Volunteering in Cambodia for free

Chances are that, if you arrived to this blog through Google by searching “volunteer Cambodia”, “volunteering Cambodia”, “Cambodia volunteer”, “volunteer teaching in Cambodia” or something similar, you have first visited another website (which ranks first for many of those keywords) that offers an opportunity to volunteer in Cambodia for just 1,100 $ per 1 week. Additional weeks are less expensive, but nothing that I would call “cheap”.

If you take a look at the dictionary, it defines volunteer as:

“2. a person who performs a service willingly and without pay”

So if I want to volunteer, I expect to do something that would normally be a job without getting a salary. That's my idea: performing a task without getting money for doing it. But plenty of organizations and companies like the mentioned on the first paragraph offer volunteering in exchange of big amounts of money. Then you are not paying to volunteer. Someone only pays to buy goods or services. How come I'm the one suppose to pay (1,100 $ per week!) if, by definition, I'm the one offering a service? Well, the answer is that I wouldn't be paying to volunteer: I would be paying to live in a resort, for some tour to Angkor Wat or to go trekking. I would feel like I'm actually a customer who is allowed to do some activity just for the sake of having him happy. Performance or skills don't matter; having a happy customer does. In the best case you pay to get some training, but again, that's not volunteering.

At BCDO (and some other places that actually look for volunteers and not for customers) you can choose to stay and eat wherever you want. Even if you would like to live in a resort it wouldn't be convenient, as there are none anywhere around the village. They charge 25$ per week for food and a (humble) place to sleep, but you can stay at the near guesthouse, look for a home stay, eat at a restaurant or the market and just come to the school to actually volunteer for free.

My idea while looking for a place to volunteer was to find some project where they needed me, not just another customer and his money. I don't need to find a place where they let me volunteer for free; volunteering IS free. If not, I'm not volunteering but paying money for something else. Maybe, as a newbie to volunteering, I'm an idealistic. Or maybe I just have no idea about how the world works.

Let's go volunteer in Cambodia!

After living in Thailand for two and a half years without ever visiting home (maybe I didn't feel the need because Thailand became home) I was about to fly back to Europe to see my parents and friends. But I realized that, despite having crossed the Thai-Cambodian border to Poipet two times in order to arrange my Thai visa, I hadn't neither visited the renowned Angkor Wat nor explored the country itself. I had been to Laos several times and lived with Burmese people for half a year in Mae Sot, but I was missing the Cambodian experience. So I decided to head to Cambodia before buying a ticket back home.

The thing is that I don't like to go to a new country, follow the same path as every other tourist does and move on. I don't like it and I don't have the need to, as I'm not attached to a regular job or other obligations. Does everybody go to Siem Reap and Phnom Penh? Let's find some other place to experience the real Cambodia. And searching for that “other place” is how I found about BCDO:

“BCDO (Botumsakor Community Development Organization) is a Non-profit organization, established to offer foreign languages and vocational training to villagers and poor children, and to raise awareness on environmental and biodiversity protection. An important part of BCDO’s mission is the education of the young generation about the impact of deforestation and poaching and advice about environment-friendly alternatives.
To obtain an extra income for the people of Andong Tuek, tourist information is provided to travelers and guided tours are set up.”

Volunteering in Cambodia sounded like a good thing to do, as from leaving in Mae Sot I've seen the huge difference that having some English knowledge can make in young people's future, and I've also seen in some places in Thailand the wrong way to develop (and right way to ruin) beautiful natural spots to get the most money from tourists in the shortest time possible.

On this blog I will relate my experience as a newbie volunteer in Cambodia. I hope to learn from veteran volunteers and give something positive to this country and its people.