Meet Lydia – VSO ICS Entrepreneur volunteer, Cambodia
Lydia volunteered in Cambodia with VSO ICS Entrepeneur, working with existing enterprise owners to help develop business skills, as well as finding potential opportunities for new businesses to develop.
Lydia’s story
“Before I came to Cambodia, I was working for VSO UK in a job that I loved. But I was still busy trying to decide where I saw myself in the future. My life in the UK was structured, I’ve been working since the age of 16, and from graduating last year I went straight into an internship and then a full time job. I never felt I had the chance to figure out what I was most passionate about.
“Working with Cambodia Rural Development Team (CRDT) and making plans for the creation of a new social enterprise gave me a constructive and positive focus. Our project was to conduct a feasibility report investigating whether establishing an English school, named CWF, in Kratie could make profit for CRDT and fund their development work, as well as improving the language skills of the local community.
“Professionally, I improved my facilitation skills and project management, and learned how to produce budget forecasts, breakeven analyses and write a business plan from scratch. From cycling round the province to carry out market research to travelling to Phnom Penh to meet a CRDT board member, we learned the importance of synergy. We didn’t go in and impose opinions or solutions, we worked together with people to achieve positive results. There is no way we could have done it without the expertise and knowledge of our counterparts, Cambodian volunteers we were paired with.
English school
“Our feasibility report established that there are roughly 10,000 students between the ages of 13-25, but no English school taught solely by a native-speaker. 100% of students we surveyed told us they would like to learn from a foreign teacher, with one of the local teachers even saying “The school sounds great. It would be unique, and different from other schools in Kratie.” Our report concluded that the school was a feasible business opportunity, with a potential profit of $3,000 in its first year.
“A decision was made by CRDT to start the new social enterprise in mid-2015. It’s amazing to think that one day we may return and find something that we helped create. The English school will have a sustainable impact on people’s lives here, and we feel confident that we have laid strong foundations for work that will reach far beyond our eleven week placement. And that’s what ICS Entrepreneur is all about, being part of long term change.
The team and my host family
“The team was made up of the most funny, diverse and considerate people from both the UK and Cambodia. My counterpart Sreymom made the experience especially enjoyable. She was so bubbly, patient and positive all the time, what could have been a very difficult language barrier didn’t really matter. Our similar sense of humour had us laughing together and forming a strong bond right from the beginning. Living and working in Kratie, I achieved a level of cultural immersion and understanding that I would never have achieved through travelling.
“My host family were also amazing – I was surrounded by generosity and kindness for three months.
“They shared so much with us from day one, introducing us to their extended family, their neighbours and inviting us to friends’ engagement parties. They even shared their experience living through the Khmer Rouge. Everywhere you went, you saw a generation of people that had experienced one of the most tragic chapters in history, and I was living with two of them. My host family shared what they ate, how they felt and how they coped during the “3 years, 8 months and 20 days” that Pol Pot was in power.
“They also had ten young grandchildren who all lived within three minutes of my host home. With very little formal education, they knew how to share, laugh and love more than any other children I’ve met.
“Of course, cultural immersion had its challenges, but tackling them made me stronger. With the barriers of custom and language, everything is harder. It helped me form a solid gut instinct. It helped me to make my own decisions when I had to, without seeking reassurance from others.
Personal reflections
“I wouldn’t say that volunteering has changed my life or who I am as a person. I’ve returned to the UK with the same ideas and characteristics. But ICS Entrepreneur in particular has helped me clearly identify these ideas and characteristics. I’ve identified my weaknesses, and know how to deal with them in the face of strange and new problems that I wouldn’t get back home. On the flipside, I’m now also able to recognise my strengths. I think I’ve returned to the UK with a stronger sense of identity.
“I learned lessons in Kratie about the world, about myself, that I never would have got from school, university or work. I got a sense of what development truly is, and of what ‘globalisation’, ‘climate change’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ mean to people outside the UK. Everything was a lot more real there. Issues you read about, that you’re aware of, are in Kratie right there, right now.
“Living in Cambodia has taught me how much I do not understand about the world, and how that’s a positive thing. It’ll keep me curious and open to new ideas. It will prevent me from being stuck in a rut of acceptance that working 9-5 in the UK is the only option for the next forty years. It will make me keener to experience new things, to be constantly curious, to constantly seek to understand rather than be understood.
“ICS Entrepreneur has been an incredibly useful experience both professionally and personally, and it’s not just for people who see their future in international development. As writer Rolf Pitts said, ‘there is still an overwhelming social compulsion – an insanity of consensus, if you will – to get rich from life rather than live richly.’ There are so many things we can experience in life if we continue to live by this rule.”
VSO ICS Entrepreneur is a pilot programme which teams young people from the UK and developing countries with small businesses to improve their profitability.
