A Volunteer’s Perspective: William Baird Smith

26-year-old French American volunteer William Baird Smith reflects on his year-long immersive experience working with EYC in 2024.

What made you want to volunteer in Cambodia with EYC? What inspired you to work with EYC?

 I had a few reasons for coming to EYC:

• Since the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve wanted to work with organizations that positively impact those around them, whether by providing healthcare, education, or other benefits.
• My adopted uncle is Cambodian and has often spoken to me about the country and its culture. He fled his native country in 1975 but now returns every few years.
• Before moving to Phnom Penh, I had worked with various USAID contractors. Coming to EYC gave me the opportunity to implement projects firsthand and experience what it is like to work on the ground.
• Finally, I wanted to discover a new country, a new continent, and a new culture. I correctly assumed that I would learn far more than I would teach while I was here. It has been a fantastic experience.

What was your biggest challenge?  What are you most proud of?

One of the biggest challenges came before arriving in Cambodia. I had never traveled to Southeast Asia (to Asia in general), making it impossible to imagine what life would be like. I remember my forehead pressed to the plane window when I landed last November and the rows of houses with Toblerone roofs and the unfamiliar horizon. I thought: this could be the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. But I adapted quickly – I fit in at EYC and did the best work possible. At the end of a leadership training, one of my students said to himself more than me, “That class was so interesting.” That was my proudest moment.

Another challenge was facing a whole class of Khmer students for the first time. It was the Human Library lesson. I could barely string together a sentence in their native language, and here I was, trying to describe my life’s experiences. Forty pairs of eyes stared at me – I wasn’t sure they understood what I was saying or if they even cared about what I had to say at all. They didn’t know me; why should it matter to them? But they welcomed me, sang with me, talked with me, and answered my questions as I answered theirs.  

Can you share a particularly memorable interaction or experience you had with students or community members? What was your best memory of your time with EYC?

The Aziza Thmey Center’s Songkran party was an unforgettable moment for me with the EYC staff and students. The music, the dancing, the food, and the copious amounts of water I was doused with marked me as one of my best memories while at EYC. Seeing everybody celebrating together, laughing, smiling, and having a good time was moving.

What will you miss the most about your time with EYC?

Teaching students is what I found most rewarding and what I’ll miss the most about my time at EYC. To me, nothing makes me happier than the feeling when my lesson really takes off – the energy that permeates the classroom when the students are actively participating and everyone, including myself, is discovering something new. These are special moments where the lesson almost takes on an exciting life of its own—one of these moments happened during the Lakeside public speaking training. There was a shift at some point when people went from being almost too shy to speak to actively volunteering. My students impressed me greatly.

What best captures EYC and EYC students?

The ever-present and powerful sense of community. Everyone at EYC, whether staff, students, or community members, is there to give back to others. I believe this spirit of community, coming together, and giving back is one of EYC’s core defining qualities. It’s what makes EYC unique.

How would you summarize your overall experience in one sentence?

This experience, which had, at its center, EYC, completely altered the perspectives and values I held previously – from what I believed education should be to how I dressed, ate, and functioned in a city – and I think this is because, even if you attempt to resist it, a place will change you, slowly, without you noticing; it will force you to adapt to what it is and change your lifestyle – down to the minutest details; down to how you walk or how your skin burns in the sun; for you have no choice but to be of a place in the same way that it becomes of you, and in twenty years, Phnom Penh will still be of me as I will still be of it, in some small, perhaps intangible way; this is what my experience has taught me: that we leave mutual miniscule marks on all those we meet, without realizing it; that in years to come I will think still of those students who sat before me in Lakeside school and they will no doubt think of me (who am I to say whether it will be negative or positive recollections?); that in a moment there is a lifetime, and that everything ends but never completely – this has been the moral of my experience, which is perhaps best represented not in a single short sentence, but in just one word: community.

My experience at EYC was one of the best years of my life, as rewarding as it was challenging; it taught me things about myself I didn’t think I’d be learning at 26.