About Us
Introduction
 What is Homestay Volunteer Teachers Organnization(HVTO)?

A very brief history of HVTO
 
Homestay Volunteer Teachers Organization was founded in the summer of 2007  in Sophy and Siem Reap, Cambodia. I felt that the ideas of volunteer works, and of contributing a kind help to the children in the countryside, making the employment in the village, introducing the  new ideas related mainly with tourism of the other world to the people, was too great to be left to big profit for our young generation who are worth to get these. I also realized that by working out of a developing the communities we could  create working opportunities and maintain closer contact with the volunteers, the communities and the projects.

Homestay Volunteer Teachers Organization has been created by volunteers.
 
Since the very beginning of all the western people who have been involving with the volunteering works to build a school in my villages and I have helped some western people who provide a great support to enroll some of the poor children  around the temples to go to school( both Khmer and English school) and also I used to help some of the International None-governmental Organizations who are involved in giving the Unconditional financial supports in education, nutrition, medical care to the Cambodian communities. With all these experimental works have given me an idea to create these programs as we want to stay on and help.



HVTO founder’s story and acknowledgment
 
My name is Sim Pisith; born in Sophy village in 1981 and later was made Buddhist monk and lived in the Buddhist monastery for 8 years. I graduated from the Buddhist Bali Upper High School. I would like to thank to the following people who have been supporting me for my upgrading of better life.
    
All local German teachers in Cambodia.
Mr. Michael Unntersee (German friend who has spent all his free time to teach me German)
Mr. Mark Gaston from USA, financial sponsor
Brother Ken Widerson from Australia, financial sponsor 
Sister   Renate Soeder from Germany who has pushed me to my actaul job.
I am now a contracted tour guide working for(INDOCHINA SERVICES) www.indochina-services.com


“I have the strong belief that the best help, one can give a community or a person the education. Nothing is more likely to help “empower” people and create conditions for “sustainable development” than education. I also believe that nothing is more likely to help international  understanding than actual contact with the everyday life of another country  or communities or personal bonds between people”

That is why I decided to create this small project firstly to provide the Free English Educations to our venerable children my villages. 
So the goal of Homestay Volunteer Project is two folds:

  • To help education to the children and young people in the rural areas
  • To bring people together so as to enhance across cultural understanding

Before I become a Tour Guide I was teaching English to hundred of students in the Buddhist College in Wat Bo with other western volunteers. I appreciated the teaching and students very much, everywhere I go I am comforted with the words Lok Kru (teacher) from my students and I am happy to share my knowledge to these young people. I also see them profiting these languages by getting jobs in tourism industry like tour guides, work in hotels and restaurants.
I saw the progress in my students as they were exposed to English language and to teachers from the west. The students came from relatively poor families in villages around and many of them had never learnt English before or some but they could speak less fluent English ( a rare thing in this part before in Siem Reap and most of these students  were not able to go to learn English from the good expensive institutes in the city. But I could not tell how hard they tried to learn these languages from me and the volunteers.

With all these experiences above, I thought it must be possible to manage this kind of program for the young people and children in my village Sophy which is 35 kilometers away from the city so that these people have a chance like me to catch up with the modern development  in the near future. 
In the name of my teams, we are insisting for any more helps and  looking forward to get the volunteers in ideas and persons from other concerning parts or any supports in finance to  pay our local teachers monthly, buying the school materials and etc.

I work actually as tour guide for Siem Reap-Angkor Region. I am working on contract for the Private Travel Agency in Siem Reap. A part from my work I also work for the Homestay Volunteer Teachers Organization(HVTO). I am also the First Customer Receptionist for this Association .Don't be hesitated to ask me any info related to your visit and stay or volunteering for other projects of homestay  in our village. I will be glad to provide you all the info to all your inquiries.

A man who can guide in the village
This is Seaknam Meng, a son of the family,he is a student in High School and also he works as a teacher also. He works hard for his studies and to teach all the children with his colleage in the village too . They  teach 3 hours a day. And he is the only one in the family who can speak English. So if you want to learn our village and join us to teach English in our Class, Come and do it with us here, They are  looking forward to welcome you and take you to Their school.
Seaknam
Our Sponsor from Iceland
This is the family of Seaknam, who will host tourist or volunteer who come to teach the children or come to stay with the Khmer family in the non-touristy village. The mother will be the best cook and greet you warmly and the son will take you to see the things inside the village. Especially if you are looking to learn to cook some Cambodian Typical Foods like Fish Amok or Kakor which are the specialities here in Siem Reap, you are coming in the correct place.
 
