Cambodia was an unlucky country among the South East Asian Countries to face many wars lately since the early 1970s, but the fate is being returned since 1990s as she is being developed from day to day. In fact, not only Royal Government of Cambodia, but also the foreign participation is taking action to help Cambodian people and to push the development of this small country. One of the ways for foreign contribution in Cambodia is through volunteer and internship programs. It is really sure that the activities of all volunteers and interns with their best efforts are very important. Nowadays, there are a lot of opportunity for foreigners to take the volunteer and internship in this country. Many international organizations and international institutions operating in Cambodia have programs for volunteer and internship in a variety of fields such as environmental conservation, education, health and so on. Sometimes, an individual comes to Cambodia through this kind of programs while sometimes there is a big group of foreigners doing their volunteer and internship help the poor with their skills. It is really helpful in this situation. As volunteer and internship getting more and more to Cambodia, the improvement is being seen throughout this country from year to year. A memory for the real experience with a volunteer group of the United States’ citizens was shown as an example. Last year, there was a group of American nurses and doctors coming to provide health service to Cambodian people through health counseling & medical advice for two days. They rented a bus and employed several interpreters going with them. At the beginning, many citizens were waiting to get health service with the order of number. One by one until the evening that all volunteers needed to return to Phnom Penh and went there again in the next day with the same activities. As a result, it was really good to see many citizens receiving health counseling and medical advice directly from group of American nurses and doctors with the assistance of local interpreters. Therefore, Cambodian people are very happy and feel very thankful to all volunteers and interns in spending time to bring the improvement for Cambodia. It is sure that today many volunteers and interns are doing their jobs contributing to the development in Cambodia. Lastly, there is an optimistic for all volunteers and interns’ effort to be able to accelerate the advancement in Cambodia the same as Cambodian themselves. Only one more wish is to encourage all volunteers and interns to come to Cambodia and show your true kindly help. “Your small actions mean a lot to this developing country and her people!” “Thank you!”
By: POK Panhavuth
