Melbourne lecturer Sarah Rogers is helping create a new generation of social workers in Siem Reap to combat child sex trafficking from within the community. Now, her ACAP students have the opportunity to join the work.
Sarah Rogers knows that international social work is most effective when it changes systems and builds up communities and capacity.
That’s what she teaches her social work student at ACAP University College’s Melbourne campus where she is a course coordinator and lecturer, but it’s also what she does herself in Siem Reap Cambodia where she now works as the Program Manager of local organisation Free to Shine.
Sarah left her home in Melbourne and moved to Cambodia when she decided to take up the job in Siem Reap a little over a year ago. She has been supported by ACAP to continue working as a lecturer and course coordinator remotely while working for Free to Shine.
Though she’s now balancing two jobs while living in a new country, she said she wouldn’t change anything because of the social impact the Free to Shine organisation is having on the lives of young girls.
“This organisation focuses on preventing child sex trafficking by working in local communities,” Sarah said.
"We work with school aged girls and their families from very poor rural backgrounds. We look at how do we make girls safe and the community safe for girls? How do we increase their safety across food, shelter, housing? How do we increase their protection within communities and how do we keep them engaged with school as a real preventative tool for exploitation?"
Sarah said most of her work involves building up local capacity for social work, to ensure the community is empowered to enact change. She said the community already holds the expertise and a deep understanding of the problems they face, and capacity building gives them tools and funding they need.
“Work like this helps build up capacity within the community, and is a really effective way of making change when you compare it to some of the more problematic and damaging activities such as voluntourism which is really widespread in Cambodia and actually contributes to the number of children trafficked in this country,” she said.
“My role in Cambodia is to run the day-to-day organisational operations, and to develop the social work capacity of local Khmer social workers. Social work is a fairly new profession in Cambodia, there isn’t even a Khmer word for social work, and it’s really hard to get social work degrees.”
Many of the people Sarah works with practice para-social work, which means they work with communities but don’t have the formal qualifications, and Sarah supports them by capacity building; discussing theories and practice approaches they can use in their community work.
Students on board
Now, Sarah is bringing her ACAP students along for the experience.
Apart from using some of the day-to-day ethical challenges she faces in her role to her classroom practice, Sarah has organised a trial placement for ACAP students studying international social work in Cambodia.
In February 2025, the first student will arrive in Cambodia to complete a 12-week placement as part of their Bachelor of Social Work course. She hopes to expand the placement program to more students in subsequent trimesters.
"This is great for our students because you get an opportunity for cross-cultural knowledge sharing and you are in your placement, experiencing the community and the culture. Our student is going to be placed at a brilliant organisation in Siem Reap called This Life Cambodia, and I'm going to provide the social work, support and supervision."
ACAP General Manager Lara Jacques said ACAP was proud to have educators like Sarah making an impact in International Social Work.
“ACAP is dedicated to providing an education that cares, and this fabulous opportunity for our students to complete a placement internationally in Cambodia under the expert supervision of Sarah exemplifies that commitment,” she said.
“We know this will be a rich learning opportunity and a chance for our students to contribute meaningfully to social work with impact in Cambodia. That’s why ACAP is supporting placement students with a bursary towards their flights and travel costs, to ensure equal access to this opportunity.”
Interested in a career that cares? Explore at: ACAP | Accredited Social Work Courses