Page 44 - Phonebox Magazine July 2006

From Olney to Prek Taol Floating Village
Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in Cambodia
My name is Nick Butler, I have lived in Olney for the last three years since moving from Whitley Bay in the north east to run a surface material distribution business in Newport Pagnell.
I have always lusted after a job protecting some luscious and threatened environment, populated with mysterious and exotic flora
and fauna. VSO had not seemed a means of achieving this until I started to research the aims and objectives of the organisation. They are to ensure in developing countries; sustainability of food security, education and healthcare – in particular raising awareness amongst local communities to prevent the spread of AIDS.
On previous journeys to Zambia and Malawi I had seen how local entrepreneurs committed to safeguarding their local environment had used its attractions to bring in wealthy tourists, using the cash from their accommodation and activities to pay for schools and health clinics while
providing local employment. In essence community based eco-tourism where if sensitively controlled, every one’s a winner!
The obvious answer
to what I should do
was to find a role
within an eco-tourist
project to achieve
the aims of VSO
while protecting the
local community’s environment, thus
offering them a sustainable future.
And satisfying
VSO’s other
tenet of capacity building, i.e.,
creating a local organisational structure that
can take over management of
the project once
the VSO term expires.
As if by magic such a role appeared on the shores of the Tonle Sap Lake in the middle of Cambodia. OSMOSE a Cambodian NGO organises excursions from Siem Reap (the site of the world famous temples of Angkor) to view the lake’s wildlife and uses the receipts from this community-based eco- tourism to fund education and healthcare programmes in the local village of Prek Taol.
A change in the ownership of the Newport distribution company where I worked was the opportunity to make the break and sign up for VSO with a departure to Cambodia at the beginning of September.
I hope to write for Phonebox a regular account of Cambodian village life and how this VSO sponsored project is helping to safeguard the wildlife of the Tonle Sap Lake. In the meantime with the support of Marcus Jordan, the Olney letting agents we plan to raise awareness and funds for VSO, with an
Nick Butler
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46 Phonebox Magazine