Mennonite Central Committee funds an apprenticeship vocational program facilitated by our long term partner ODOV. Last month I visited one graduate of the program who started a mobile phone repair shop in his home village. Our supervisors, the Area Directors, were along for the visit as they were in Cambodia for the first time since COVID-19 broke out in 2020.

Reasey’s Apprenticeship and Shop

After graduating from High School in 2020, Reasey joined MCC partner ODOV’s vocational training program where he was apprenticed at a phone repair shop and learned mobile phone repair while earning a small stipend.

After completing his apprenticeship, Reasey opened a mobile phone repair shop in his home village. It cost him about $4,000 USD to start up his business but he was able to cover the expenses with his apprentice stipend and a loan. He said that many companies in Phnom Penh tried to recruit him to work there but that he saw the potential in his home community since there were many people and no competition. He has since hired and started training his own staff.

He noted that he now had the income to start a family. When I asked him if he had any prospects he blushed and answered “Not yet.”

Ren Reasey shared that it is difficult to find dependable work in rural Mesang district. ODOV’s vocational training program provided him with the business skills, technical skills, and funds to start-up his own business in his home village.

Background

High rates of out migration have left communities vulnerable in rural Prey Veng province. This has primarily come in two forms, both pervasive.

• High School graduates leave their rural homelands permanently to pursue higher education or join the service industry in the city. This has resulted in Cambodia, and Phnom Penh in particular, becoming one of the fastest growing economies in Asia but also in significant wealth inequality and a vast urban/rural divide.
• Individuals with low capacity engage in temporary migrant labor far away from their rural homelands. Crossing the border to work in Thailand is a great risk – it’s common to hear of ‘illegal immigrants’ being forced to work for little or no pay in dangerous conditions – but the income when paid is lifechanging. Sometimes necessity forces families to take desperate action to pay off a medical bill or recover from a drought. Often, parents leave young children behind with extended family or neighbors resulting in child protection concerns. Mekong river destabilization and climate change are dramatically amplifying this dynamic desperation, as traditional irrigation fails more and more of the rural population turn towards to garment factories, construction or migrant labor as the alternative.