The final outcome

We were the first ICS Entrepreneur volunteers to arrive at Kratie, a rural province in North-east Cambodia. Kratie town itself is located right on the Mekong river with incredible views at sunset. It’s a mellow town, with traditional Khmer houses lining the streets.

There’s a local buzzing market and an abundance of entrepreneurs who have set up their own roadside businesses selling sugar cane, fried banana and other rice or bean-based snacks. All of our host families run their own micro-enterprises – some are tailors, some are farmers and one sells fruit at the central market. Almost everyone in Kratie is entrepreneurial in their own way.

One of the many entrepreneurial sellers at our local market

Fried banana on wheels

Giant snails on the road anyone?

The grocery store outside our host home

Colourful umbrellas at the roadside businesses

Khmer dessert. Sweet rice, chai seeds and banana. Ch’nyang.

Our partner organisation, Cambodia Rural Development Team (CRDT) is a local NGO founded in 2001 with the overall aim of creating a country free from poverty and environmental degradation.

As with many other small NGOs, there are concerns over the sustainability of funding. Most donors give restricted funding, which stipulates exactly when and where the money can be spent. This means that other important things such as staff development and welfare can be overlooked. So, Mao Savin, one of the founding members of CRDT, and Geordie Smith, a volunteer teacher, had the idea of starting a social enterprise called Conversations with Foreigners (CWF) in Phnom Penh back in 2005. 60% of CWF profit would go to funding CRDT’s livelihoods programme, which now delivers community and rural development projects to 4,961 families.

CWF isn’t your typical English school; it’s based around conversation and culture-sharing rather than classroom based grammar / vocabulary learning. Our project was to conduct a feasibility report investigating whether establishing another CWF school in Kratie could make profit for CRDT, as well as benefit the community here.

We started by splitting the feasibility report into sections, exactly how you would write a business plan. We wanted to outline and make recommendations about the current market, the location of the school, teacher recruitment, budget forecasts, structure / staffing and start-up strategies.

Some working days were more structured than others; we obtained statistics from the Department of Education and the Department of Planning to establish the numbers in our target market, carried out market research at three educational institutions and arranged Skype calls with CWF Phnom Penh. Other days were less methodical; we cycled round Kratie to find buildings for rent and had conversations with local people about CWF. One of the teachers at Kratie Krong high school told us “the school sounds great. It would be unique, and different from other schools in Kratie.”

The potential location of CWF: Kratie Krong secondary school

With the invaluable support of Dan, the accountant on our team, we put together a detailed budget forecast and break-even analysis. We even travelled to Phnom Penh to meet Savin, founding member of CRDT and CWF, to get his useful advice on our work.

It’s been a rollercoaster ride, and I think above all, we learned the importance of synergy. We didn’t go in and impose opinions or solutions, we worked together with people to achieve positive results. There is no way we could have done it without the expertise and knowledge of our counterparts, Santana and Sreymom. The whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

Our feasibility report establishes that there are roughly 10,000 students between the ages of 13-25, but currently no English school taught solely by a native-speaker. 100% of students we surveyed told us they would like to learn from a foreigner, because they “speak English correctly, fluently.” Our report concludes that CWF Kratie is a feasible business opportunity, with a potential profit of $3,000 in its first year.

A definite decision has now been made by CRDT to start CWF in March / April next year. It’s amazing to think that one day we may return and find an English school that we helped create. We’ve hopefully helped CRDT become as self-sufficient as possible too.

CWF will have a sustainable impact on people’s lives here. The desire to learn English, particularly from foreigners, is unbelievably strong. The lack of knowledge is proving to be an obstacle on both an individual and national level. Quite simply, it improves job prospects. Sreymom studies English morning and night. She says “with English I can easily find a job. I want to be a boss one day… so I need to be able to communicate in an international language.”

We feel confident that we have laid strong foundations for work that will reach far beyond our eleven week placement. And that’s what ICSE is all about, being part of long-term change.

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The Angkor experience

Last week took us to Siem Reap for our mid-phase review, one of the largest and most famous provinces in Cambodia.

We spent most of the week reviewing our projects, assessing and evaluating progress so far. It was productive, and in another blog post, I will write more about it.

For now, I want to share my thoughts about Siem Reap, home to the famous Angkor Wat temple complex.

Despite the infinite number of tourists with phones, digital cameras, SLRs, tripods and selfie sticks, no photo can do justice to the Khmer temples. They’re stunning and magical, mysterious and spiritual. Each temple has its own unique aura.

