Volunteering at our school

We enjoy having volunteers and value our volunteers highly! We try to make sure volunteering at our school is a cooperative and enriching experience.

  • The main role for volunteers at CLS is to support and assist, but not replace our Cambodian teachers in the classroom.
  • Volunteers work alongside our English speaking Cambodian staff in a support role. This can mean working with the class as a whole or with smaller groups. As such, fluency in English is a requirement as classes are taught in English.
  • Our students really enjoy meeting volunteers, and they especially like reading books and conversing in English. These tasks are ideal for volunteers. Students and staff also appreciate the cultural exchange, as well as other skills that volunteers bring.
  • Please familiarise yourself with Cambodian culture and customs, for example here (‘An introduction to Khmer culture and language’ ).
  • A minimum commitment is required for classroom assistance volunteering (in other words not just for a day, please see below for more details).

After leaving, many volunteers continue to stay involved with CLS by becoming long term supporters/donors, which is such a great help to us.

Our school is a busy place and we try to fit in all volunteers and match their abilities and skills to our needs and also fit the volunteering period into the school year. Please be mindful of school holidays and Cambodian public holidays and traditional festivals, when the school may be closed for extended periods of time.

Who and What We Need

We prefer volunteers to work with us for a minimum of one month. This allows the volunteer to settle in and provide effective input to our programs. It also allows the children to develop a healthy relationship with volunteers in the classroom where shorter-term involvement can be unsettling.

Shorter term volunteers will be considered, in areas other than teaching, particularly if they offer skills needed by us at the time. And for certain roles, such as assisting in our Evening School classes, volunteers may be engaged for only 2 or 3 hours a day and will have the rest of the time free.

Intending volunteers are asked to follow the application process:

Step 1: send a short email to Mr Thy and inform us of your intentions (when you would like to come,  who you are, etc.). Mr Thy will get back to you.

Step 2: If you have received notification by email of conditional acceptance from our principal Mr Thy, you may then be required to send some or all of the following documents:

Step 3: Details of your volunteering period will be finalised with Mr Thy. You will need to organize and fund your own accommodation and transport to Kampot  and to CLS. On arrival at CLS, each volunteer is asked to pay a small one-off donation of US$50 to assist with costs associated with recruitment, initial orientation and training.