My group comprised several families (a total of eighteen people) who all knew the team leader or had come into contact with Tabitha through the Australian International School Singapore (where I was a student in 2001-2004). The team raised over A$35,000 and built a total of ten houses over two days of building. Each house costs approximately $1,200 and the remaining money paid for an additional two houses, 20 wells, a micro-interest savings scheme for 900 families and an additional $2,000 for village development.

The group first met up on a cruise along the Mekong where we got a chance to get to know each other and talk about our experiences and expectations. This was great, as the members of the trip only knew each other through our team leader. The group had a great dynamic with several families, some return builders and six children. For some this was their first trip overseas and it was bound to be an eye opening and confronting experience.

We were building in an isolated community that had already experienced a foreign build-group in years past. The houses’ foundations had already been built by contractors before we arrived and consisted of a wooden frame on stilts with a tin roof. We then built the walls, floor, door and windows for each of the houses. The work was demanding but thoroughly rewarding and we were never short of an audience as the entire village turned out to watch as we gave them something they had never thought possible in their lifetimes. Their obvious excitement and delight was fantastic to see.

The families receiving houses were chosen by the community as being the most in need of assistance. They included a blind man, families with six to eight children and a single mother with four children. The families saved for three to five years to afford the $30 USD contribution that they made to their new homes. This method of foreign aid combined with input from the families aims to help them to overcome their mindsets of worthlessness and hopelessness caused by their poverty and the emotional scars from the Khmer Rouge by showing them that they have a value and can achieve a better life for themselves. This trip was a fantastic and moving experience that I’m sure will stay with everyone involved as a deeply rewarding and treasured memory.

THANK YOU, to everyone involved for making the trip such a success and I look forward to meeting with everyone again in the future.