports and recreation at these very same schools.
In addition, VISIONS has partnered with SALT (Sports and Leadership Training) Academy, which has developed youth soccer leagues around the country as a way to prepare and empower young people. A favorite for VISIONS teens is helping with SALT’s girl-focused program known as “Mighty Girls.” Working on and in the schools provides a double benefit that is rewarding for all, particularly local youth who spend time with our teens at the worksites and day camps.
Making Meaningful Connections
VISIONS started working in Cambodia in 2012, building on pre-existing partnerships with a cross-cultural nonprofit and a program that helps put Cambodian street kids through school. The VISIONS leader team always includes a native of Cambodia, who shows us the ins and outs of the country and brings in other Cambodians who work and hang out with us. (Read about our current leader Sav Yuth below.) “Mum” is our dinner cook and house mom. She owns and runs a restaurant in town, but spends the summer with us, taking us in like family and teaching us how to make some traditional dishes. We socialize with people from other countries who are working at local NGOs (non-governmental organizations), with shopkeepers, with Yuth and Mum’s relatives and friends, and our neighbors. (Expect to learn some Khmer language basics while you’re here.) Most of all, the local children are the country’s greatest ambassadors—they delight in any chance to play with and get to know VISIONS teens, and inspire us return.
Our
Home:
Battambang,
Cambodia
SETTING OUT TO GO BEYOND
Your work in Battambang contributes to a national movement of people striving to rebuild their country, and make peace with its recent and troubled past. Cambodia is bustling these days, and you’ll get the sense of being in a place on the brink of sustained positive change. At the beginning of the program, spend a day and a half exploring the extremes of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, from the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields to the Royal Palace. Next, you’ll travel to the stunning temple complex of Angkor Wat, renowned as the most sublime mix of art and architecture on the planet. While based in Battambang, you’ll get to do a bike tour alongside rice fields, make rice paper with farmers, clatter through the countryside on an open air bamboo trolley and hike at sunset to a hillside cave, just in time to see more than a million bats fly out for their evening insect hunt.
ACTIVITIES AND EXCURSIONS
- Experience Angkor Wat by tuk tuk and optional bike tour, followed by a visit to the famous Night Market of Siem Reap
- Tour Phnom Penh sites including the Killing Fields, Royal Palace and Mekong River
- Ride the Bamboo Railroad into the countryside
- Kayak down Battambang’s Sangke River
- Shop at open air markets and learn to make local food
- Attend the Phare Circus, where Cambodia’s stories are reimagined through music, acrobatics, dance and theater
- Pedal through rice paddy country on a relaxed and scenic tour
LOCAL SPOTLIGHT
SAV YUTH
Program Leader
It’s actually a lucky thing we ever met Sav Yuth. She learned about VISIONS by chance in 2012, when two of our leaders contacted her family to see about renting their house in Battambang for a future program. Intrigued, Yuth decided to volunteer. “I tried to understand what VISIONS does, and after I got to know it well, I was in love with it all,” she says.
Yuth impressed us so much, we asked her to join the leader team the following summer. She’s been a vital part of our program ever since.
Yuth is a fireball—full of life, quick with jokes and endless energy. She is also a great liaison for us with the community. She was born in Battambang, and her entire family is from the area. They are farmers and sell their produce in the community market. Yuth studied Law at the University of Battambang. Since graduating in 2015, she has worked with victims of domestic abuse and trafficking in seven provinces across Cambodia. She would love to be a lawyer someday.
Yuth says working with VISIONS has been one of the most memorable and eye-opening parts of her life so far. And even as she helps VISIONS teens learn about leadership, she has developed into a strong leader herself.
But it’s not all serious business. As one participant said after his Cambodia program, “There was never a dull moment with Yuth around—she’s one of the funniest people I’ve met and kept me laughing the whole summer!”
Cambodia Blog Posts
2019 Summer Program Highlights
VISIONS Family Tree, a Multigenerational Community
VISIONS REVIEWS
Read what others have said about their experience in this location. You also are welcome to contact the VISIONS office to request student and parent references.
NOT QUITE READY?
Feel free to contact us with any questions! We are happy to help find the best program to meet your goals for the summer.
SAV YUTH
Program Leader
It’s actually a lucky thing we ever met Sav Yuth. She learned about VISIONS by chance in 2012, when two of our leaders contacted her family to see about renting their house in Battambang for a future program. Intrigued, Yuth decided to volunteer. “I tried to understand what VISIONS does, and after I got to know it well, I was in love with it all,” she says.
Yuth impressed us so much, we asked her to join the leader team the following summer. She’s been a vital part of our program ever since.
Yuth is a fireball—full of life, quick with jokes and endless energy. She is also a great liaison for us with the community. She was born in Battambang, and her entire family is from the area. They are farmers and sell their produce in the community market. Yuth studied Law at the University of Battambang. Since graduating in 2015, she has worked with victims of domestic abuse and trafficking in seven provinces across Cambodia. She would love to be a lawyer someday.
Yuth says working with VISIONS has been one of the most memorable and eye-opening parts of her life so far. And even as she helps VISIONS teens learn about leadership, she has developed into a strong leader herself.
But it’s not all serious business. As one participant said after his Cambodia program, “There was never a dull moment with Yuth around—she’s one of the funniest people I’ve met and kept me laughing the whole summer!”
Cambodia Blog Posts
2019 Summer Program Highlights
VISIONS Family Tree, a Multigenerational Community
Celebrating 33 Years
