Childcare Volunteer Program in Cambodia

Participants joining the Child Care Volunteering Project in Cambodia will be placed at local childcare centers and day cares for children from the slums of Phnom Penh, the capital city. Most of these kids are in the age group of 3 – 8 years, and they belong to underprivileged backgrounds, such that they often don’t get the basic requirements as well.

This project will not only give you an opportunity to work with children, but it’ll also get you closer to Cambodian culture and lifestyle. You’ll be interacting with the local staff at the centers, and look deeper into the problems that persist in the developing society. These centers warmly welcome all the volunteers and for the kids, it’s the time to love and be loved. You’ll feel the bliss of being surrounded by warmth while working with these little ones.

The childcare centers where volunteers are placed are mostly overcrowded, making it hard for local teachers to give adequate support and attention to each child. Volunteers play a vital role here and help the local staff by assisting with their daily duties and helping children get the care and attention they need.

Note: Volunteers joining this Child Care Project in Cambodia will have to devote a minimum of 2 weeks for the program. 

Sample Placement Profile – Joy Day Care

Everyday at Cheung Ek dump hundreds of families wake up and go out to make a living. Sometimes over 1000 adults, youth, and even young children go out with long metal hooks and they pick apart the piles of trash searching for plastics, glass, and aluminium cans which can then be sold to be recycled in order to earn a meagre salary, usually less than a dollar a day. While their families and older siblings go out to pick through the garbage, the smallest children of these families play in the dump or wait for their parents to come back with something to eat. These children suffer from malnutrition and diseases which flourish in such toxic environments. To address the desperate situation of these children Joy Day Care has opened a daycare center where the children are able to come.At the center, the children are fed, their clothes are washed, they are taught English and Khmer alphabets, and they play like kids do. This truly has made so much difference in these young children’s lives. There are usually more than 40 children at the project and have three different classrooms available where the volunteers can perform different tasks such as –

• Assistant in classes

• Help in preparing meals

• Sing and play with the kids

• Learn and practice memory verses, the English alphabet, songs, poems

• Help to pick the kids up and bring them back home

Note : This is a sample placement and participants are allotted placement depending on different factors such as availability, suitability and requirements of the projects. 

Want to see other ways to make an impact? Check out our Volunteer in Asia programs.

Volunteer Roles & Responsibilities

Being a volunteer, your major role would be to care for these little ones, provide them the necessary comfort that any child would need for a proper growth, teach them basic lessons and also make the older ones aware about health and hygiene.

You’ll also have to help in the daily tasks at the Childcare Centers such as washing clothes, feeding the children and making suggestions to the staff for improvement, help in administrative work etc.

In case you are a creative person, you can try your hands in adding some more colours to the entire environment, by renovating the centre, along with your peers.

An important role of the volunteers at the projects is to teach in a playway method. As a volunteer you should be flexible, open minded and come prepared with some tools and educational aids to help in working with kids.Most importantly, ensure that the kids are drenched in love and care because that’s what they need the most.

When you volunteer in the childcare program in Cambodia, you should spend time planning for each day. This will allow you to get the most out of their project time. This also provides better learning activities for the children. 

Working with children is challenging but is also a great deal of fun and gives you an immense amount of satisfaction.

Requirements & eligibility

Volunteers must be 18 years or older at the beginning of the program.Volunteers need to have an open mind and flexible attitude for working in a new and different environment.The volunteer should bring energy and enthusiasm to make a difference. Participants must be physically fit and in good health at the time of joining the program. Participants should have no criminal convictions and should provide a clean criminal background check before joining the project.