Mateo is a young Romanian student, just finishing his first year at university in Italy.  He heard about the possibility of international volunteering from a fellow student and approached us about organising a placement during the summer vacation.  He is a keen and able sportsman, and told us that ‘engaging in a practical project, deepening my abilities and doing it at the benefit of a company with a focus on social issues is the dream for me.’  We matched Mateo to Treak Community Centre in Cambodia and he had a wonderful time!  Here are some extracts from his report.

My placement outline initially consisted of 2 different activities: sports and sciences. Regarding sports, I was supposed to develop sports in the school (find new sports/games, design a timetable, check equipment, get girls more involved). Regarding sciences, I was supposed to run some simple science activities. When I got there, I saw that they also have a charity shop, named Laura’s Dream (Treak Creations). I also got involved with that. We ended up not doing any science stuff, because sports and the shop took all the time.

For sport, I mostly worked with Nirann and teacher Chhuer.  I was able to help introduce PE lessons in the weekly schedule and for the shop, I mostly worked with Nirann and Salin and I was able to help set up basic stuff like google maps, set up social media plans, take a lot of photos and videos, make a flyer, work on costs & pricing, etc.

In the first week, we were still a bit unsure about how to pursue sports. I had to familiarise myself more with the current sport scene, for example there was a bit of a warmup in the assemblies, teacher Chhuer already was doing some light activity, the kids loved football and volleyball in the breaks, so I just ended up playing with the kids during breaks while focusing on the shop during the first week.  Around the second week, we started pulling classes out and doing sport lessons. We started with Teacher Chhuer and Teacher Ben because they were the teachers who wanted more sports in the schedule. It went well so we continued with Teacher Channa, Teacher Leap and Teacher Sinoun, and Teacher Din and Teacher Sear. Both the kids and the teachers understood everything really fast and everything went really well. So for the next weeks we just did these lessons (around 20 total) and experimented with tons of possible games and exercises, while keeping the same general structure. For example some games were good for Teacher Channa’s class because they were a bit older but not suitable for Teacher Din’s class who were smaller. But sometimes it was very random and it just depended on the chemistry the class has so experimenting a lot really helped. By the end, we had laminated documents for the lesson structure with every single step of the warm-up and documents with games that work for each class. I did some meetings with the teachers to talk about the purpose and structure of the sport lessons and made sure they know how to lead these lessons. I got some cones and whistles for the lessons. We updated the schedule for all classes to include the sport lessons and put a poster at the entrance of the sand field.

I think that overall, the sport lessons were a success. Now, the teachers are doing the sport lessons on a weekly basis with each class and they have the materials necessary. It was sometimes not easy to explain games to the smaller classes but we made it work.  There were a ton of highlights during my placement. It was nice when the kids were asking to play certain games or I remember one time they literally forced me to play a game we did in the PE lesson, during a break. It showed that they understood the games and they were passionate about it. I also liked to see how they learned to organise themselves better, during PE lessons and also during breaks, for example actually making teams before playing football, not just running around with the ball.

I did a lot of things during this month. I tried to make a list. In the first day, I realised I was the only volunteer at the school and the only person in the guesthouse. Then someone told me it’s the rainy/green season so there’s not a ton of people around. I realized I’ll have to put in some effort to meet new people and do fun stuff but I think this actually made my experience better since after that I just never stopped doing things.

I visited these places:

● Angkor Temples with Mr Chhuer + bike ride with everyone on another day

● Kulen waterfalls + Pumpkin Cupcakes + Phnom Kulen National Park: 1000 Lingas, Sleeping Buddha + Beng Mealea Temple + Floating Village Kampong Phluk (this was all part of a tour I found online; it was really nice and the group was actually decent)

● Botanical Gardens (nature and stuff)

● Theams Gallery (I wish I had a guide for this)

● Phare Circus (this was so fun, I really didn’t expect it to be this much fun, the play was called Same Same but different and it is referring to locals and tourists)

● Cambodia Quad Bike (this was a tour with ATV thorough the countryside, very nice)

● Khmer Ceramics & Fine Arts Centre (I took a pottery class here, it was fun)

● Choco garden (this is just a coffee shop)

● Apopo (this is the landmine rat museum, you can even hold the rat after the tour, definitely recommend)

I had a gym subscription at Royal Sports Club. I took Kun Khmer lessons. I went to Mr Ly Gym. I did the private lessons because I was a total beginner and wanted to progress at least a bit. The coach was really nice. He is an active fighter but at that time he was injured. He didn’t speak much English but enough to explain everything. The owner of the gym is a foreigner so he speaks well.

I also joined an ultimate frisbee group. It’s like American football but with a frisbee and no contact. The sport is nice, but the group is even nicer. They even have a tournament team. I ended up being good friends with them. The locals are my age and very chill and also the expats were nice. It was very nice to go out with them. The frisbee games were nice too, I think I will even continue playing in Romania in the future.

I went to St. John Church. It’s Catholic. They have an English mass at 6:30 on Saturdays. People are very nice there.

I would definitely recommend volunteering to other people. It’s very important to be committed and friendly and just have a good attitude in general in order to succeed. Since you are in a new place and far away from home, you can easily be disappointed by bad stuff but it’s crucial to get up and keep going because this is how you will ultimately succeed.

If you would like to learn more about volunteering at Treak Community Centre take a look here or contact musufing@travel-peopleandplaces.co.uk