I found Conversations with Foreigners while searching online for volunteer opportunities in Cambodia. What initially appealed to me about CWF was there was no fee for volunteering. Most of the other volunteer sites I found cater to the volunteer vacation crowd, people who can afford to pay $3,000 dollars to volunteer for a week. I never really understood that. To me it seems like people are paying for a "feel good" experience, and the organizations are more concerned with getting money than volunteers. I wanted to go somewhere that could actually use my efforts.
CWF’s approach is a little different than most of the other volunteer programs and NGOs I have heard of. The school is run as a business, and all the profits go to support an NGO in rural Cambodia. I was a little skeptical before I got here. You never know if something is a scam or not until you get there and check it out for yourself. Throughout the application process the CWF was very professional which eased some of my concerns.
When I got here and met the CWF staff and some of the former volunteers I was sure that I had made a good decision. They were very grateful for our volunteering and are all wonderful people. Then we took the trip to Kratie to see CRDT (the NGO that CWF donates to), which made me feel even more confident about my decision.
After being here for about a month, I would recommend CWF to anyone who asked about. Every day I am here I am glad that I made the decision to come and work for CWF. The reason I like CWF so much is that it works on several different level. The school was formed by young Cambodian college students from a rural area who wanted to figure out a to ease some of the problems people in the rural areas face. Their solution was to make a non-profit school in Phnom Penh. The school is run by young Cambodian College graduates which is something that I really like. It is not operated by a donor country. Some of the NGO’s that are run by foreign countries seem to waste quite a bit of money. Almost all the NGO directors drive around in Range Rovers which I find ridiculous, in a country as poor as Cambodia that money can be put to much better use. The directors of the school have modest salaries, and are committed to the cause. Because CWF is not dependent on donor money it is truly sustainable.
CWF also taps into the desire for foreigners to help out in Cambodia. They ask for nothing from the volunteers but their time and efforts which I really like. Every 3 months a new group of volunteers come to CWF to teach English. The third benefit from CWF is the school itself, they are committed to providing affordable English classes to the students of Phnom Penh. The cost for a 50 hour English course is $35 dollars, much cheaper than most the other schools in Phnom Penh that have native English speaking teachers.
So as a result of our volunteering with CWF money is being raised to support sustainable rural development, a staff of 10 young Cambodian professionals are able to work and over 500 students are able to study English at a reasonable cost.
Another cool thing about CWF is the chain of Volunteers. Every three months a new group comes in. Without a new group the school would fail. This is CWFs 8th semester. I feel a special connection not only with the volunteers who I work with now, but also with the previous volunteers who helped to establish CWF and with the future volunteers who will keep the tradition going.
http://www.volunteerincambodia.org/