We left on our rented bikes at 04:30, aiming to catch the sun just as it rose over the iconic Angkor prangs. Cycling through Siem Reap in the early hours of the morning was one of the most exhilarating experiences, and I would recommend it to anyone. You’re forced to dodge through tuk-tuks, buses and coaches in a mad race against the sun. We made it just in time.

As you walk along the huge, ancient stone of the causeway, you experience something beyond description. Everything in and around Angkor, from the huge moat protecting the complex, to the detailed Khmer inscriptions on the wall, is designed to make you shrink before its majesty. You’re transported to a different time zone, and cannot quite believe the ancient grandeur once possessed by architects of the Oriental world. It stands as a reminder that there were, and will be in the future, far bigger things in existence than you can comprehend.

Ta Prohm is equally unique. Left to the wilderness of the jungle, there’s a powerful interaction between man-made sculpture and nature, with tall trees straggling the ancient temple walls. Walking through is atmospheric; you become part of the temple’s story.

Bayon is strikingly different. It’s far more open, with hundreds of empty stone eyes following your every move.

Of all the words I could use to describe the temples, none can come close to accurately express the succession of unforgettable experiences I had on Thursday. I’m sure anyone who has visited Angkor Wat would encourage everyone to experience it themselves.

Angkor Wat. Pensive.

They knew how to do their doorways

Ta Prohm. Tomb Raider set.

Bayon temple. Chilled.

For me, the week in Siem Reap turned into something more than just a mid-phase review. It was an insight into what ‘development’ actually looks like.

Ticket sales from the Angkor temples are worth roughly $40 million a year. So why is Siem Reap still one of the poorest provinces in Cambodia? For anyone who has visited, you may find this hard to believe. The roads leading up to Angkor are some of the best I’ve experienced so far, and there’s certainly no lack of expensive 4x4s. But literacy rates are some of the lowest in the country, with only 10% of children finishing high school. 53% of children are malnourished. Similar to Kratie, the small rural province with only a nascent tourist industry, over half live on less than $1 a day.

I’m not suggesting the tourism industry in Siem Reap is all negative. Clearly many people would be jobless without it, including the young teenage entrepreneurs we met briefly who can make $4-5 per week selling Angkor postcards. But unfortunately, the industry sees the majority of big money split between government coffers, powerful private companies like Sokimex, and foreign-owned tour companies, hotels and restaurants. How many tourists actually eat, sleep and party in locally owned businesses?

Responsible tourism and sustainable development is a global issue. Tourism is good, but only if the money falls into the right hands. The long-term solution is simply effective governance that spends the money where it’s needed. This is obviously something that no cheapskate backpacker or big-spending tourist can solve. I would have been blind to the problems had I not been working with our project manager, Sophal, who worked with Save the Children in Siem Reap province.

I’m a strong believer that solving inequality should not fall entirely on consumer shoulders. The blame should fall mainly on the private companies that encourage corruption and rent-seeking behavior.

But, I would encourage all future travelers going to Siem Reap to eat at local restaurants, buy from the mobile food-stalls and shop at the markets. Look out for the cafés that operate as social enterprises, donating some of their profits to locally based NGOs. Try the amazing jack fruit (it’s like no other), fried banana, corn on the cob, sweet rice desserts or, if you’re feeling adventurous, silk worm. It’s all sold by local people. And the Khmer know how to do their snacks.

Fried banana on wheels

Khmer dessert. Sweet rice, chai seeds and banana. Ch’nyang.

Giant snails on the road anyone?

Fruit stalls on 60 Street. Jack fruit and lots of apples.

The people might then start to see the benefit of their city’s ‘development’, not just the tourists.

It’s a rubbish problem

Kratie town is plagued by an unimaginable amount of litter. Litter across the beautiful river front, at the bustling markets, at the local schools. It’s everywhere you go.

With the litter, comes the burning. Burning any type of plastic releases toxic and potentially cancerous chemicals into the air. Residue from burning contaminates soil, and can enter the human food chain through crops and livestock. Now in the UK, it’s against the law to burn any items that contain plastic. But, here in Kratie and many other developing countries, it’s the solution to a growing waste management problem. You can smell burning plastic in the most unlikely of places – at home near open stoves and in school grounds next to playing children.

Burning plastic with your breakfast?

