We are a non-profit organization running an English school in rural Cambodia.
Botumsakor Community Development Organization (BCDO) was founded in 2009 in Andong Tuek commune as a non-profit NGO aiming to provide education, with a focus on English language for the younger generation.
Our current project is a school in Thmor Sor (Khum Thma Sa for googlemaps), a fishing village across the bay from Sihanoukville in southwestern Cambodia's Koh Kong Province. Thmor Sor is poor, even by Cambodian standards and BCDO's project here is offering access to education to the poorest villagers and inspiring the waste management in the community. BCDO is operating a low-cost English language school for the lower village, teaching students from age 5 to 18. These students pay a nominal monthly fee to cover the school's costs of electricity, water and teaching materials.
But many children in the community, particularly in the impoverished upper village, cannot even afford these small fees, and so do not attend any school. BCDO's new 'Bottle School' project is for these children. The Bottle School concept was borrowed from a non-profit organization in Guatemala for constructing low-cost buildings that make use of excessive waste in the community. Volunteers, staff and community members are building plastic 'bottle bricks' by stuffing discarded plastic drinking water bottles with plastic waste creating a durable construction material that takes the place of ordinary bricks. To ensure convenient access for the poorest students, the Bottle School campus is now located on BCDO-owned land in the upper village. The grounds consist of a two-room schoolhouse, staff house, volunteer quarters and a shared bathroom.
We are a community project and as part of our team you are very welcome to share your own ideas and projects. Nevertheless, the main purpose is to provide English language education. And so we would like to request all our volunteers to take part in teaching for a certain amount of time.
Teaching, raising funds, playing smart games with children.
We provide delicious Khmer home cooked meals - two meals per day, lunch and dinner. Breakfast can be bought at the market downtown or in a restaurant nearby. Volunteers can choose a private room or shared room.
$6.50 per day per person
Here are some of our ideas and how you can be involved as a volunteer:
Teaching:
There are 7 hourly classes a day running from Monday to Friday. In the morning from 8am-11am and afternoon from 1pm- 5pm. Volunteers usually teach in pairs and take 2-3 classes on average per day, which are organized according to the student’s ability. You don't need to have any previous experience of teaching since we believe that listening and communicating with different English-speaking people is also great for learning the language. You can either work as a main or assistant teacher. We work from a basic lesson structure that provides a framework so the students have consistency in their learning, as the volunteer teachers are changing on a regular basis. As well as teaching English in the classroom, you are welcome to use your skills and knowledge in art, music, singing, smart games and sport as a way of interacting with the children. There are no timetabled classes on the weekends, however we are always open and if children come to the school we usually play games and offer our time if we are available.
Apart from teaching the children, volunteers are welcome to engage themselves in the following areas:
- Marketing (spreading the word about our organization via different communication channels e.g. maintaining facebook and the web-page, getting in contact with guidebook publishers, contributing to on-line guidebooks and travel websites.
- Helping with administration work
- Raising funds
If you are willing to work in any of these areas, it would be nice to clarify your specific task in advance. Also if you do not want to teach children you are requested to raise this concern in advance to the manager.
