My name is Rachel McPhail and this summer I have the fantastic opportunity to go on the Durham University trip to Cambodia.

 

While I am in Cambodia I will be doing some teaching in a summer school and construction work as well as visiting a local orphanage.

 

To go on this trip I must raise £2500. Half of this will go straight to the charities the team is supporting, Future Sense (http://www.futuresense.co.uk/) and the Burma Education Partnership (http://www.burmaeducationpartnership.org/), and the other half will go towards supplies needed for the teaching and construction work. If you would prefer to just donate to the charity side please let me know as all donations are going to a great cause.

 

The place I will be staying for most of my stay is called Samraong. It is a town in north-western Cambodia Following the long civil war Samraong has failed to recover and develop at the same rate as other similar Cambodian towns. The town has poor infrastructure and is seasonally effected by the heat and flooding. The construction work we will be doing will involve tiling the classrooms, helping to keep them cool, and building floods defences with sandbags.

 

Much of the time I will be in Cambodia will be spent teaching English. During the civil war the Khmer Rouge targeted professionals, teachers and academics so there is a shortage of these kinds of workers. Teaching English will help these children gain better paid jobs and a better standard of living as well as helping their country develop.

 

To help raise the money I will be helping to run several small events, such as car washes and an Easter egg hunt, and participating in rag raids (those people you see holding buckets in stations/on the street collecting). Once my plan have been made more concrete I will update this page

 

Many Thanks,

Rachel