Our Volunteers

In 2014, Youth Star reviewed our strategic direction and program objectives for our volunteers introducing a program focused on educational outputs at village level. With this focus we aim to track the impact of volunteerism on both the volunteer and youth, through their civic engagement, and the communities they serve in terms of the educational achievements of the children.

• In 2014, a volunteer, Mr. Tong Kea completed the services in Kampong Thom Province and attained employment with Baitong MFI. In the same year, another former volunteer, Ms. Chorn Sopheak, also obtained employment with AII.
• From 2014, seven volunteers remained in their communities. They are working on the development of youth clubs including building the capacity of youth in the community to manage the clubs independently of a Youth Star volunteer. These volunteers are writing stories of change and documenting the tangible impact of their work in the communities.
• Our female volunteer, Ms. Veasna Sophea, was invited to share her experience of civic engagement and community development through volunteerism at the Global Saemaul Leadership Forum 2014 at South Korea.
• Through their service, our volunteers provided benefits to children and young people in the communities where they worked. In 2014, volunteers focused on teaching basic Khmer and English, establishing youth clubs which promote literacy skills and through leadership and community campaigns raised the awareness of domestic and gender based violence and community safety and security. In addition, our volunteers addressed environmental issues such as plastic pollution and safe water and safe migration.

Partnership with SIPAR

Youth Star is proud of the strong and continuing partnership that we have with SIPAR.

Reading promotion: Our Youth Star volunteers and community youth in nine communes were trained by Sipar to support the communal Center Education For All (CEFA) program and the launch of a new mobile activity ‘The Backpack Library (Biblio Sac à Dos)’.

• Today, 60 backpack libraries with 50 books each circulate in 9 communes, carried by 140 members of Youth Clubs and reaching more than 1000 readers per month enabling the development of good reading habits and self-learning among children, youth and adults in remote areas.

Tutoring of slow learners: An innovative strategy to prevent school failure by slow learners from poor families is implemented through a system of peer based teaching, known as ‘Small Teachers’ in Cambodia. Volunteers provide after school tutoring class in Math and Khmer for slow learners in primary school. They received educational materials and technical training, through the cooperation with Mith Samlanh, Kape and SIPAR.

• Today, 100 Small Teachers provide tutoring classes to more than 800 pupils in 9 communes enabling them to improve their ability to learn and decrease the risk of repetition and drop out.

Awareness activities: Through parades, shows, exhibitions, games, songs on a range of social issues such as domestic violence, environment protection, school enrolment, children rights Youth Star volunteers promote civic responsibility.

• A total of 2000 to 6000 people in remote area are sensitized on crucial environmental and social issues.

Capturing the Impact: A ten-minute documentary capturing the partnership with SIPAR was produced with endorsement of H.E. Dr. Hang Chuon Naron Minister of Education, Youth and Sports. This documentary profiling our youth clubs, current and ex-Youth Star volunteers, and community partners is used for volunteer recruitment.

Project was conducted in partnership with PyD

The ‘Good Men Campaign’ project harnesses the skills and commitment of Youth Star volunteers to empower and develop members of community youth clubs to promote gender equality and raise awareness of the causes of Violence Against Women (VAW). Youth Star volunteers are trained to initiate community conversations about VAW and to empower young people and other community members to take steps to prevent gender-based violence in their communities by challenging and changing attitudes and behaviour.

In this project volunteers create a space for young people in rural communities to have meaningful peer discussions on values, sexual rights and gender relationships. This approach also supports a network of men and boys to work on gender-based violence issues through long term information exchange and activity.

Project Outputs:

• Three volunteers placed in Kampong Thom Province facilitated the initiation of three separate men‘s networks in three communities with between nine to twenty members in each network. 47 male members of the network received training from Youth Star volunteers on the concept of gender equality, domestic violence and its negative impacts, and men’s roles in combating domestic violence.
• Ten school dialogues have been conducted by two volunteers based in Kok Ngoun and Panh Chi. These dialogues attracted over 200 students and provided an opportunity for students to enter into open discussion about key issues related to violence against women/girl and men’s roles in preventing such violence in their community.
• Two Good Men Campaigns were organized in each of the three targeted communities with approximately 15%-20% of the costs being provided by contributions both in-kind and in-cash from the communities. These six campaigns held in Kampong Thom Province attracted over two thousand participants. The three male volunteers and youth club members are playing an important role in conducting the campaign at community level. They actively communicate with local authorities as well as villagers and other youth in community and raise the need for such campaigns. The campaigns aim to bring to communities key messages aimed to challenge men to be the best they can be. The campaigns are launched with a mass walk, a quiz on violence against women and girls,, a drama performance, and in some cases home follow up visits. The dramas performed by youth clubs are seen as attractive ways for gathering people to disseminate messages on violence against women and girls including raising the need to address such violence. The audiences expressed their enjoyment and wished to see more.