It started when a group us signed up iin the Community Involvement Program (ICIP) in our school to Cambodia from 3 June to 7 June 2011.

Team members

Li Jun, Syahmin, Farzaana, Mingxuan.

Haziq and Luqman

So we started to discuss what could be the possible problems that children face in Roka Primary School, where we were going to…

So we started to do a little research on the school . And this is what we found out …

1. This village was founded around 60 years ago, one of the oldest in the area.

2. Although Siem Reap is a popular tourist destination, it has been ranked as the second poorest province with the sixth highest illiteracy rate.

3. Over the years, the community has put in much effort to build and rebuild the school.

We also found out that the children were very poor to afford basic toiletry needs like toothbrush, toothpaste, combs, towels, nail clippers, soap and shampoo .

So our group decided to focus on their personal hygiene.

We taught hygiene at Roka Primary School today. We distributed items like toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, towels, nail clippers, soap and shampoo to the pupils, which we collected in Singapore as donations.

We helped them wash their hair, showed them how to hold the toothbrushes, especially for the younger pupils and also how to clip their nails.

Our greatest challenge was to communicate with the Cambodian pupils. They did not understand us and therefore, we had to use sign language and very simple English with them. We did not give up although the pupils did not understand us.

By the end of the day, we were all tired but very happy when we saw the smiles on the Cambodian pupils‘ faces as they went home.

We like to thank our teachers and the school for giving us this opportunity to make the change in in the lives of these pupils from Roka Primary School in Siem Ream, Cambodia, even though it was it was for a few days.