These contacts, in turn, introduce us to other organisations: another women’s shelter run by a lady missionary from the USA, Rahab’s House - a shelter run by an American pastor for the children victims of human trafficking, House of Rainbow Bridge - a hospital run by Christian missionaries from Hong Kong for kids with HIV/AIDS, Asian Human Resources Development Institute (HRDI) - a vocational school run by another missionary from Hong Kong for the youths in poverty, the Cambodian Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), Young People Do - an indigenous community organization run by an enterprising young Cambodian woman, New Life Fellowship - a large energetic Christian church started by an American pastor but run mostly by Cambodians helping a lot of young people who come to the city from the countryside for work and education, Vatanak Vong’s Living Water Farm, …, and finally, the Royal University of Phnom Penh, the premier university in Cambodia.
We have introduced numerous teams from PolyU with a total of ~1,000 students and staff to work with these organisations and communities., from 2010 to 2020. A team teaches English professionally at Emmanuel Christian School at the garbage dump. They subsequently created another team to help social enterprises document and publicise their work through social media. An optometry team performs eye inspections in the schools and other sites. A team does health promotion in the villages and slums. A team from our famed School of Tourism and Hospitality advises local hotels that employ and train young people for the hospitality industry. A team designs and implements water filtration systems for a village. A team installs solar panels to generate electricity and indoor wiring to light up several villages. A team builds community learning centres out of converted cargo containers. Students and volunteers from AHRDI, New Life, YPD and others work alongside PolyU students and RUPP students in may projects. Since the pandemic cancelled travel, we have been experimenting with long distance workshops conducted through video conference over the Internet on various topics such as social media, science, …
We have built up such a strong relationship with the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) that they let us use one of their offices as our home base. We also get to use classrooms, meeting rooms, conference facilities as needed. We hire some of their staff part-time to support our project preparation and execution. RUPP staff and students work alongside PolyU staff and students in many projects. With all these support, we have been running training workshops and student conferences with hundreds of participants. We have accepted students from our partner universities from Mainland China and foreign countries such as USA, Israel, Vietnam, …, to work alongside our students in numerous projects. We have run staff training courses for several years, with 20+ participants in each cohort, from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Philippines, Vietnam, … These teachers observe the students in the field in a wide variety of projects, interview their teachers and partner NGOs, and plan their own objects. They have since created many service-learning courses and projects at their own home institutions.
We have also learned some important lessons building up our relationship with RUPP. We have always try to develop collaborative relations with reputable, leading universities in the countries that we operate it. Initially we approached the senior management of RUPP. They were positive about working with us, but for a while we could not reach the right people on the frontline who are willing and have the right skills as well as authority to actually carry out service-learning projects with us. Subsequently, through our community partners, we were able to connect with some frontline teachers who could work with us, even arranging for our team to use facilities on the RUPP campus for training and preparations. But they do not have the authority to approve formal collaboration. At one point, we had dozens students from multiple countries training to assemble solar panels in their big assembly hall. We were also training the students to insert batteries and LED lights into dead palm tree leaf stems shaped into desk lamps, and then use the solar panels to charge the batteries. The Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Dr, Leang Un, happened to be playing badminton in the cavernous hall next to our students. He was impressed by the concept of sustainability taught and practiced through installing solar panels as well as turning dead palm tree leaf stems into something useful, and gave us the blessing to move ahead with serious university-to-university collaboration. He has proven to be a staunch supporter and mover that make a lot of things happen. The experience has taught us the value of hard work as well as serendipity, and often the need for both at the same time. Those of us who believe in God might think Him for His provisions. But we also have to work hard and be creative. Sometimes we need an opportunity to present itself. But when it does, we have to be ready. In order to be ready, much hard work have to be done before hand.
The Cambodian base has been very fruitful for us. But much hard work and serendipity had gone into it.
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