Rochester
Community and Technical College (RCTC) of Rochester, MN made its
first effort towards an effective, service learning based, study
abroad program by leading a group of 14 students to Cambodia over
Christmas break. The purpose of the course was to study Intercultural
Communication. However, more importantly, the focus was the student’s
corresponding service learning projects, all designed to help
certain Cambodian orphanages and schools while increasing awareness
between Americans and Cambodians. Through their course and project(s),
RCTC students uniquely experienced first-hand the many facets
of international education and communication, and, with a cheerful
willingness, in their own small way helped further an integrated,
educated global community.
RCTC
students were challenged to develop and implement sustainable
service learning projects for Cambodia. Last year, an RCTC contingent,
as guests of the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), traveled
throughout Cambodia, interviewing teachers, village leaders, and
students as to what was needed—how RCTC could contribute
to sustainable development, while helping create and further the
global community. This year, RCTC used feedback from their previous
trip to work with a dynamic NGO, Youth Services of Cambodia. Youth
Services of Cambodia is an NGO created entirely by students of
RUPP, and led by their President, Roeun Ran (ysc_ran@yahoo.com
(855)-012-577-331). Ran said that the first task of the NGO (around
50 students), which received a grant from the Ford Foundation
of $2,400, is an “elementary enhancement of six primary
schools.” But first the NGO attempts to create among the
students of RUPP a strong sense of community and global spirit.
As Ran mentioned, “We try to raise awareness and spirit
among the students of RUPP, who are often privileged students,
some having never having left Phnom Penh, about real problems
that exist in Cambodian rural communities. We ask village leaders
and teachers what the students of RUPP may do to initiate and
further sustainable projects of improvement in the villages.”
To
accomplish this, RCTC together with the NGO, participated in a
beautification project by planting flowers and trees around a
village primary school. Youth Services of Cambodia helps villages
by picking up trash, installing water purifiers, supplying garbage
bins, marching down the streets of Phnom Penh and villages encouraging
citizens not to litter, and providing charity projects for children
in Phnom Penh’s garbage dumps.
Individual
RCTC student projects included one young woman who raised money
for modern toilets and a well (many girls quit school, embarrassed
from lacking privacy when they begin menstruating); another student
worked to connect Cambodian school children with an American class
that made a book of what life in America is about, and, in turn
having Cambodian kids create a book representing life in Cambodia
to bring back to American school children; another student project
investigated the sex trade in Cambodia.
RCTC
found that international education begins in the classroom with
ideas and grant proposals, but it must transfer outside of the
classroom to help connect and improve societies for the better
in a diplomatic, sustainable way through intimate intercultural
communication and a good deal of sweat. This involves working
with those whom one intends to serve, listening and learning about
their needs, wants, and dreams, then lending one’s expertise.
The relationship must be long term for any project to be sustainable
and fruitful. Carefully nurtured service learning is one avenue
of international education which furthers this goal. RCTC will
certainly continue to build its program.
Of
course, not the entirety of the trip was service learning and
intercultural communication, at least of the variety described
above. RCTC students were able to travel throughout Cambodia and
see up close the many wonders this land and culture holds. Students
were able to walk and climb the ruins of the wondrous temple,
the largest religious structure in the world, Angkor Wat, where
Buddhist mystics sit in enclaves and will tell you your life’s
fortune and direction for a small fee. It was interesting to notice,
too, the Banyan tree which grows seemingly from the top down in
and out of the high walls of the temple. And seeing the sun rise
over Angkor Wat at 6:00am is a spiritually calming or challenging
experience—one of breathtaking beauty.
From
breathtaking beauty to breathtaking horror, one can visit Tueol
Sleng (a former high school converted into a prison and torture
chamber by the khmer Rouge from 1975-79), or visit the “Killing
Fields” themselves and see the seven story monument of skulls,
and walk along paths where human bones and clothes of those buried
by the Khmer Rouge butchers (1975-79) are beginning to surface
because of natural erosion and tourists walking. As you can gather,
Cambodia is a land of contrasts.
The
American dollar goes far in Cambodia; a very comfortable and accommodating
hotel will cost perhaps 15-20 dollars a night. During the day,
shops of all varieties—garments, trinkets, exquisite handmade
items (swords of teak-wood, etc.), and of course the unique and
flavorful food in restaurants—is all available for very
reasonable prices. The night life of Phnom Penh is relaxed—take
a tuk-tuk ride (a motorcycle pulling a cart) with your sweetheart
or friend along the Mekong river, explore the many nightclubs,
or, if you have had a hard day opt for an hour, full-body massage
for five dollars.
Certainly
our students’ learned a great deal about Cambodia, its culture,
and its history. But visiting a foreign land and truly learning
intercultural communication means jumping in the water (or rice
paddy) feet first, and having fun. Service-learning study abroad
trips offer an affordable means to do so.
