Building a future for children is an emotional ride
LAST month Rochdale Observer reporter spent a fortnight in Cambodia helping to build a school. Here she shares her memories of the life-changing trip.
IT’S strange how you can be so emotionally attached to someone without ever having met.
Meeting Manuth for the first time felt as if I had known him most of his life. And in a way I have.
I’ve been sponsoring Manuth through ActionAid for the past nine years and never in a million years thought I would get the chance to meet him in person.
But this year both our dreams were realised as I travelled to Cambodia to take part in the charity’s annual First Hand Experience.
I signed up to spend the week working alongside Cambodian builders to construct three new classrooms in rural Kampot. But while I was there I was offered the chance to meet both Manuth and my new sponsored child, Yivmey.
I started sponsoring after visiting India with Sally Dynevor, known for her long-running role as Sally Webster on Coronation Street, when she went to visit her sponsored child, Reena.
Seeing the amazing work of the charity first hand prompted me to sign up myself and I was paired up with nine-year-old Manuth.
Over the next decade we would exchange letters, pictures and photos and weave our way into each others hearts.
Manuth has very much become part of my family as we all wait for his next correspondence. To now see that 18-year-old, confident young man and chat for four hours straight over a mango juice was just incredible.
We were both overcome with emotion and equally nervous and excited at the prospect of finally meeting. Here he was right in front of me telling me about the university entrance exam he’d sat the day before, his dreams and aspirations to become a teacher finally on the way to becoming a reality.
He told me exactly what difference the charity had made to his life and that of the community around him.
For 65p a day your sponsorship does not just go to one particular child but to the community as a whole.
It is used where the community needs it most and tackles the root causes of poverty – be it to provide clean water, education, health care or agricultural programmes.
Your sponsored child works as an ambassador for their community and is your link to the fantastic work that the charity does.
This year marks the end of my sponsorship with Manuth as his community in the Svay Rieng province has now become self-sustaining.
This visit, although heartbreaking to say goodbye, was a bittersweet way to put closure on this chapter and welcome in the next. As my relationship with Manuth comes to an end I’m safe in the knowledge that both he, and those around him, have benefited from the years of work carried out in the area.
I was extremely lucky to be able to also meet my new sponsored child Yivmey. Her school was only a couple of kilometres away from our building site in Kampot.
My journey with Yivmey is just at the beginning having shared our first correspondence earlier this year. The shy, tiny nine-year-old clutched a ‘hello’ card and photos I had sent her as she awaited my visit.
Although extremely nervous she took me by the hand and showed me around her school and introduced me to her uncle.
Yivmey lives with him and her grandmother, who I’m told was out working in the paddy fields, as her parents both live in Phnom Penh to try earn a living for their family.
The long drive means she only sees them once a month if she’s lucky.
Although she is surrounded by a loving family it breaks my heart that this little girl is having to live without her parents by her side.
I was constantly on the verge of tears the whole fortnight and this didn’t help the emotional roller coaster of a ride.
To see the poverty of the area but the smiling faces of everyone you meet, the stark contrast of the incredible beauty of the country and the harsh conditions that the people have had to face and are still facing today is overwhelming.
The stories of war and genocide were no longer stories, but memories of people I had met and grown to care about.
But there is always hope with the work ActionAid and its Cambodian part- ners.
The classrooms our team of 28 volunteers were building are just one tiny part of the developments taking place in the area.
I’ve been supporting them financially for almost a decade but to actually travel out there and physically make a difference is something that will stay with me forever.
We managed to raise more than £65,000 between us and completed two months of construction work in just five days.
My tea breaks were spent playing with the hundreds of kids on the unfinished playground that I was helping to build.
The sweat and hard work in searing sun were all worth it to see the sheer joy in the faces of hundreds of children.
The classrooms will be finished by spring but the emotional attachments we made working alongside the builders, the teachers and the children will last a lifetime.
Only the people who experienced this amazing adventure alongside me will truly understand what this incredible experience means. The only surefire way of finding out is to bite the bullet and sign up yourself.
For more information on next year’s First Hand Experience, an overseas volunteering building project in Nepal, visit www.actionaid.org.uk/ get-involved/volunteerwith-us-in-nepal.
To sponsor a child visit www.actionaid.org.uk/ sponsor-a-child or call 01460 238 000.