Last school visit, wellbeing, HIVE Rotary Club

Last school visit 🚙

Following the July workshop, the final target school follow-up visit was completed last month, along with the concluding project survey of the target teachers. (Look out for the survey results in next month’s issue!)

Since the project began, we have visited the target classrooms around seven times over the past two years. Each visit leaves us impressed by the transformation taking place. After every workshop, the newly introduced materials appear in the classrooms, and teachers often go a step further—creating their own works inspired by resources on the website. With each effort, classrooms grow more lively, colorful, and engaging. In some cases, handmade materials even spill over into the teaching resources area, a vivid contrast to the nearly empty classrooms we saw at the beginning of the project.

Reflecting on these changes, we feel deep gratitude for the teachers’ dedication and collaboration.

The preschool term ended in late August, and now teachers are preparing for the new term in November, when they will welcome a fresh group of children into classrooms that we are confident will be even more dynamic and inspiring.

Wellbeing session 🌱

Have you ever heard the word wellbeing? It refers to “a state of physical, mental, and social wellness.” But how can we reach such a state in our daily lives? To explore this, TUKTUK held a special workshop led by Cerrie, a voluntuker who has been in Pursat since March. Through her company, Mindful Moves, she supports individuals, organizations, and local communities in strengthening health, wellbeing, and meaningful connection.

During the session, staff members reflected on their own experiences, discussing:

• What is most important to them,
• How satisfied they currently feel in their work and personal lives, and
• What they can —and cannot —control on their own to increase satisfaction.

To close, each staff member completed a short questionnaire about their level of satisfaction. This will help TUKTUK identify areas where we can provide greater support. Based on these insights, we plan to design future workshops that continue to promote the mental and physical wellbeing of our staff.

Khmer of the month

Khmer Word: Sdaay

September 29 is the United Nations’ International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. In Cambodia, where rice, vegetables, and fruits grow abundantly and leftovers are often given to livestock, it is common to see people leave food on their plates—even in restaurants. Each time this happens, we feel a sense of sdaay, a word that means more than wastefulness, carrying with it regret and respect for food. We hope children learn from an early age to avoid sdaay by taking only as much rice as they can finish, both at home and in preschool.

Khmer Food: Spay Chhruok Cyea Muoi Sach Chhuruk (Fried pickles with pork) 👇

Special visit from the HIVE Rotary Club, Australia 🐨

Last month we were delighted to welcome visitors from the HIVE Rotary Club in Australia. The HIVE Rotary Club is strongly focused on youth activities, and this time they visited Cambodia together with eight high school students (Year 10 and Year 11) as part of their efforts to promote period education and raise awareness about this important topic.

During their visit to TUKTUK, they took time to learn about the work we do in Cambodia and were especially interested in our book projects. Since we create educational books for children, we found a wonderful point of connection: the possibility of collaborating on a new book that helps children understand their bodies and the changes they go through as they grow.

The idea is still at the very beginning stage, but it is exciting to imagine working together on a child-friendly resource that could also introduce early sex education in a positive, supportive way. While nothing is confirmed yet, the conversations opened the door for what could become a meaningful collaboration that will benefit children in Cambodia and beyond.

We are grateful for their visit, their interest, and their heart for education. And we look forward to seeing where this first meeting might lead.

Voluntuker spotlight | Althea

This month, we have Althea from Spain, who arrived in Pursat the day before our July workshop and spent the next day energetically helping us with our two-day workshop. She continued to be very active during her three-week stay, helping out in the office and on visits to preschools.

What is your current occupation? I am a medical student currently doing an Erasmus exchange in Coimbra, Portugal, aspiring to become an orthopedic surgeon.

What is your impression of Cambodia/Pursat Province when you first arrived? When I first arrived, I was struck by the warmth of the people, the simplicity of daily life, and the strong sense of community. It felt very different from Europe, but immediately welcoming.

What did you do in TUKTUK? I supported basic IT skills and creating educational materials in the workshop, formatted and published Tukbooks in English on PublishDrive, laminated educational resources, took photos for communication purposes, and visited schools to see how teachers used these resources.

What is your most memorable experience as a volunteer? The most memorable part was working side by side with Cambodian staff and teachers — sharing meals, learning from their routines and culture, and realizing how education and health are deeply connected.

Friendly and charming, Althea quickly became familiar with the staff, and after leaving work, she went to exercise and eat dinner with them, becoming very much a part of the Cambodian community. When they visited the preschools, she quickly became popular with the children! At the farewell party, she treated us to authentic paella, and it felt like we all went on a delicious trip to Spain together 😋.

We are currently looking for volunteers with the following skill sets to help TukTuk bring educational resources to Cambodia;

• Google Ads
• Fundraising
• Website Development
• Videographer

If you want to get involved or know someone with skills that could help us spread positive education in Cambodia, hit that link below and say hi (we're friendly, we promise). 😉

Get Involved ⇢

Tuktography highlights 📸