If you type ‘litter in Kratie’ into Google, you will discover that the top ten results are all travel blogs and reviews, naming and shaming the town for this problem. One even writes that ‘Leaving your rubbish for someone else to clear up is common practice in this country.’ This statement is so incorrect. The problem is much more complex than passing travellers could imagine. There’s more than meets the eye.

There are bins, people do care about their rubbish, and there is a private company that come and collect some of the rubbish. We visited the Conservation Area Project Manager at World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) and he told us about the Wetlands Alliance Programme (WAP) that installed bins made out of old lorry tyres across Kratie province. When the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) funding ran out, there was no longer anyone to pay for the collection of rubbish. It’s not a government service, and the problems start here. If you want your litter collected, you have to pay. If you want your litter collected regularly – or as regularly as a busy school or market would need – you have to pay extra.

Rubbish collection is essentially a privilege for those can afford it, and given that 30% of households here live on less than $1 a day, most people cannot pay. You can’t leave your rubbish festering, so you burn it. It’s the ‘least worst’ solution to an intricate problem.

The entrepreneurial solution – plastic recycling micro-enterprises. There’s a small boy who walks around the neighbourhood. You can spot him easily, because he carries a large sack on his back filled with old plastic bottles. No doubt he sells these on for a small profit to a recycling company. The informal sector in Kratie is huge, and maybe in the future there’ll be far more micro-enterprises set up to ease the rubbish problem.

On Friday 14^th November, we hosted a community action day attended by some UN Volunteers (UNV) at Kratie Krong secondary school. Our entrepreneurial solution was to build new bins for their classrooms out of old plastic bottles. We had 70 children building 7 plastic bottle bins, and they absolutely loved it. The bins will go a small way to alleviating the litter problem around the school grounds in an innovative and creative way. Here’s a short 30 second clip of the day:

Community Action Day: VSO ICSE

Tackling this problem, as with most things in international development, is long-term. But, there’s a silver lining. There is a definite need for environmentally sound solutions as plastic consumption rises all around the world. It’s already paving the way for entrepreneurs in Kratie and around the world to capitalise on new economic activities through the collection, sorting and recycling of plastic waste. It’s not glamorous, but it’s entrepreneurial.

The wonders of 3G

As I was travelling through the darkness in a tuk-tuk last weekend, it dawned on me how incredible it was that I was still able to get full 3G. Some of the houses we passed don’t have indoor toilets, a running shower or electricity. But, you can still get full signal.

I find this very interesting. Other similar technologies – computers, laptops, tablets – are found most frequently in middle-class households. Laptop buyers are still a small segment, and I would say so is broadband. Although there’s WiFi at CRDT, the office in which we are based during the week, it is frustratingly slow. There are frequent power cuts in the evening, so you can be sitting there sweating in the darkness in the middle of rural Cambodia with nothing but a solar powered light for company. Never fear though, you can still watch old episodes of Breaking Bad or stream live television. The 3G is really that fast.

A house with no electricity, but full 3G

I’m no technology expert, but I did some research and found that 85% of the world’s population is under cellular coverage. This is more than mains electricity at 80%. It’s crazy to think that, in 2012, more people had access to mobile networks than safe drinking water. And by 2019, it’s expected that 80% of mobile subscriptions in Asia Pacific will be 3G/4G.

And no, that isn’t just China, Japan and Korea. It spreads into low income countries too. The benefits of 3G are endless; it can improve free flow of information in society, which forms a strong foundation for the exchange of ideas. It promotes research, knowledge, development and innovation, all of which are vital for entrepreneurship.

It bridges gaps between communities across oceans, continents and time zones. My Khmer counterpart – who I am living with for 3 months – uses our 3G hotspot to download free English lessons. And the kids next door were fascinated by my world clock and world map – how could it possibly be 9am here, 2am in the UK, and 6pm in parts of America?!

Again, I’m no expert, but it seems the importance of a smart phone increases as income falls. For someone living in a remote area without electricity, a reliable transport system or even money to travel, it could solve problems further down the scale. In some developing countries, 3G has already been used by farmers in rural villages to check competing crop prices and the weather forecast.

Some examples I thought of whilst living here are Google’s new Mapmaker technology. This allows ordinary citizens to add and improve maps of their villages to provide more accurate information. This could help tourism, a growing industry here, and maybe even facilitate deliveries, of which there are none here in Kratie. If you want something delivered, I have heard you have to go to either Phnom Penh or Siem Reap. It’s a big dream, but what about some form of e-government? Citizens could digitally interact with provincial departments and the ministries in Phnom Penh, which ultimately could increase transparency.

