This summer I and 20 other students from Reading University will be travelling to Battambang in Cambodia to carry out charity work at a local school. We will be involved in teaching children English and educating them about the dangers of drugs and, diseases. We will also be helping to build a music room for the school. The overall aim of the trip is to lower poverty in the area through education, as well as improving child welfare and the quality of lives of the residents. Cambodia is a country that has been damaged by war since the 1800s. In 1975 it is thought that 1.7 million civilians were killed within 3 years of civil war. In the 1980 hundreds of thousands of Cambodian were made refugees due to Vietnamese troops moving into the country, causing widespread poverty and displacement. 20% of the country is still in poverty, the majority of this is in the rural areas of the country, where aid and development are slow to take place. The charity that I will be volunteering on behalf of is FutureSense. More information about FutureSense can be found on its website: http://www.futuresensefoundation.org. In order to take part in the trip I need to raise £2, 250 which, not only covers my travel costs, but also goes towards the educational tools for teaching the children and building supplies for the development of the music room. So, far I have raised money via selling tickets to nightclubs and Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the University campus. I have also bag packed at Asda and raised money in Reading town centre.