Volunteers go to Kratie Province, Cambodia

CWF volunteers learn about the biodigestor

Every semester, the Conversations with Foreigners (CWF) volunteers visit the Cambodian Rural Development Team's (CRDT) headquarters in Kratie Town, Cambodia. From Kratie, they travel by boat to the island village of Koh Pdao to see the projects that CWF helps to fund. The four-day trip includes an orientation to CRDT and an overnight stay in the village to meet local people who benefit from the projects put in place by CRDT.

CRDT was established in 2001 by four Cambodian university students who believed in sustainable and environmentally-conscious ways of improving the lives of rural Cambodians. Now a successful NGO, CRDT has helped over 3,000 families in Northeastern Cambodia. One of the most innovative projects that CRDT helps villagers install are biodigestors--large concrete containers in which animal and human feces are stored. Inside the biodigestor, manure emits methane gas that can be piped into the house for cooking and fueling lights. CRDT's other projects include chicken houses, fish ponds, and eco-tourism opportunities.

One of the greatest challenges for CRDT is finding consistent funding. The Conversations with Foreigners school was created to raise money for the projects. Students pay $40 per 10 week session to study with a foreign volunteer teacher. After the base costs of payroll and school maintenance are fulfilled, all remaining profit is given directly to CRDT. The students who pay tuition to CWF are typically from provincial areas, and the incentive to support their own communities influences many students' decisions to study with CWF.

As a volunteer with CWF and a visitor to CRDT's projects on Koh Pdao, I can see the power of even a small contribution. Every dollar that comes into this organization does something to better the living conditions of rural Cambodians.

For more information about CRDT follow this link: http://www.crdt.org.kh/
To read more about CWF school's contribution to CRDT, follow this link: http://infocwf.blogspot.com/

Policy Paper

Policy Paper

This link will direct you to a paper I wrote for a Senior Seminar about social policy.

Undergraduate Research Fellowship Paper

Undergraduate Research Fellowship Paper

This link will direct you to my complete Undergraduate Research Fellowship paper.

ABSTRACT
This study examines knowledge, perceptions and behavior related to HIV among college students in a mid-sized public university in Nebraska. Approximately 120 participants were selected based on enrollment in a health-focused course in which HIV/AIDS would be discussed. Participants were asked to complete an anonymous pre-test at the beginning of the semester, and a post-test after HIV had been covered in class. Pre-test data showed a very low amount of concern about HIV on a personal level, but higher than expected condom use. The post-test showed an increased knowledge of HIV facts and testing sites, as well as increased personal concern about infection. Responses indicated that although knowledgeable about HIV/AIDS; college students' sexual and testing behavior remained the same regardless of the information given. To encourage testing, and promote HIV awareness, University healthcare should follow the CDC’s (2006) recommended guidelines by eliminating additional consent forms and including HIV testing in routine medical care on an opt-out basis.

Oral History Research Paper

Oral History Paper

This link will direct you to my complete oral history research paper.

ABSTRACT
Following an increase in life expectancy, research about the aged is emerging. Despite a growing body of research, many gaps still exist. This project seeks to better understand older women. It is slowly being uncovered that older women face many of the same challenges as younger women. Existing research on body-image of older women, existing content analysis of advertisements aimed at older people, and comparisons with research done on younger generations of women provides the basis for this project. Although elderly women are commonly perceived only as "old" and removed from contemporary women's issues, an interview with my seventy-five-year old grandmother revealed an active woman who faces the same challenges and enjoys the same rewards as other women. Like women of any age, she cares about her family and her spiritual well-being, as well as her physical health and appearance.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is located in a residential area in the middle of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This former high school turned torture and execution center is one of the most infamous sites in the country because of the estimated 20,000 people detained in the compound between 1975 and 1979.

Just off Mao Tse Toung Boulevard, in an otherwise normal neighborhood, tourists from all over the world arrive at Tuol Sleng Musuem. Under the Khmer Rouge political movement, Tuol Sleng High School was renamed S-21, a code given to the detainment facilities. Now, a small entrance fee allows visitors to enter the former prison. Camera shutters click at the sign with the translation of the Khmer Rouge regulations. The rules established by the Khmer Rouge leaders, including three uses of the word “thwart,” introduce visitors to the horrible confinement of the Khmer Rouge regime.

On a busy Saturday, hundreds of tourists wonder the long line of rooms in Building A together. In each of the former classrooms, a metal bed frame, bent from the beatings, stood silently in the middle of the room. Hanging above the beds are pictures taken by the Vietnamese liberators of each prisoner beaten and left to die at the end of the regime. Although most of the blood has been washed clean from the floor, anyone who looks upward will notice the ominous red splatters on the ceiling. Building A amounts to room after room of the same solemn bed, the same gruesome pictures and the same empty feeling.

The Khmer Rouge kept meticulous record by documenting and photographing each prisoner before the murder. In Building B, thousands of these photos are showcased. The photos show glassy-eyed women with their hair lopped into blunt bobs, and the hard-faced men staring down certain death. Visitors sense the enormity of the genocide as they pass the haunting faces of people who would soon be killed.

In the other buildings, visitors walk down barbed wire-lined corridors and peer into empty rooms with shackles and numbers on the wall. It's not hard to imagine this place as a mass detention center with rooms full of prisoners. The infamous bloody hand print in one cell is particularly frightening, but in context it seems just another remnant of a torture center.

But it isn't just tourists who visit. Many young Cambodians come to the Museum as to remember the struggles or their parents and grandparents. Almost no one in Cambodia went untouched by the mass murders of the Khmer Rouge regime. The next generation of Cambodians faces an uphill battle to rebuild an infrastructure that was demolished only 30 years ago. The effect of genocide is clear in present-day Cambodia, but the resilient people of Cambodia are ready to overcome the past with a focus on the future.