From Tinseltown to the Trash Heap: One Man, Big Change

YouthGive contributing writer Matt Robertson shares his story from travels in Cambodia:

Huffington Post
More pictures here.

Words from pleading voices ring out: “Scott, take my child…take my child to study, please…please take him!” These words still echo in my mind a month after returning to the States from my exploration through Cambodia. Women bring their children up to us, asking for a chance at education for their child, as we tour through the garbage dumps looking for abandoned kids with no support. These images will stay with me forever.
This scene was one of many I witnessed while volunteering last month at the Cambodian Children’s Fund in Phnom Penh. The experience provided for me an absolutely illuminating perspective, having grown up in a privileged Northern California community, taking excellent education for granted.
I had taken a year off from Pitzer College and used the opportunity to join my mother on a three-month sojourn throughout Southeast Asia. After she returned to California, I decided to continue exploring with one of my best friends. After lounging and soaking in the Indonesian culture and reveling in the backpackers highway for three weeks (good fun!), we decided it was time to look beneath the surface and see if we could return the gift of travel by somehow giving back to the part of the world we were blessed to be traveling in.