Project Songkeum is a student-led Overseas Community Engagement Project (OCEP) that partners with Build Your Future Today (BFT) Foundation, a non-profit organisation in Cambodia. Our project works with BFT to equip villagers with health-related knowledge and skills through our programmes, thus aiding them in the betterment of their lives. This is done through health education lessons, health screenings and vocational training!
On our recent trip from 9 to 19 June 2024, we visited 6 different villages and reached out to 1200 beneficiaries! Some of the topics we covered in our lessons included hand hygiene, dental hygiene, nutrition, first aid and sexual health. The topics were chosen after close discussions with our partners from BFT and the information they gathered on the ground in the villages, prior to our trip.
For many of us, this trip was our first visit to Cambodia and being able to interact closely with the locals every day was a truly fulfilling and eye-opening experience. The one special memorable moment for all of us was being able to see the smiles of relief and happiness on the locals’ faces after we taught various stretches and techniques to relieve muscle aches. Being able to witness all these small moments of joy, made everyone feel that the effort that all of us has put in for this trip, was all worth it.
We hope to continue conducting our health education lessons and health screenings into the future, while also expanding our reach into more villages! Our long-term goal would be to ensure the self-sufficiency of the villages through health education and knowledge.
This trip with Project Songkeum opened my eyes and challenged me to go beyond what i already knew about the healthcare needs of people in developing countries. I understood more of what it meant to help others in a sustainable way through health education, so that they would not be reliant on us for help in the future. This was truly an engaging and exciting experience. Jolin Wang Zhuolin, Participant
About Project Songkeum
A student-led community project in Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, which aims to better the lives of villages in Siem Reap, Cambodia, through equipping the community with health-related knowledge and skills.
