Basic living but Janet has learned so much

10 March 2008

By Rachel Mayfield

This month marks the 50th anniversay of the international development charity Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO).

Since its inception more than 32,000 people from all over the world have been VSO volunteers.Working in countries from Bangladesh to Zambia, volunteers have changed their lives and made a real difference to hundreds of others.

To mark the anniversary Rachel Mayfield spoke to Spalding woman Janet Gracey, who went to Cambodia as a VSO volunteer in September 2006 for two years.

Janet is living in Sisophon and working as a teacher trainer adviser at a college with 136 students.

The facilities are very basic as Janet explains: "The classrooms are in a concrete block with bare walls and the students sit on rickety benches at rickety desks.

"The dormitories are so basic. The girls share three classrooms, 11 to a room, while the boys have wooden shacks with earth floors, no windows – 19 to the room.

When it rains, which is often, the tin roof leaks."Janet has been observing lessons including English, computers (eight computers for 31 students), housekeeping, administration, dance and teaching materials.

She added: "They have absolutely no resources in the college or in the schools. Whatever a teacher needs they have to make from scrap materials."Classes often have 40 to 50 children sitting on rough wooden benches.

Most children attend either morning classes from 7am to 11am or afternoon school from 2pm until 5pm."Most teachers do either morning or afternoon school and nearly all have another job because their pay is so low, around $30 a month.

"In her first year in Cambodia Janet has spent $11,000 – collected through fundraising and donations from people in the UK – on sport, play equipment, books, library, repair of roofs, a new floor, decorating classrooms and a basketball court.

She has received a medal from the Provincial Education Ministry for the work she has done.Travelling in Cambodia is not easy as the roads are very busy and heavily potholed.

Janet said: "Think of the worst Fen road, widen it a little and put it in place of the A1.

"Lorries, four-wheel drives, buses, vans, cars, motorbikes, horse drawn carts, cyclists and walkers all share the road and everybody blasts their horn when overtaking."

Road accidents are the commonest way to get injured or die, not land mines.

"Janet decided to apply for her post after being encouraged by friends and later seeing an advert in the paper.

She said: "I had never been to Asia and knew very little about Cambodia but I knew it was where I wanted to spend the next two years.

"I was 56, had taught all my life and felt I had the knowledge and skill I could share so accepted the post.

"I enjoy the relaxed way of life – sometimes so relaxed it can be frustrating in the work situation."Being a volunteer is not as altruistic as it sounds.

I have learned and am still learning so much from this experience."