They are anxiously looking forward to meet you!
Our sponsor in Toronto, Canada
 
This is BRAGI JONSSON from Iceland.He is our first sponsor both financially and ideas. He has encouraged us to create the website for the project and he will continue to support us and becoming a representative to look for the volunteer and fund raising for Homestay Volunteer Teachers Organization for the program of Free English Class in Sophy village.
Bragi Jonsson
  


Our sponsor From Canada
 

 
When we visited Angkor WatThis is the family of Robin Walker. and our photos when they came to visit Cambodia last year. The family of Robin Walker and his party are now becoming a very important part of Homestay Volunteer Teachers Organization in toronto,Canada. They are raising the money to surpport us continuously. With this financial sponsor we are able to have another teacher to expand our Free English Program in Sret village.This part of Program can provide the Free English Lesson to more than 100 hundred student over there.
 
 

 
 
 
The part of Homestay Volunteer Teachers Organization in Cananda
Mr. Robin Walker and his family
Mr. Don McCutchan and his family
"members of the Canadian law firm of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP"
Our Teacher
This is Mr. EN ONN, 22 years old, he is a student in High School and beside from his studies he works as the English Teacher in our school also.
Our sponsor from France



Our sponsor from France       Isabelle NALET  - French (on the left)
       job :English teacher in high school






      Nathalie MANIVET DELAYE -  French (on the right)
      job: Highschool Headmistress

Information
 Dearest HVTO's Companies!

How have you been doing? Hopefully everything is well with all of you!   
Firstly I would like to thank all the people who have kindly donated money for my One Year Plan of the Basic English Literacy Training Program, without them this highly needed Project would not have worked out. Especially I would like to thank Robin Walker and Don McCutchan and all donors from Canada and Nathalie and Isabelle from France who initially did the fundraising and donated for this project because their money  has come to be a very important STRENGTH for the creation, organization and strong beginning of our organization. Much more than this I would like to thank all of friends around the world who are fundraising to support the organization.
   
 HOMESTAY VOLUNTEER PROJECT, is not descriptive of what the new organization does, so on a suggestion from Friends, we decided to change it to HOMESTAY VOLUNTEER TEACHERS ORGANIZATION which will be the name from now on.
  
I am not very happy with the design and content of our website so I have attended Computer School part-time to learn some important Programs like Photoshop, Coral Draw, Web designer Professional and other programs with computers so I can maintain the website myself and not incur extra costs. It will take me some time to get proficient.
   
As our organization is very new with no strong financial base, we appeal for your support by volunteering on your visits to Cambodia and with ideas, materials, help with Internet Links and especially to the International Volunteer Organizations so that they can send volunteer teachers to stay and help us to teach our children in the school or do the fundraising so that our project can go forward on a good footing.
  
Renate Soeder from Germany has advised us that she will donate a second hand Computer for our administration work and important documents and materials for teaching techniques. Now we need to pay the computer shop when we want to prepare something for our organization. A computer will be very useful!
   
For the organization of the project I have been able to bring some volunteer friends who are Tour Guides like me with different languages, to be a part of and help with the project and in the future I will introduce them to you by posting their names on our website and hopefully if one of you or any of your friends come to Cambodia and need an informative tour guide you would select one of them with your language to be your tour guide. So in the future I will have local volunteers to help with the project.
  
In my last report I wrote that I would write the General Statute of our organization and some papers for its official registration in the Ministry of Interior and now I have finished them. We are ready to send/apply it to the Siem Reap municipal department to forward it to the MOI in Phnom Penh but as we are going to have parliamentarian elections in Cambodia on the 27th of July, we prefer to wait until after the election.
    
We strongly believe that when we have an official registration with MOI we can definitely apply to the International Volunteer Organizations so that we can have foreigners come to help improve the teaching.
   
My team is now discussing teaching techniques so that we can provide efficient English Programs to our children. We have decided to use the Book titled ENGLISH FOR CHILDREN. It is an English text book for children who know the alphabet and can start to learn some words, numbers, colors with pictures and simple sentences.  My boss and some of my colleagues in INDOCHINA SERVICES (Siem Reap office where I am working for) and some of friends have advised that they would donated all these books to our organization.
       
We seem to have some difficulty getting good teachers. We have only one who is really good, his name is Meng Seaknam. He is a student himself but he can still find time to teach the children. He is young and even though he cannot speak fluent English himself at the moment, his teaching methods and his natural talent made him popular with our children who like to come and learn in his class.
So if you are coming to stay with us and help with teaching, you can judge.
 So if you are coming to stay with us and help with teaching, you can judge.   
Our English Program has come to be very competitive with the private local English Training Centre whose people are not very happy with me and our teachers because the students are leaving them to join us (it is an English Training School that the children have to pay for).
     
From 15th July to 15th October is the school vacation in Cambodia and it is true that many of our children have to work to help their parents in the rice-fields during the daytime instead of coming to get the extra English lessons from our school. To continue keeping them coming to our school we have set up evening classes as now we have bought the battery and lights to provide light in the evening.

I have a strong belief that our program will become a helpful humanitarian project to our people and that they can profit from it for their better future. And I also hope to have all of you be a part of it and support it with us !
   
Please let me have any suggestions or questions you may have.
  
With warm and best wishes to all of you from Cambodia !


HVTO team
  
hvto@angkorhomestay.com

+855 12710027