Our highlight of the tour of Cambodia was volunteering in a local village. This is a great experience where you help both locals and children at the same time. We spent 1 week teaching English to children. In this article we will tell you all about our experience volunteering in Cambodia and the organizer’s contact information.
Content of this blog:
How did we come to volunteer in Cambodia?
While at the Landmine Museum in Siem Reap, we wanted to learn more about Cambodia’s past with landmines. That’s where we met Hak. He is a local guide who works at the Landmine Museum every day. After the tour, he talked about the project he started: teaching English to the children in his village. That’s why he started Hak’s Cambodia Project 20 years ago. With the help of volunteers from all over the world, children are taught English in his village.
How does volunteering at Hak’s Project work?
From Siem Reap you will drive in 1 hour to the village, Thnal Dach, where you will stay for the next few days. Upon arrival, you can put your things in the room and Hak will give you a small tour of the house. You are staying with Hak’s family and you will meet them right here.
It’s time for your first English lesson! It takes some getting used to at first how best to go about this. The level of the children quickly becomes apparent and they enjoy learning everything. It is sometimes difficult with translation but that is where Hak helps you. In any case, what we recommend is to have the Khmer (Cambodian) translation put down on the sign. The children can copy this into their writing so they don’t just have the English word there. This way they can practice the words and sentences themselves. In the heading below, we put down some additional tips and topics you can cover.
Tip from us: look up things in Siem Reap beforehand that you want to know about teaching or the topics you want to cover. The Internet in the village is (almost) not working. For example, you can create some slides on your phone or laptop with Khmer translations or images.
English classes usually last between 1 and 2.5 hours. You can actually decide how long you want to teach. As long as you always communicate this in advance. Because we could only teach 5 days, we taught from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. during the week when the children had school in the morning. On Sundays they had time off from school and we taught from 09:00 to 11:00 and 14:00 to 16:00. The kids love it so the more lessons you want to teach the better as far as they are concerned.
When you are not teaching, you can prepare the lesson a little yourself by thinking about topics and any learning games you can play with them. Other than that, you are mostly relaxing a lot and enjoying local life. There are hammocks at Hak’s house that you can sleep and chill in. Furthermore, it is fun to walk along the “main road. Here you see all the locals coming out of their homes to wave at you and the children who want to walk along by the hand. Super special to see everyone like that and how warmly you are welcomed.
The days start early: most locals get up at 05:00 to get things done before the heat. We woke up at 6 a.m. every day and went for a walk or to look at the rice fields. Around 9 p.m. everyone goes to bed, you quickly get into this rhythm because you get tired quickly because of the heat. Keep in mind that the house you are staying in is really a local house so do not expect any luxury. The bathroom consists of a toilet in the ground and the “shower” is a tub of water where you pour water over yourself with a bucket. We really did not find this a problem, you get used to it very quickly and after one time it is normal. On the contrary, it adds to the local feeling.
What does a day of volunteering in Cambodia look like?
- 06:00 you get up. It’s still nice and cool outside and you can choose to take a walk around or quietly read a book with the sunrise.
- 07:00 breakfast is served by Hak: delicious noodles in coconut milk, a red curry or even a sandwich!
- The rest of the morning you prepare for class and chill in the hammock. Optionally, you can sometimes help the locals with lifting the rice or other chores. We personally found this very fun to do (and the locals especially liked it too haha).
- 11:00 school is out! Most children rush home for lunch and arrive for class around 11:30. Some diligent children come to Hak’s house as early as 11:00 to be taught. You can try to chat a little with the children, give them some extra explanation or play with them.
- 11:30 (approximately) class begins. This takes about an hour so you can have lunch afterwards.
- 12:30 lunchtime! Hak has prepared something delicious for you again. After lunch you can sleep in the hammock or prepare for this afternoon’s lesson.
- 14:30 the children are out of school and eager to learn some more! You will teach this class until about 4:30 p.m.
- 16:30 today’s last class is over! The children jump on their bikes to leave but some stay to play some more. We bought balloons for them which they all absolutely loved.
- 7 p.m. dinner time. Enjoy Hak’s delicious Tom Yam Soup of morning glory.
- After this, sometimes some friends of Hak will drop by with whom you can have a nice beer: Tjullmooi (cheers)! Toasts you do about 6 times per beer, haha!
- 21:00 bedtime! You are quickly exhausted by the heat and the energy you give the children which makes you sleep wonderfully!
What topics can you cover in English class?
We were the first volunteers after covid-19. For the past 3 years, unfortunately, there have been no volunteers in the village. Therefore, the level of the children was zero when we started. We covered these topics:
Numbers to 100
Colors
Animals
Transportation resources
Body parts
Activities (running, swimming, walking, sitting)
Other common words (tree, house, sun etc.
Days of the week
Months
Large & small
Basic phrases:
How are you?
How old are you?
What is your name?
What is the price of this product?
What do you want to eat?
Where are you from?
What day is it today/yesterday/tomorrow?
Where is…? (By pointing to something with ‘here’ and ‘there’)
How much does volunteering in Cambodia cost?
At Hak’s Project, you pay for your own accommodation and food and drink. This makes sense since no one earns from you teaching: it is free to all children. This, of course, also ensures that all children can attend class. Most residents of the village are very poor so you don’t want to be a burden. Hak charged around $20 a day for everything (food, drinks and accommodation) before the pandemic. We gave him $45 a day for 2 people. You can choose to come and teach for 4 days or even a month! You can choose everything yourself and Hak is happy with everything.
In addition to this, we also bought notebooks, pens and pencils for the children for $30. This ensures that they are motivated to keep learning. They loved getting a gift afterwards so we would definitely recommend this. We also bought some toys (and especially lots of balloons) beforehand which they really enjoyed!
Why teach English as a volunteer job?
Cambodia is an extremely poor country. There are few jobs and those that are there pay very poorly and are physically demanding. To have a better chance of getting a good job, it is important that the children learn to speak English. Tourism jobs earn a lot better, after all. At school, they receive little English instruction because there are almost no teachers who can speak English.
What should you consider when volunteering in Cambodia?
Always familiarize yourself well with the organization. Unfortunately, there are many cases of volunteering in Cambodia and other countries where you do more harm than good. Example: in order to volunteer in orphanages, many children are taken away from their parents and put in the orphanage. This allows the organization to make a profit on the volunteers who come here to do (for their idea good) work. So actually you are indirectly causing children to be taken away from their parents. Therefore, get to know the organization really well and check with yourself whether there are any disadvantages for the children.
We only volunteered for 1 week and did so on our tourist visa. Since it is not an organization you book with, this was also fine. If you are going to do it for an extended period of time, it is advisable to look into applying for a work visa. Officially, this is (usually) required when volunteering.
This project has been suspened
Unfortunately, the host quit his volunteer project. We left this story on our website to share our experience. Perhaps you will find it useful for your trip in Southeast Asia or elsewhere. Always pay close attention to the interests of a volunteer project and do good research before you embark on anything.
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