Johm riab sua! ( Hello) Sok sabaay te? ( How are you?)

Okay, this post is way overdue. Despite taking over a year to have this published, I am still much elated to share my volunteering experience. In Singapore, it is not easy for individuals to join overseas voluntary groups on expeditions after graduation from the higher learning institutes i.e. universities, polytechnics etc. At least, that's what I have observed.
Sure, there are operations such as Habitat for Humanity (HFH), but it requires you to form your own group ( of 5 and above?) and it will not be easy to do amongst friends who have so varied schedules. Not impossible but hard I guess.
 On the other hand, HFH is definitely good for corporate voluntary engagements but not so much for the public.

Thus, imagine my joy when I discovered Singapore International Foundation ( SIF) which allows individuals to form its own group. View from their list of open overseas volunteer opportunities.  Major travel agencies such as STA Travels has also joined in the bandwagon. Anyone went with STA Travels for their volunteer tours or just any volunteering overseas private expedition? Let me know~

Pre-Departure Orientation

 There was a compulsory 3-hour pre-departure orientation and the volunteers were well-taken care f by SIF. SIF was very thoughtful in ensuring volunteers' welfare and replied very promptly to our queries. In terms of logistics and liaison, SIF did an excellent job in linking volunteers up with the local agencies, which in this case, with Sao Sary Foundation(SSF). SSF was founded by Vichetr Uon in 2006, whom all of us maintained contact with via Facebook till this very date. His intention was simple: to improve the living conditions of  Kampong Speu through water and sanitation, education, child protection and livelihood. SSF has since assisted 5680 villagers from 13 villages in Kampong Speu and they are still going strong. 

SSF also welcomes independent volunteers, if you would like to volunteer you can contact them directly on FB. I don't think they will tailor accommodations or meals for you. We did, however, see the foundation's vehicles fetching many international volunteers around. For more information, please DM them on FB. 

In fact we flew via Silkair and thought it was not unnecessary and could have cut down the overall costing. We had feedback to SIF but well we understand they have other underlying factors to consider such as their corporate clients etc. 

Anyway, all the photos were taken with my Samsung S4 and Iphone 4 as I didn't bring along my camera, so pardon the grainy quality.

Prepare to get your hands dirty. Which was what we were looking for- to be hands on- anyway

Arriving at Phnom Penh

Day 1 was free and easy as we arrived only in the evening and had a briefing. On this trip, I was with my friend. There were 4 other guys ( including the team leader) and another lady. 

Day2
We travelled in the morning to Kampng Speu (50 km from downtown Phnom Penh, about 1- 2hr journey)  to build up the Bio-Sand Filter (BSF). These filters were the stars of our trip and were essential for creating cleaner more sanitized water for the villagers.

The Bio Sand Filter works on 3 layering principles. The diffuser on top works to sieve out large particles when water is poured in. The middle layer is the sand layer that removes pathogens and solids. The gravel lies at the bottom-most layer and prevents sand from going into the drainage layer.
I will explain the steps later as you read on.

Building the filters was no small feat. It required lots of manual strength, teamwork and involved getting your hands dirty. In all, our group size was considered small as usually there are more and up to 10 members per trip.  Thankfully, with the help of the staff from SSF, we managed to complete quite a lot by the end of the trip. 

In preparation to build the filter, the steps we went through were as below:
Step 1: Grease the mould.

Step 2: Assembling the mould. 
To do so we have to find fitting pieces of the moulds ( the 4 steel panels must fit) and the fitting has to be done via bolts and nuts.

Greasing...

Create Cement. With Your Hands

It was no simple task mixing these tonnes of  sand and gravel.

How We Contribute

This is how you plough. Of course, we ladies did our part as well, with the manual and laborious tasks. But the guy's kudos to them, they really did a lot more. I really marvel and salute the SSF local staff ( in white below) who did this task repeatedly for months, years, with every voluntary group that came by to Kampong Speu.
 I appaud at their dedication to serving a good cause for their local community. 

If you need a break from the grey cements, meet the cows surrounding us. 

After we were done, Lunch was at a simple restaurant. 

Packing Goodie Bags

After lunch, we went "bag packing" at Sao Sary Foundation's main office. 

These bags are the SIF Hygiene Packs consisting of daily essentials useful for the kids such as toothbrushes, toothpastes, mugs, soap ans soap dish etc. These were for distribution at the local schools for the next 2 days.

