Here is some general introductory info about the particular tour that this blog is for. As an example (just cut and paste from the pepytours.com site)…
Sustainable Development Tour, Cambodia
August 9 – August 17, 2008
Join PEPY on this exciting opportunity to support a local sustainable development project in rural Cambodia. Are you up for the challenge? Before we head into rural village life, spend a few days with PEPY in Phnom Penh. You will give you a taste for Cambodia and its recent history, setting the framework for the realities we will experience in the villages during the service portion of our trip. Enjoy a hotel on the riverfront amidst the human traffic which ranges from Khmer aerobics classes in the mornings to restaurant and shopping-seekers throughout the evening. Spend the next four nights in a small village outside of Phnom Penh. We will live in rustic conditions and sleep in basic cots with mosquito nets in the local school building, eating Khmer food and showering Cambodian style — wearing a Kroma and bathing at the local water pump. It will be summer vacation from school, but the curious village students will come out to meet you and will likely want to help. While living in the village, you will make many new friends in the community and have plenty of time to interact with the villagers to learn more about their lives, enjoy some games with the kids, and experience the slow pace of daily life. This trip definitely isn’t for the 5-star luxury-seeker, but if you have an adventurous spirit, don’t mind getting a bit dirty, and want a hands-on opportunity to work with a development organization – then this trip is for YOU!
We will work with a professional team of builders to complete a rain water collection unit which will provide clean drinking water for the school and village. The village’s current water source has been tested in the village and it contains arsenic. Arsenic in drinking water can cause bladder, lung, and skin cancer, causes spotting and hardening of the skin, and with long-term exposure may lead to other diseases and death. In Cambodia, arsenic is also believed to cause birth defects and reproductive problems. Children are at the greatest risk for poisoning and the damage caused by arsenic exposure is irreversible. Unfortunately, arsenic can not be filtered from the water. This means that the community needs a new water source and that measures to provide arsenic-free water must reach them soon. You can learn more about the work that PEPY’s partner NGO, Rural Development Initiative Cambodia, does with testing for arsenic, viruses, and bacteria in Cambodia here.
There may be spells of rain on many of the days we work, and while we will get muddy, the rewards will outshine the clouds as you will experience a Cambodia most travellers never interact with. The outcome of your labors will continue to provide the villagers with clean drinking water for years to come! After our rural village stay we will take a final day in Phnom Penh where we will meet other PEPY partner organizations, enjoy the delicious food and urban sites which only the nations capital can offer, and have a chance to reflect on the duality of the urban/rural divide in Cambodia If you are interested in seeing the temples of Angkor Wat, continue with us on the Siem Reap Extension trip as well.
Join us in Cambodia in August, roll your sleeves up, and help us build an arsenic-free Cambodia!
