After travelling to Cambodia and Vietnam a group of Bega High School students agreed their expectations had been challenged and their perception of what it meant to be poor had changed.
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"In a way they are richer than us because they're happier than we are," Year 10 student Kataya McCormack said.
"We get upset because we can't have the brand new iPhone.
"You realise how lucky you are compared to them. We've been given all these opportunities like education, and it's not that they don't want to go to school but they can't."
"Seeing people so happy with what they've got makes you appreciate what you have," her classmate Gemma Smith said.
The 10 students returned to Australia on the weekend after spending 16 days travelling Cambodia and Vietnam for sight-seeing as well as visiting and supporting community projects.
This year they raised $17,500 to donate to community projects.
One was Global Village Housing, where the students helped to build a home for a family of at least eight in the Cambodian town of Kep, who had a sad story behind them.
The mother and father had married young, but as the wedding was not approved by their parents they had to move out of their family home.
They had been paying $15USD rent a month while only earning $1USD each day, so were thrilled to be able to move their six children into the house built by the Bega High students.
"We saw a video of people being told they were getting a home and it was so cool to see their faces light up," Gemma said.
She said the houses her group built were in the same place as the houses built by the group in last year's Bega High overseas excursion.
"It's not just giving them a home, it's setting them up for generations," she said.
"Because the homes get passed down," her classmate Luella Boulton said.
While they have returned home the students have not finished thinking about the community in Kep just yet.
Both this and last year's excursion groups have met up to discuss organising fundraisers so they can help the children in the community get an education.
"The kids don't go to school. So we will do fundraisers to buy a second-hand tuk tuk so a monk can give it to a good man in the village and he can drive the kids to school in the morning, then make a living during the day," Gemma said.
Fundraising ideas being discussed included a concert and will be announced in the future.
Visiting the two countries taught the group a few lessons.
"We should take every opportunity we can get," Luella said.
The students are all now keen to travel overseas again after their trip to South East Asia.
"I'd do it a million times over," Year 10 student Georgia Carpenter said.
Albert McKnight
Journalist at Bega District News.
Journalist at Bega District News.
