PoliSci class take trip to Cambodia

Members of the Cambodia Project visit the Hometown School in Siem Reap.

By Adam Troxtell
Published: Friday, October 1, 2010
thecambodiaproject.com

Members of the Cambodia Service Learning Project took a trip to Cambodia from July 10-26, which included sightseeing, learning about the culture and history of the country, visiting Commerce's sister city Pailin, and helping some local schools.

Political science department head and associate professor Dr. JoAnn DiGeorgio-Lutz is the instructor of the Cambodia Project course, PSCI 497, and she said the trip helped students get the full experience of studying a country.

"This is the first time I had been to Cambodia, and it was amazing," DiGeorgio said. "We got to put context to what we were studying in the abstract. You can learn about something, you can look at a country on a map, you can look at pictures of a country and read about its history, but when you're there experiencing it, it becomes very real. It becomes something you can attach meaning to."

Senior political science major Kaycie Clark said the trip was a revealing experience.

"It was life changing, seeing people in a society that is completely different than what you're used to, a developing world," she said. "It changed my perspective on life. I realize how lucky I am to be here."

DiGeorgio said she feels most of the students who visited Cambodia came away with a similar feeling.

"I think, for most of them, it really opened their eyes to the developing world and situations in the developing world," she said. "Cambodia is what we would call a war-torn society rebuilding after years of war and a genocide that basically eradicated anything, any education, any infrastructure, and so on."

The Cambodian Civil War lasted from 1967-1975, and led to the Khmer Rouge, or Communist Party of Kampuchea, rising to power and instigating the Cambodian Genocide. During their four-year reign, millions of Cambodians were killed or imprisoned, and the Cambodia Project members spent some of this trip learning about those darker times in the country's capital.

"The first few days it was all learning about the genocide," Clark said. "During the first four days in Phnom Penh we went to the S-21 museum, the political prisoner museum. It was a political prisoner camp where they executed thousands of people."

Also during those first few days, the class met Youk Chang, who was named in Time Magazine's Most Influential People of the 20^th Century. Chang is the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which, according to DiGeorgio, is tasked with tracking all the testimonies of anyone affected by the genocide.

"We also got to visit the international criminal tribunal that's trying the leaders for war crimes and genocide, and met with the U.N. special prosecutor there," DiGeorgio said.

While these remnants of the war still exist, Clark said she felt the people as a whole seem to be getting past it.

"Cambodia is making strides to advance themselves," she said, "but after a whole generation died, they're still trying to pick up the pieces from the Khmer Rouge destruction."

After their time in Phnom Penh, the group went to Battambang and met with people from Dewey International University, a partner of A&'M-Commerce.

"We met with students there, they had a big welcome for us, and we got to interact with university students in Cambodia and see what life is like for them there," DiGeorgio said.

Education was one of the main focuses for members of the Cambodia Project, as this is one of the aspects of society the country is faced with rebuilding.

"The GDP per capita, the income, is about $300 per year," DiGeorgio said. "So, families are oftentimes faced with the choice of paying $15 a year to send a kid to school and you only have $300 a year."

Among the multiple schools the group visited was Hometown School in Siem Reap. The Cambodia Project is working to help this school buy a computer, bikes for their 5 teachers, and school supplies for the students, according to the group's website, thecambodiaproject.com. They also delivered supplies to Elizabeth School in Lak 62, a village settled by refugees from the war.

"We got involved with a village close to Thailand, actually on the border, where we delivered school supplies," Clark said. "That was a big part of the trip, delivering school supplies to these kids. It was really cool."

Toward the end of their trip, the group visited government officials from Pailin, which became Commerce's sister city on Nov. 19 of last year. Commerce City Councilman and Cambodia Project member Doug Rohrabaugh got the chance to meet with his counterparts.

"[The trip was about] a cultural exchange," group member and Student Government Association senator Adam Haney said. "A lot of southeast Asia, especially Cambodia, after Vietnam, was really ignored and forgotten about by the west. It's to try and re-establish some of these ties with regimes and peoples like the Cambodians that want to re-engage with the rest of the world."

Some of the students who took this trip are looking to go back along with new Cambodia Project members. DiGeorgio is already starting to plan her return, as well.

"I'm going back in December and going to be to be developing the service learning program for Dewey International," she said. "I'll be helping them to created programs like I have here for service learning. Then I'm going back in May mini and doing a small mini-mester for credit. I can only take about 10 students, and I've got some graduate students already signed up."

Clark said she is one of the members hoping to return and do volunteer work, and she is also planning on doing the same in other developing countries.

"I'm actually looking at going this summer to Guatemala, and Dr. DiGeorgio actually compares Guatemala to Cambodia as far as development," Clark said. "I think I'm going to go for two months; learn Spanish for a month and teach for a month."