Students from St Joseph’s Institution International in Singapore joined us for the third year as part of their Challenge Week.
The grade 11 students aged 16 and 17 funded two houses – #141 and #142 – for their week volunteering with VBC in October.
They had two teams led by Isabel Lim and Ezra Ho, who coordinated the project.
Ezra says the volunteer work fulfilled the service strand of their school Challenge Week.
“I am very grateful and honoured to be able to build a house for the family,” Ezra says.
Isabel says most of the group had not visited Cambodia before and most of them did not know anything about woodwork or building.
But she says they learnt very fast thanks to precise explanations from the VBC team.
She says working with Volunteer Building Cambodia is a very different and unusual project compared to many of their other volunteer options, such as environmental projects, working with animals and children’s services.
I feel those projects are quite short term and the impact is only for that particular week,” she says.
“This kind of project – we are building something very sustainable for the family to live in for a very long time.
“We are hoping to be able to see positive impacts on the family over the years.”
She says working with VBC was easy for their teams and everything was very well organised.
“We have fun, it’s very light hearted,” she says.
“They want us to work hard but they also want us to enjoy the process.”
She says it is great that they can see the difference they have made to the family.
“You can see the impact. There’s a celebration of what the aid has brought.”
While here the Singapore students also visited the Volunteer Building Cambodia Community Centre where they read to students in the library and played football with them.
Thanks so much for all you did for Cambodian people. We hope to see your school back here again next year.