Monk in Siem Reap
Why not visit Cambodia and make a direct difference to the local economy? Stay at a local guesthouse, eat fresh foods and visit the projects first hand.
Whilst Parisians were busy building and musing over the Notre Dame, the Angkorian Temples were being built for a kingdom of more than one million people, when London had a population of just 30,000. With a wealth of turbulent history ultimately resulting in defeat, the temples were left to the wilds and forgotten until French explorer, Henri Mouhot, tumbled across them in the late 19th Century. Since then they have seen a steady increase of visitors (2,015,128 visitors in 2007 (www.mot.gov.kh)) who marvel at their sheer size, architectural feat, forgotten existence and religious significance.
Steeped in Khmer culture and tradition, home of the UNESCO registered Angkor Wat Archaeological site, warm seas, relaxing beaches and dark history, Cambodia offers a unique travel experience, all in one country. Although, typically, tourists head to see the incredible, awe inspiring Angkor Wat, there is much more to see and do. For more information visit www.angkorhotels.org
Volunteer
Cambodia is a great place to experience and sharing your knowledge and assisting the locals is a great way to assist in local economic development, education and other issues. However, as a small and relatively new organisation HOPE is sadly unable to assist wonderful people looking to offer their services by volunteering. Given that the founding trustees met while volunteering and have gone on to establish HOPE, we do find it hard that we are in this position and have to turn people away but hope one day to change this.
In the meantime please still get in touch with us, as we often know about current positions available and are happy to put you in touch with organisations needing help. We can’t always promise to be able to help but we can promise we will always try.
Please remember that volunteering in Cambodia is very basic and you will be expected to meet all your own living costs – accommodation (can be relatively cheap c. $100-300 a month in rented accommodation), food, depending on where you eat this can be as little as $1 a meal – beer and cokes are also on average $1 each.
TEFL qualifications are not usually essential but can help (especially if you are looking for some paid work along the way). We also recommend you get a Police Check as many organisations working with children should ask you for this. It can take several weeks and involves going to your local police station and completing a form – they will then send you the check in a few weeks. Last time we did this it cost £10.
Hope that helps and if you have any further enquiries please contact us.
