As one Cambodia’s foremost professional schools, the Don Bosco Technical School has been recognised by the government as a model educational facility.

With branches in Sianoukville, Poipet, and Battambang, the school provides thousands of young people the opportunity to learn a trade every year.

The quality of the teaching is such that graduates can find work right away and are highly sought after by employers, thanks also to the country’s sustained development, which increasingly requires highly trained workers.

The school is run by the Salesian community, which has been present in Cambodia since 1991, and offers specialised training in various fields (electrical, mechanical, printing, automotive, among others).

A lot of work in the school is done by missionaries who come to the country as volunteers to teach, serve as guides and help out.

The “Don Bosco Phnom Penh community has received many volunteers from a variety of countries and continents over the past 29 years,” notes Fr Arun Michael Charles, delegate for mission outreach in Cambodia.

These volunteers include the “young and retired people, whole families with children or gap-year college students, fervent Catholics or from other Christian denominations.”

The Salesian “community strives to accompany them during their shorter or long stay, sharing the same table and working as partners in the same Don Bosco mission.”

Fr Arun adds that volunteers “join us for all our daily community activities (prayers, meditation, mass, meals),” sharing “the dream of Don Bosco by living and working together.”

What is more, “Since the age of the volunteers vary the combination of us all is like an [international] family”.

The school belongs to the Don Bosco Foundation of Cambodia, established in 1991 to help young people in extreme poverty and favour the education of marginalised children. The goal was to help the country rebuild after years of fighting and Khmer Rouge rule.

The school was the first to write, translate and print educational textbooks, which had been destroyed under the Khmer Rouge.