New Pictures

Hey,

Just wanted to point out that I finally added a ton of pictures to my "Pictures in Cambodia" site. There's a link on the right sidebar, under the heading "For More Pictures."

:)

Amanda

Work

First off, I especially want to thank all of you for your prayers!

I realize I have not really explained much about what I have been doing here so far, which is probably because it took me a while to figure it out! As I understand my internship currently, I will be working primarily with GCT until the end of October, then I will be working with NIBC in Siem Reap until the end of February (during which, I’ll be helping out with Calvin College’s interim class in January, the same class that made me fall in love with Cambodia), and then I will be back here in Phnom Penh working with EFC until the middle of May, when I leave here. I don’t know more than a vague description (see June 7) for what I’ll be doing with NIBC or EFC, but I have figured out what I’m doing at GCT.

I have been working the same hours as GCT’s full-time staff – normal office hours here in Phnom Penh, which are Monday through Friday, from 8-12 and 2-5. That 2-hour lunch break is very important to people here! When a co-worker was explaining to me the working of conditions of the women in garment factories here – which, truly, are terrible –alongside 12-hour shifts, overtime work, and extremely low pay, I was told that they only have an hour for their lunch break – a travesty! In all seriousness, though, the break during the hottest part of the day is a really good idea. I’m sure that’s even more true during the hottest part of the year. Plus, people get to go home and eat with their families.

So, what do I do 7 hours a day at GCT? This Calvin College engineering graduate does all things English! Please bear with me for a brief detour into currency, which I promise will turn out to be relevant:

In Cambodia, there are two currencies used simultaneously – United States dollars and Cambodian riel. However, no coins are used; instead, riel come into play whenever people need smaller increments than a dollar. The exchange rate that people on the street generally go by is 4000 riel to a dollar. I have not seen any riel coins, but the paper denominations of riel I have seen so far include 1000 (25 cents – in my opinion, the easiest to think about), 2000 (50c), 500 (half of 25c), 100 (half of 5c), 5000 ($1.25), and 10,000 (half of $5). It’s not too bad, but it is a bit confusing when you are working with amounts of money between $1 and $5, as getting change constantly requires translating between riel and dollars, and either the riel or the dollar bills may be worth more, depending on the denomination.

In Cambodia, there are also two main languages used: Khmer and English (well, also some French, but that is mainly the older generations, and also a bit of Chinese). Khmer is the language that all of the locals here speak, and so all of the little businesses and NGOs primarily use Khmer. English is sort of the business language of the world, and certainly of Cambodia, where much NGO funding and important business deals involve English-speaking places, or else places that have English in common with Cambodia. So all of the higher-level businesses and NGOs primarily use English.

However, similar to transactions between $1 and $5 here, GCT is between the world of Khmer-speakers and English-speakers. The people they serve and the local NGOs they work with speak mainly Khmer, but most of their current and potential donors, as well as half of their board members, speak mainly English. Also, although everyone at GCT speaks at least a little English, most things really need to be in Khmer for at least four of the seven staff members to fully understand. So, GCT is constantly translating between Khmer and English.

And as it’s very difficult to write well in a language that you are not fluent in, my first job is to edit everything after it’s been translated into English. I also get the challenge of sorting out the many, wonderful, scattered ideas of Navy and my other coworkers into cohesive papers. So far, I’ve write a report and a project proposal by organizing others’ ideas and adding a few of my own. Besides editing and writing in English, I’m also eager to train some of GCT’s staff members to do the same, so that they can carry on the work I’m doing after I leave.

At first, it seems pretty unsustainable, since I only have a few months here, and that by the end, I won’t really have had time to fully train a replacement. But the thing is that (praise God) I seem to have come at a time when my skills are most needed. Right now, GCT is trying to decide on and find funding for a few big projects that it can focus on for the next few years. So this is one of the times when they most need good English writing skills, and hopefully, if I manage to help pump out a few good proposals while I’m here, they won’t have nearly as much need for English skills for a while.

So, yeah, that’s the gist of what I’ve been doing – editing, ghost-writing, and teaching. I will try and write another entry soon on my coworkers, because as much as I’ve been enjoying writing, people are always the best part for me.

Johm Reap Lear (Goodbye),

Amanda

Two Weeks and a Workshop

It's been two weeks since I've written because I really only have time to blog on the weekends, and last weekend, I had a Saturday morning meeting at GCT, got a bike, and moved… so blog-writing just didn't make it in.

I am now living with Kerry, an Australian woman who I know I will learn a lot from. I went to her church with her last Sunday, and it's a charismatic church, which is great, because I have very little first-hand knowledge of charismatic or Pentecostal churches, and I'm curious to learn more about what Christ is doing in this arm of his Body.

On Friday, GCT put on the workshop we’d been preparing for during the past few weeks. It had to do with the research GCT has been doing, which I need to catch you up on before explaining the workshop.

One of GCT’s main missions is to help women and youth receive job training, find internships, and get jobs that are fulfilling for them and good for society. Partly, GCT does this through hiring volunteer or paid interns and training them through the work they do.

But recently, GCT has had a grant from Love 146 to research all this on a broader scale. Love 146* is an organization devoted to the abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation. They are starting to do some studies following the children they are able to free. Unfortunately, youth who find no alternate way of making a living often end up back in the brothels.

Dr. Glenn Miles, a director in Love 146, helped GCT get a grant from Love 146 after talking with my boss, Navy Chhay. Navy’s idea is to research on Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) who provide training to at-risk youth and women, as well as companies who might employ youth and women after they are trained. Eventually, this research might lead to a network of training providers and employers that can be used in finding training for young job-seekers, finding employment for trainees, and collaboration and feedback between organizations to make current training better.

So, for the past few months, GCT has been conducting some preliminary research with some help from the Chab Dai Coalition, which is a network of anti-human trafficking and exploitation organizations. (http://www.chabdai.org/home.html) And as a last stage in our preliminary research – to get more ideas and to increase interest - we invited all of the training providers and employers whom we interviewed to a workshop this past Friday.

The workshop went quite well (although not according to plan time-wise – as is normative here in Cambodia!). As a whole, the participants decided that networking together was so important that they want to meet together again every three months! GCT also received a few ideas on organizations that might fund further research, so for the next week or so, we’ll be finishing up the report to send it out in hopes of funding.

Please pray that if this research is something that God wants GCT to continue, He’ll provide for us to continue it. In my next entry, I’ll have to tell you more about my wonderful co-workers at GCT, as I’m getting to know them better.

Shalom!

Amanda

P.S. I just watched a tourist take a picture of my bike lined up next to a bunch of motos outside of the coffee shop where I'm sitting. Apparently, I am now part of the scenery here :)

*The number 146 comes from a little girl with fight left in her eyes, who the founders of Love 146 saw during an undercover brothel investigation – she was being sold by that number. The full story is well worth reading: http://love146.org/love-story