One of ISF’s biggest challenges, as we move into our ninth year of working in Cambodia, is trying to give our long term students the chance to stay in education. Increasingly, the young people we work with are nearing the age of employment and many drop out of school to start earning an income. With some of our partner NGOs, ISF researched this problem and found that high school students drop out of school for a number of reasons; most commonly, students feel that school is no longer for them or family pressure to start earning money becomes too great.

We wanted to find creative ways to encourage students to stay in school, and so started a Youth Club in November 2014. Taking place every Sunday morning, the youth club helps build the students’ capacity for team work and critical thinking and raises their awareness of social issues, all while having fun… The final aim of the Club is to encourage life skills which are also valuable in the work place.

Youth Club participants learn about a remarkable variety of important topics such as peacemaking, thinking for yourself, feelings, violence, discrimination, gender, dreams, stress management, drugs and alcohol, bad friends and good friends, and communication. For each topic, groups discuss the issues, present their ideas to the group and then play some fun games that demonstrate the lessons learnt.

The Youth Club is facilitated by one of ISF’s social workers, Mr. Soketh, and now has 34 members over 13 years of age. In the first session, students were introduced to get to know each other, and then discussed their studies, communities, and issues at home. To give the students autonomy over their Youth Club, participants also voted in the Youth Club Committee. Soketh explained the roles and responsibilities of Youth Club President, Vice President and Secretary, and then each participant was invited to vote for the individuals they believed would best fulfill these roles.

Sobean* was elected as Youth Club President and was thrilled to earn this position from his friends in Youth Club. Sobean said, “The reason I joined Youth Club is because I would like to hang out more with my friends from ISF, to understand more about the situation in Cambodian society and to have new experiences.”

*Names of children under 18 have been changed.