What we produced by the end of the day. 

Exiting Kampong Speu, we headed back to Phnom Penh town and ended day 2. 

Random street views

It's Meeting-The-Kids Day

We arrived at Primary School Maumcheung

The Adorable Smiles

It was early in the morning at 7.39am and the kids were already in school and all excited to see foreign visitors. We were in glee to see such enthusiastic young faces looking back at us. :)

We started with introductions followed by the Hygiene Program which consists of teeth brushing and hand washing demos.

SIF had prepared the teeth brushing posters for volunteers and our task was to go through the steps and explained to the children on why we need to brush teeth ( To have a beautiful smile, to remove plaque etc.) 

Once again we got the kids to come up and do a live demonstration to their fellow school mates.
The outcome of these activities though simple, were often neglected and SIF hopes to their inculcate in the children the importance of good personal hygiene from young and in doing so, spreading this message and what they have learnt to their families and friends.

Big Brother swarmed by children. :D

Aren't they so adorable???
Such happy smiles and genuine affections.

Bis sister handing out the hygiene packs.

The school compound, divided into 2 wings.

The Bio-Sand filters were cast into these huge hollow filtration tanks.

 But... that's not all. Much work still needs to be done.

Each filter was stamped with a serial number and embossed with the Sao Sary Foundation (SSF) logo.

To fill up one filter we have to go through numerous bags of gravel and sand. We all worked very very hard all the way. Focusing only on the end result, which was to complete the filters for the villagers. No matter guys or girls we did just as much :) Of course the guys gave extra help by fetching water. 

Washing gravel.

Ran a flow rate test and there you have it! Completed once the tap started flowing.

Left shows the processed water and right is the cloudy water from the well, which the villagers have been drinking for years. 
The water from the filter turns out to be quite decent right? The difference is quite significant.

But then again, the filter could not be used immediately and would required water to flow for a few days till the water turned clearer before it can be used for consumption.

We were happy to see the villagers' beaming joy once the Bio-Sand filter was completed. The SSF staff then explained to them how to use and we left to head to another household, reapeating the process.

Let's walk around the village of Kampong Speu.

Some very happy kids we met, brightening up our times spent.

The kids were really adorable.
I wished I had a Polaroid with me so I could have given them their own photos.

After-Thoughts

I think it's everyone's wish that the villagers will seriously use the filter systems all the volunteers have painstakingly built or them. However, we were also told that many do not use them as they think it is troublesome and would rather just consume them straight from the well or from rainfall, wherever. They have been educated and I am sure SSF has spoken to them on many occasions but I guess habits are hard to change?
The majority do use them but, we have no idea of the percentage.

These Water vats below contained water from which they consume daily. I missed out taking a picture of the state of the water. But well, you can imagine right? Water filled with dead insects, dust, spider webs and whatnot. Really heart wrenching.
We do hope this filters will benefit the villagers once they start using them for cleaner water.

We were back to another part of Kampong Speu.

One of the rare water pump we saw in the village instead of a dug-hole-well.

Results at the end of  the 4th day? My team single-handedly managed to build 7 filters in the short span from afternoon till evening! So proud of my team. Super efficient and amazingly fast for just a group of 4 pax each ( We split into 2 groups). SSF staff told us our results were superb as most voluntary groups came with huge numbers of 10 over pax but yet, completed far lesser filters than us.

In total summing up both teams, for my batch we completed 26 filters in 2 days with just 7 of us, together with the staff from SSF of course. 

 I must said I met a really committed group so focused on the task, we didn't even talk much.

Last filter for the day. 

We headed to another school before calling it a day. I think we pretty much looked forward to meeting the kids after spending so much energy installing the filters.

Basically, we repeated what we did yesterday with the hygiene program. This time around it was more orderly as we dealt with older kids but still very fun to be with. :)

School premises.

I have come to the end of my post! Phew, it's a long one. 

Aw kohn! (Thank You!) for reading.

It was a short trip and I wouldn't say our actions would have impacted the locals much in the long term as we were really just touch-and-go. However, it was a fruitful experience and we did try our best to contribute to Kampong Speu as much as we could.

 I really like the fact that we were really hands-on and I met some a great team!

Once again
Singapore International Foundation: http://www.sif.org.sg/
Sao Sarry Foundation: https://www.facebook.com/saosaryfoundation?fref=ts