STUDY OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME
Want to travel overseas during
semester break AND receive an 8 point
subject credit?
That was the headline of an announcement I received in
April 2015 from my Charles Sturt uni lecturer. Part way
through my accounting degree, working part-time with two
young children, my initial reaction would be to hit dismiss
straight away. But I was intrigued and clicked “read
more”. There were two short term programs running for
the Faculty of Business, one to India and one to
Cambodia. I applied in April, I flew out in June! Bags
packed, passport in hand – I wasn’t really sure of what to
expect as I had never travelled internationally before!
There were 8 students in total, from all over NSW and one
from QLD, accompanied by an Associate Professor.
The trip was organised by Cambodian Rural Development
Tours (CRDT) and we had an amazing English-speaking
Cambodian guide, Tola. The program was designed to
give us an insight into the various NGOs working to
improve the socio-economic wellbeing of rural
Cambodians and to experience the rural lifestyle for
ourselves. Our days were jam packed full with a mixture of
meetings with NGOs such as WWF, Apsra, WCS etc and
site seeing. At one point we travelled to a remote village
where we stayed for four nights in a small village and built
a chicken coop (creatively named by the group as The
Chicken Inn) for a poor family, participated in cooking and
craft lessons and stayed with and interacted with local
families. These type of community-based eco-tourism
NGOs are accessible to the public and are a means for
poor villages to benefit from the 3 million tourists that visit
Cambodia per annum that would otherwise miss out.
IMAGE
PLACEHOLDER
There were many highlights of the trip including seeing
Angkor Wat and some of the other temples (including the
one where Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was filmed – Ta
Phrom – with the ancient trees), ziplining over Bousra
waterfall, riding scooters in Kraitie Town and in tuk-tuks
through the Phnom Penh traffic, staying at a floating
village on Tonle Sap Lake, trekking with elephants in the
jungle, shopping at the night markets in Siem Reap and
visiting a hip hop dance school.
As the trip was partially funded by the Australian
Government’s Asia Bound program it was very affordable.
I would encourage any student to look into what their
Faculty offers as I had the most amazing time!!!
Words and images by Elizabeth Litchfield
www.csu.edu.au/csuglobal