It’s also worth mentioning that Apple only sell phones at about $400 and up, which is an unimaginable amount in Kratie. A year at University costs around $400. It’s Android that are taking over the market. They cover everything from the city banker in Canary Wharf, right down to the rural rice farmer here in Kratie. Intelligent guys.

Obviously there are still problems to solve. Is data affordable? How can smartphone providers improve battery life, especially when there is no mains electricity nearby? How can people make websites easily accessible in Khmer for those who don’t read English?

However, the proliferation of 3G means there is a wealth of entrepreneurial opportunities available here; app development, tech start-ups and education in technology to name a few. I hope that eventually it will allow people in remote locations to be heard by the rest of the world. And we shouldn’t underestimate its future.

A week in Kratie

What a place. In some ways it’s exactly as you’d expect. It’s a small rural town located right on the Mekong river with incredible views at sunset. There’s a local buzzing market, and, as you will notice, incredible clouds.

It’s been placed on the map mainly due to the presence of the rare Irrawaddy Dolphins, and I think there is so much potential here for tourists. There’s a number of things to do; you could do what we did on Sunday and cycle along the river, passing beautiful pagodas and rice paddy fields. Although there does seem to be more NGO offices than restaurants. Oxfam and WWF have a big presence here.

In other ways, Kratie is a very unique place. So different from anywhere else I’ve been. People walk around in pyjamas – that’s full length, long-sleeved pyjamas in 35 degrees heat. There’s an abundance of traditional Khmer houses built on stilts – unlike Phnom Penh, infrastructure development hasn’t quite taken hold here. They’re very quirky, but also make so much sense. Cows, dogs and chickens can live underneath, and the tropical thunderstorms (of which we’ve had three so far) don’t flood out the basement floor.

There’s a local sports ground where all the men play football or volleyball. I opted out of the football and went for a run around the grounds with our project supervisor, Sophal. Safe to say I’ve never sweated so much in my life. Unfortunately there’s no floodlights, so all play and exercise has to stop as early as six. Such a shame when clearly sport is an amazing way of bringing the community together.

I couldn’t go another blog post without mentioning how amazing the Khmer people are. With boundless energy and endless smiles, there’s no way you couldn’t feel at home here. The first day of moving in with my new family, I had met the 5 grandchildren and 2 daughters. Of course, they all live in the neighbouring houses. I’ve learned that sharing the same language isn’t necessarily everything. A smile and laugh goes a long, long way here.

We’ve spent the first week here really trying to get to know Cambodia Rural Development Team (CRDT), the local NGO we’ll be working for over the coming months. They have such an interesting model, as they choose to run three social enterprises that feed funds back into their development work. One of these enterprises is an English school in Phnom Penh. With a mixed team of both Khmer and UK volunteers, one of our projects is to conduct a feasibility report showing whether establishing a similar school in Kratie could be resourced and benefit the community here. This isn’t your typical English school; it’s based around conversation and culture-sharing rather than classroom based grammar / vocabulary learning. If all goes to plan, we’ll soon start writing a business plan for the English school.

CRDT have set up a number of self-help groups (SHGs) to support members of the community, mainly female entrepreneurs, in setting up and maintaining their own businesses, and gaining access to micro-credit. The CRDT approach is really inspiring – much of their work happens on the ground to provide local people with the training and skills they need to play a more active role in their own development. We’ll be assisting to create a training module that develops the business and marketing skills of female enterprise owners. This module will eventually be rolled out across all the SHGs in the area.

I feel it’s already been a challenge for me in so many ways. You learn something new about yourself every day, some things good, some things bad. For me, coming from a job where every day was so hands on – daily tasks to achieve and phone calls to answer – adapting to a new working style where it’s far better to relax, take a back seat, and let team ideas flow throughout the day is very different.

It’s exciting that the ball is already rolling. I may have shared my shower with five grasshoppers this morning, but with a cycle commute like this, who can complain…

This is Phnom Penh

Two days in Phnom Penh.

First thing’s first, the Royal Palace is beautiful. The architecture is like no other. In a city of mad motorcycles and tuk-tuks, it was unbelievably peaceful.

My other observations of the city have been slightly more random. Firstly, I really like the Khmer way of ordering the bill. I’ve overhead some of the Khmai volunteers say ‘kut loy’ which means ‘think money’. Imagine saying to a waiter in the UK, ‘hey, let’s think money.’ Makes a lot of sense, I’m going to have to try it out. Maybe you should too.

