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The UK’s official graduate careers website, Prospects, recently suggested that simply placing volunteering on your CV will help to increase your employability. Volunteering overseas not only benefits the communities you stay in but also your career prospects. It can help you to set targets, learn skills, prove how dynamic you are and reach those higher goals.
With volunteering opportunities now available through organisations such as Projects Abroad, in so many exciting locales and offering invaluable experience in so many varied fields, there’s never been a better time to volunteer and make your CV really shine.
Here are five fantastic volunteering projects in Cambodia where you will be just a stone’s throw from the awe-inspiring temples of Angkor Wat and the secluded, laid-back beaches of the south.
Medicine
Based in Cambodia’s lively capital, Phnom Penh, medical students and those with physiotherapy and occupational therapy experience can develop their skills, reveal their commitment and widen their network of contacts by working in hospitals for children who have disabilities that are often caused by the tragic legacy of landmines.
Human rights
For those with previous legal experience looking to secure a postgraduate study place or to net that elusive first job, human rights projects in Cambodia will give you at least two months frontline experience of work in this field.
Current areas of work include promoting rights for groups that have been evicted from areas and helping them to gain compensation for losing their land.
Teaching
Due to a turbulent past, much of Cambodia's population has not had the opportunity to receive a formal education. Now that peace has been restored, many Cambodians have better access to schooling but there are many in orphanages who still struggle to access the quality of education they deserve.
Volunteer teaching in Cambodia is an ideal way to gain some truly rewarding work experience for a career in development, care or education. You don’t need formal qualifications or experience just determination, dynamism and the wish to demonstrate to future employers a real can-do attitude.
Journalism
Voluntary journalism internships, for those with a degree in journalism, promise you the work experience you need to prove your abilities in the real world. Your CV will be greatly enhanced by the practical skills that you gain from your work placement at Cambodia's leading comprehensive English-language magazine Southeast Asia Globe.
You will prove you hold the ability and resourcefulness to adapt to work in an environment and culture as strikingly different from your own as Cambodia is.
Care work
Although the civil war in Cambodia is long over its legacy still scars this beautiful country. The overcrowded orphanages of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap are testament to this. By working with children here, and many of those still left out on the streets, you can help build their confidence and improve their prospects.
Whilst making a real difference to the lives of others, you’ll also be rewarding yourself with a CV that shows your willingness to accept a challenge and to work under your own initiative in very difficult circumstances.
Laura Alfonsin has a Bachelor in Advertisement and more than 5 years of experience in online marketing. You can reach her on Twitter: @lalauncensored
