Volunteering at Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap, Cambodia, has been one of the highlights of my professional career to date. The opportunity to use my skills and education to contribute to an organisation making actual regional impact and advancing medical research internationally is a dream come true, and I’m so proud to have been able to come into work in the hospital every day.
I was so lucky to be placed in an international team in the Development department, and particularly to be able to work under an inspiring, talented and passionate manager who provided me with a flexible scope of projects beyond the standard requirements of everyday design collateral. I was encouraged to identify opportunities to create collateral I thought could be useful to fundraising efforts, and to put my hand up for activities in which I could develop skills for my portfolio or in my fields of interest, and then given the time and resources to work on them. The result of this support and the addition of the diverse and intimidating skills of my team is a suite of work of which I am very proud to showcase and which I am even prouder to say is having affect on our fundraising capabilities.
I was also encouraged and given opportunities to explore Siem Reap, the local Cambodian provinces, and the neighbouring countries over long weekends and vacation periods. The local and expat communities in town are so welcoming and the people you are able to interact with are all so fun, so interesting and so optimistic about the work that they do and the lifestyles they have access to in the NFP sector.
I would 100% recommend this or similar projects offered by Global Nomadic and Professionals Doing Good in the region to anyone feeling stuck or under-utilised in their careers, their city lifestyles or their creative fields. The critical shift in perspective in terms of lifestyle, work environment and even producing work for love versus for money has been valuable beyond my expectations. The on-site support from the team in Siem Reap was invaluable in settling in, and has been an ongoing gift beyond the end of the program.
Graphic Designer for Children’s Centre in Cambodia