I cannot even describe how good the pepper sauce is here. They served it with almost every meal. Kampot peppercorns have been cultivated in Cambodia since the 13th century, but the industry expanded under French colonial rule in the 19th and 20th centuries, when European chefs started appreciating Kampot’s notably unique and slightly sweet flavour. I would never have thought different kinds of peppercorns could have such an impact on my food. Rumour has it that it’s the best pepper in the world. I would say the rumour is true.

The Cambodian volunteers we’ve met have been absolutely amazing so far. Bopha greeted us at the airport with ‘we are best friends from this day forward’, and Kearith used an expression after dinner yesterday that I hope to make catch on back home. When you’re full after a meal, you say ‘now I have full battery.’ It’s going to be a hit.

We’ve been in full day training today including sessions on cross-cultural workings (trying to explain the British love for queuing and personal space was amusing) and language lessons. The Khmer language makes so much sense. Although I won’t pretend the pronunciation isn’t near impossible. How on earth do you say a sentence like ‘Nek soksaabai dtay?’ without any help. The following things I love:

1. No plurals. So, the word for horse is Seh. To say ‘three horses’ you would just say ‘Seh bpai’, meaning horse three. No stupid confusion on whether to add an ‘s’, or ‘es’.
2. There’s only one word for I, me and my – Khnyom. One word for you, your, yours – Nek. Basically, there’s only one word for all pronouns. Ideal.
3. The number system works much better. 1 is mouy, 2 is pbee, 3 is bpai, 4 is boun, 5 is brum etc. To say 6, you join the two together, so it’s brum-mouy (5-1). 7 is brum-pbee (5-2). Imagine if, in English, six was five-one. It would make learning the language so much easier.

So much has happened in the past two days that I won’t attempt to write it all down. What I will say is that Phnom Penh has been amazing. In just two days, I’ve noticed it is a city constantly on the move, always changing. There’s even a fairground called Diamond Island right in the middle.

But, even amongst all the craziness, there’s still areas of space and tranquility. Oh, and there was this toilet sign. Which made me laugh.

Why ICS Entrepreneur (and why the blog title)

After spending fourteen amazing months working for one of the world’s leading international development organisations, VSO, I decided it was time to leave.

Part of my role as a supporter care co-ordinator was advising other potential volunteers on why International Citizen Service (ICS) is one of the best youth volunteering programmes out there. I felt it was now my chance to take up this opportunity myself, as well as give something back to an organisation that I have loved working for.

Firstly, a bit of background to the programme. ICS Entrepreneur was drawn up over the past year, and is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID). The programme aims to support micro-enterprises and SMEs in developing countries to become more competitive, and, in the long run, less reliant on aid. ICS only work with projects that have specifically asked for help. I, along with a group of UK and Cambodian volunteers, will work for three months in Kratie (a north-eastern province) with aspiring entrepreneurs to help develop business skills and find potential opportunities in their own communities.

I applied to the scheme as I felt that it was a really interesting way of approaching development. It not only addresses the challenge of youth unemployment highlighted in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but it tackles a challenge that faces young people globally. Just recently in the UK, David Cameron announced that he will bar 18-21 year olds from housing benefits and remove job seeker’s allowance after six months of failing to find a job. Ways to alleviate youth unemployment is a contentious issue across the world.

But, it seems that global development is entering an era in which entrepreneurship will gradually play a more important role in lowering levels of youth unemployment. It has arguably already started to provide solutions across the African continent in certain farming communities. As ICS Entrepreneur is based on the sharing of business skills, and the spread of entrepreneurialism, I am really excited to have been given the opportunity to be a part of it.

To quote Nick Badman, Chairman of the Peter Cullum Centre for Entrepreneurship at City University’s Cass Business School,

“Creating and building a business enterprise gives everyone involved a hugely positive and constructive focus. As well as the tangible job creation and economic value that ICS Entrepreneur aims to achieve, the experience should build life-changing confidence and resilience in all those involved.”

So, my fundraising is done (thank you VSO Tuck Shop), training weekend in Bath with some awesome people is over and I depart this evening. Needless to say I’m pretty excited. Partly because I really enjoy long haul flights.

I’ll aim to keep you all updated with photos and (hopefully) witty / interesting anecdotes over the next three months. Until then, bye bye. Have a great three months Kingston, UK. I’ll miss you. Maybe not your weather though.

P.S. The blog title is a quotation from Shawshank Redemption – the greatest film ever made?