25th NovemberWorld Challenge 2024: Mission Cambodia
At the end of last term as part of our extended extra-curricular offer, 15 Croxley Danes students from Years 11 to 13 embarked upon a 16 day journey exploring Cambodia for World Challenge.
The aim of World Challenge is to develop independence, teamwork and leadership in the next generation of young people, with a big part of the two-year programme being the preparation for the trip, where students have to raise the money themselves to fund it, source their kit and prepare their individual needs for time spent in an unfamiliar environment.
Accompanied by Mr Oulton and Miss Northridge, as well as a highly experienced World Challenge leader, the team of students took turns to lead and budget for each day - navigating to locations, deciding what food to have and what experiences they wished to explore. The trip was an amazing success with all 15 students immersing themselves in a huge range of activities across the country, including volunteering at the Elephant Valley Project in the dense, monsoon-laden jungle of the Mondulkiri highlands, and experiencing the horrors of the Killing Fields and former prison around the capital Phnom Penh. In addition, we helped out at the Free the Bears sanctuary, feeding the bears and cleaning the enclosures.
The biggest challenge for most came towards the end, when we travelled to the city of Siem Reap, the former capital of Cambodia and host of the amazing world heritage site and Buddhist temple, Angkor Wat. To travel there, students had to complete a three day trek through jungle and hilltop terrain, covering 40 kilometres with local guides. We camped in tents by rivers and huddled down in intense monsoon night time rainfall, whilst dealing with local wildlife and bugs. The students did themselves incredibly proud battling through to complete the trek in the monsoon, showing incredible resilience and looking out for each other when things got tough. We finished our expedition with time to spare which we put to good use, shopping in the markets of the city and rising at 4am for a dawn visit to explore the temples lost in the jungle. The trip was both challenging and enriching, providing the students with memories that will last a lifetime.
After such a successful expedition, Croxley Danes are now planning our next World Challenge trip for 2026 to the Indonesian island of Bali. This trip promises to offer an incredible range of experience for students currently in Years 10 to 12 to trek through the volcanic highlands, work on coastal seaweed farms, volunteer in a dolphin sanctuary and explore the Balinese culture of Ubud and Denpasar city.
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