[00:00.10]From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.74]this is the Education Report.
[00:05.76]Cambodia has about 3,000 recognized non-profit groups.
[00:11.96]Some work on issues such as violence
[00:15.47]against women and human trafficking.
[00:18.49]But few Cambodians are trained for such work.
[00:22.75]That is now changing with the country's first
[00:26.57]university-level degree program for social workers.
[00:30.93]Yoeung Kimheng grew up near the city of Phnom Penh,
[00:35.19]he saw troubling social problem,
[00:38.39]but few people were in a position to help.
[00:41.73]Now, thanks to the university program,
[00:45.14]he himself may soon be equipped to help.
[00:48.46]He has finished a four-year program
[00:51.32]in the Department of Social Work
[00:53.38]at the Royal University of Phnom Penh.
[00:56.28]His class is set to graduate later this year,
[01:00.59]it would be the second graduating class for the department.
[01:04.95]23-year-old Heng Puthika was part of the first graduating class.
[01:11.12]Now, he has found a job at Transitions Global,
[01:14.97]a non-government organization
[01:17.38]that works with victims of human trafficking.
[01:21.07]Social workers often work with people
[01:23.92]who have suffered emotional damage.
[01:26.68]Yet, until the University started the department in 2008,
[01:31.83]there was no degree-level program in Cambodia
[01:35.80]for training social workers.
[01:38.19]Outreach groups have traditionally depended on foreign experts
[01:43.46]or largely untrained local staff who learned on the job.
[01:48.98]Ung Kimkanika is a faculty member in the department.
[01:53.54]"So I think to have the situation is Cambodian,
[01:57.18]and only Cambodian or Khmer people
[01:59.10]would understand well about the situation," said Kimkanika.
[02:02.10]The Department of Social Work
[02:04.50]at the Royal University of Phnom Penh
[02:06.95]has a partnership with the School of Social Work
[02:10.46]at the University of Washington in Seattle.
[02:13.97]Through that partnership,
[02:15.77]Ung Kimkanika and other Cambodian students
[02:19.46]went to the United States to study and earn Master's degrees.
[02:24.08]Now, they've come back and are teaching other students.
[02:28.44]Kim Chanravey was part of the first graduating class last year,
[02:34.40]now she works with Hagar International,
[02:38.05]a group that helps abused women and girls.
[02:41.95]Her supervisor at Hagar, Wei Wang,
[02:45.42]praised the graduates working for her group.
[02:48.42]"I think that with a four-year degree behind you,
[02:53.39]you have more of the theoretical foundation.
[02:55.54]You have a better understanding of how to look at things holistically
[03:02.51]and assess things from a community strength-based approach.
[03:07.61]Whereas if you have to train on the job,
[03:10.51]a lot of time it's fairly haphazard
[03:12.22]because you're trying to get somebody to do something fairly difficult
[03:16.37]but you only have two trainings,
[03:18.33]rather than four years of solid foundation," said Wei Wang.
[03:21.13]The social work program at the Royal University of Phnom Penh
[03:26.16]will likely become even more important in the coming months.
[03:30.21]A war crimes court is nearing the end of one part of a case
[03:36.07]against former Khmer Rouge leaders.
[03:39.22]Faculty member Ung Kimkanika says the decision of the court
[03:44.65]could bring back bad memories among survivors of the Khmer's rules.
[03:50.52]And that's the Education Report from VOA Learning English.
[03:55.97]I'm Avi Arditti.