Cambodia 2025 – Skills Session

It’s a Thursday lunch; with a few friends, I briskly walk down to JF and the technology rooms. We sit down, eat our lunch quickly, and before we know it, Ms Smith and Mr Stevenson are calling us in. We gather around the work benches, for a brief demonstration on how to use the newest tool. This week it was the hand drill, last week it was the saw. After the demonstration we spilt into groups and try to replicate what we were just taught. We must measure precisely and control the drill while quickly learning that it is not as easy as it looks. By the end of lunch, each of us has learned how to handle the hand drill and feel comfortable with using it. This is important as we will be building a house in Cambodia in September, and the skills we are learning each lunch time will be essential to building a safe and secure home for a family.

In the September holidays, 50 girls and 10 staff are flying to Cambodia to participate in ‘The Habitat For Humanity Program’, in which we will be building four houses from scratch in a rural community just outside Siem Reap during our eight day stay. SCEGGS has been with this initiative for many years, though this will be the first trip since COVID-19.

In preparation, we are spending one lunch time a week learning everything we can about building and getting hands on experience with the tools we will be using. With Mr Brown’s, Mr Stevenson’s and Mr Molloy’s expert help we have learnt how to saw, chisel, hammer, drill and many other important skills like how to move safely around people when they are working. In teams of 5 – 6 we have each successfully made a stool in the last four weeks of Term 2.

We feel so grateful for this amazing opportunity to give back in such a practical way and can’t wait to get to Cambodia!

Phoebe Lowe (Year 10)