Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Senhoa Work Experience

9 months have now passed since our darling Lotus Buds embarked on their Senhoa vocational and educational training adventure. Currently, the girls are revising all that they’ve learnt to ready themselves for the next and last phase of the Senhoa Jewelry Program- Work Experience!

Work Experience is the natural step after months of learning the 5 Keys to Success (Resilience, Organisation, Getting Along, Persistence, and Confidence) and the 16 Positive Habits of the Mind.

For 6 weeks, the girls will be placed in the real world in different Social Enterprises, NGOs, and businesses to start testing the grounds of what it’s like in a professional working environment. The girls will be guided by their on-site supervisors and the Senhoa team to ensure their peace of mind and slow-building confidence. One day a week, the girls will come back to class, as per normal to share their on-going weekly tasks and to ‘gather round the water-cooler’.

The girls of the Senhoa program have very limited life-experience and are easily intimidated by the vastness of the community outside of the shelter and their homes. The purpose of this experience is to expose the girls to different work fields and industries for personal development as well as their ‘professional’ development. We want to demonstrate and give a little taster to the girls, what it would take to become a productive member of society.

In their placements, the girls will work as shop assistants, kitchen hands, art-work assistants, house-keepers, administration assistants, teaching assistants and more! It wasn’t easy getting the girls gigs. It is a lot to ask from businesses and organizations to take on young, inexperienced, survivors of human trafficking on top of all their own busy day-to-day schedules. All of this is only possible thanks to the amazing managers, directors and business owners of Siem Reap who have agreed to take the girls onboard.

A very SEN-cere ‘Thanks a Bundle!’ to:

- Linda Lam of WanderlustAlign Center

- Deborah Lea Knight from Wild Poppy

- Beck Scougall of The Villa

- Mario Mariapan from Hotel De La Paix

- Alissa Caron of PDI

- Will Haynes-Morrow from Temple Garden Foundation

- Loven Ramos from 1961

For your generosity of time and opportunities!

With big, fat hugs and kisses from,

The Field