What is the job as an assistant at Chandara Students Home?

At CSH, we want our student to understand the professional world through real experiences. In the team, students can work with us part time to have a first experience as admin officer, events assistant or even graphic designer. Meet Sokunthea who has been working in the team as international program assistant and Lisa as communication assistant.

Can you introduce yourself?

Sokunthea: My name is Son Sokunthea. I’m coming from the 2nd promotion at Chandara Students Home. Right now, I am a 3rd-year student at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. My major is Psychology. 

Lisa: I’m Keat Lisa. I’m a student studying at Essec Business school in Singapore and I’m an intern at CSH.

What is your job at CSH?

Sokunthea: The name of my position is International Program Development officer. I work on the development of partnerships for the students to have easier access to employment and psychological support with our psychologist, Sokhorn.

Lisa: I am an intern at CSH and I am in charge of taking care of the communication and developing the social network strategy of the NGO.

What are your main tasks?

Sokunthea: For partnerships, I am responsible for preparing events such as the CSH talk (each month professionals come to discuss about a topic or an industry with our students), Mentoring program, our annual career fair, and other events like company visits for example. I also help to contact some potential partners and inform the students about our events and activities. 

For Psychological support, I help the social team to host workshops on the wellbeing of the students at Chandara students home. I also write some articles about mental health and self-help tips on our internal website to help the students who face these issues.

Lisa: I took care of scheduling the posts for the following months, organizing the different content we could post on our social networks, such as Linkedin, Facebook, and the Alumni website. The different contents include sharing students’ profiles, CSH activities, testimonies, job presentations, celebrations, etc. Therefore, I was in charge of creating different formats such as writing articles, collecting testimonies from students after assisting some events, and interviewing students about their journeys, …

What do you like about this job?

Sokunthea: My job is always new every day: meeting new people and having a different event each month. I really enjoy working here. The most important thing about the job is not only about the mission but also about the environment and people. There is no pressure. You can work where you want if you think it is comfortable for you as long as you can complete your task on time. I would say I really love working with my supervisor. Instead of complaining about the wrong or incorrect work, she inspired me to find another way to do it. This really warmed my heart. I can say that I cannot find a better supervisor than her.

Lisa: Working for an NGO was really new for me. It is a new experience, I’ve only worked in retail and the environment was different from here. I have now discovered different perspectives and enjoyed working here. The environment includes working with nice colleagues and good managers. I’ve also enjoyed working in communications which interested me in the beginning. I’ve now acquired new experience in this field. The fact of learning new things interests me a lot.

What are the difficulties for you working here?

Sokunthea: When it comes to work, it is not always as easy as you dream of. When I was young, I wished I would grow up, stop studying and work to earn money because studying is really hard. But when I grew older, my way of thinking wasn't the same. Studying is easier than working. The most difficult one is meeting new people. I find it hard to interact with new people or partners at first because I was afraid that I will make a mistake and their position is higher than mine, so I feel really uncomfortable about this. But now I learned how to get over this fear and be more confident. 

Lisa: Overall, I didn’t struggle but it was more challenging as it was my first time having a big duty in communication as I don’t have any experience in this. Also, I would say time management was a bit challenging in the beginning but with adaptation, I could manage my plans more clearly and make sure to complete the objectives of the communication. 

What did you learn from this experience?

Sokunthea: When it comes to work, I have learnt a lot : Teamwork, Preparing an event, Project management, Creating a workshop’s content, Communication skills...

KEAT Lisa: I learned about the NGO background and how an NGO works. Another working environment and management style. Being more organized, the importance of time management and different communication tasks, such as managing social media, and the calendar to reach the weekly goal.