Come to Cambodia for your minor or internship!

One of our projects is the CountrySide Education Project. The CountrySide Education Project provides education to almost 300 school-age children in the poor Cambodian countryside. Currently, the smaller children – toddlers and preschoolers – cannot yet receive care or education. This is desperately needed. Due to poverty, parents have to work long hours. Small children are then forced to be taken to workplaces that are not safe for them. Or brothers and sisters have to stay home from school to care for the children, or they are left home alone for a while. Obviously, this is not beneficial to their development. That is why we would like to incorporate a daycare and preschool in this project.

As a student of social work, teacher training college, or pedagogy, you can help us realize this project. You think about all the aspects involved when starting a new project. You think about the decorations of the classrooms and required materials, about the required human resources and the curriculum. You help with setting up a budget and writing applications for financial support. You also come up with ideas for a holistic approach to this project; you investigate the possibilities of supporting not only the children themselves, but the entire family, for example through a personal development plan for the parents/guardians. You think about ways in which we can involve the community and how the project can become sustainable and community-driven. For this project you will spend a lot of time in the Cambodian countryside, but you will also work in the country’s capital, Phnom Penh. In addition, you are expected to visit other schools, organizations and NGOs to gain inspiration for the project and possibly initiate new partnerships. For this you will also travel to other cities and towns in Cambodia.

In the Netherlands you can get help from various agencies and governments if you are not doing well. Consider, for example, allowances to help you out financially, organizations that help you fill out the paperwork for this support, or groups you can join if you feel lonely. In developing countries this is not so obvious. There are limited social services in Cambodia and many people, especially poor people in rural areas, do not know how to access this support. As a social work or law student, you will find out what kind of support is available and how families can qualify for it. Based on the results of your research, you can propose a work process for family guidance, with which our employees can continue to provide assistance to families in need after you finish your project.

People in rural Cambodia have limited access to health care. Knowledge about a healthy lifestyle and preventing diseases is also limited. This project tries to improve these aspects in various ways.

As a student of nursing, health sciences or medicine, you organize medical outreach missions together with doctors, nurses and paramedics from local clinics to provide (curative and preventive) healthcare to disadvantaged communities in rural Cambodia. You will also conduct research on a topic of your choice, such as the health of the elderly or the prevention of communicable infectious diseases. Based on the results of your research, you create a proposal for activities that address the identified problems. Or you can commit to public health by developing lessons or workshops on important health topics such as nutrition and exercise.

Oral care and dental problems are an important point of attention within this project. As many as 71% of children have cavities. There is little knowledge about the importance of good oral care. Oral health or dentistry students can make a major contribution to this project. You will work together with Cambodian professionals to improve oral health.

The importance of sufficient and proper exercise is not known to many Cambodians. As a student of physiotherapy or movement sciences, you will research the knowledge of the local population about exercise and develop a stimulating and sustainable program for a target group of your choice.

Poverty means that many families are unable to put enough varied and healthy food on the table. In addition, knowledge about healthy nutrition and the effects of nutrition on health is lacking. Due to Western influences, healthy options are often replaced by fast, cheap, but unhealthy alternatives. As a student of nutrition and dietetics, you will investigate eating habits within this poor rural community and propose how their diet can be improved. Consider, for example, developing a lesson program about healthy food and its importance, or starting a school garden to ensure a varied diet for the school children.

Communication and (multi)media students can make a valuable contribution to health education. How do you ensure that this information is conveyed in a culturally sensitive manner? How can this information reach everyone, even those who cannot read or write? Learn to use your skills in an international context and gain experience with culturally sensitive communication!

Have you ever tried to learn another language? That can be quite difficult, especially if there are all kinds of other sounds in that language. It is very useful for Cambodian children and young people to learn to speak English – with knowledge of this language they can get a much better job when they grow up. But English has quite a few different sounds than the Cambodian language. Learning proper pronunciation is very difficult for many Cambodians. As a speech therapy student, you will investigate the difference between the sounds in the Cambodian and English language and try to develop a supportive teaching program that will help Cambodian children and young people better master correct pronunciation.

Dom-ray offers scholarships to disadvantaged students. They hope to break the vicious circle of poverty by getting an education. To be successful they will need more than just theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of their studies. They will also need to develop important life skills. As a student in this project, you will develop a program of lessons, workshops and activities together with our student coordinator and other professionals that help students develop these life skills. This project is suitable for students of social work, human resource management, psychology, communication and marketing. Within this project you will help our students, but your own knowledge and skills in the field of life skills and personal development will also grow enormously!

How did you feel about choosing your study? Did you find it easy to decide? Or did you hesitate for a long time? Study choice is quite difficult. Especially for students from a disadvantaged position who do not know what study options are available and do not have the resources to inform themselves. We would like to change that. That is why we have developed a study choice tool. You will visit local communities with a team of Cambodian young professionals; you visit schools, NGOs, and governments, both in the city and in the countryside, to investigate what students need to make their choice. Based on this (user)experience, you will improve the study choice tool. This project is suitable for students of social work, human resource management, psychology, communication and marketing, multimedia and ICT/web design. You can put your creativity and social skills to good use in this project.

The CountrySide Education Project provides extra-curricular education to nearly 300 school-age children in rural Cambodia. The project has outgrown its capacity and there is an urgent need for more space. In addition, there is a need to make the project more green and enhance sustainability. Within this project you choose a topic that you will investigate. You make a proposal for a sustainable solution. Consider, for example, the possibilities for green energy, the options for clean drinking water supply and rainwater drainage, but also the optimization of the layout of the classrooms, taking into account factors such as noise and heat, or the design of a playground. This project is particularly suitable for architecture, built environment, (civil) engineering and electrical engineering students.

The majority of Dom-ray’s projects take place in the poor Cambodian countryside. Poor farming families are facing increasing challenges. Most farmers grow rice. Due to climate change, an increasing part of their harvest is lost. In addition, it is becoming increasingly difficult to compete with large producers. Farmers have to take out high-interest loans to pay for seed, fertilizer and machinery, which they find difficult to repay due to the low return. Breaking the vicious circle of poverty has become extremely difficult.

As a student of agriculture, agronomy, animal science, rural development, or similar fields of study, you can help our farmers create a better future. For example, you can conduct research into the biggest challenges for these farmers and come up with solutions. You can investigate options for circular agriculture or agricultural diversification. You can think about other sources of income, such as using (poultry) livestock. You can also focus on the impact of climate factors and propose solutions for the consequences of increasingly extreme weather conditions. You can also think about social initiatives, such as a school garden or community garden, from which larger groups of people can literally and figuratively reap the benefits.