My First Reflexive Diary with DJ

D E S T I N A T I O N   J U S T I C E

Memorandum

Reflexive Diaries

Project	Justice Sector Internship Program
From	Destination Justice
To	Justice Ambassadors
Date	05 March 2014

My First Reflexive Diary

          First, I would like to introduce myself. My name’s PEOU Dara. I am a part-time legal intern at IBJ. I came from Battambang province. After I have finished foundation year of law, I applied for volunteer in other institutions. That is, I applied to be a legal intern or lawyer assistant at the International Bridges to Justice (IBJ). However, before I have worked in IBJ, I also worked in the Context Translation Service as a volunteer for only two weeks. Then I decided to work with IBJ when I was passed the last interview. At that time, I thought I like working with NGOs, so I decided to resign my old work in the translation company. But I still think that both places are very good place for me to work. Because I will gain a good ability and knowledge, especially I want to know how to translate and interpret from Khmer to English, from English to Khmer. Meanwhile, I also think that legal service is also good for me because it is fit to my major. Moreover I wanted to help the victims.

          Now I’d love to talk about my internship at my workplace. According to my opinion, IBJ is good place to help the people who are lack of the legal service for them because the citizens are poor, so they can’t find the legal service to help them. But now it has IBJ to help all of them to get a good result. Moreover, I am really excited with IBJ that has a good vision to help the citizens around the world especially in Cambodia. While I have worked with IBJ, I didn’t have the real task to do so far. That is, I worked in general task that I can help my program officer. I am happy to help them whatever I can do. Therefore, the work that I have done are I frequently brought the letter of defending the clients, letter of releasing the clients out of prison to Phnom Penh court, to Kandal court. In addition, I went to send the letter to other offices through provinces at bus station, and I also received the letter at bus station but it is not very often. I used to work with street law’s lists through provinces. I just counted the positions of each participant in the street law of the lists. Otherwise, I used to help other works. After I have worked with IBJ for a while, I learnt about the environment of workplace that we should know. As we have known that atmosphere and environment of workplace is very important for the worker because when we have learnt about this point. It will help us to know about the situations of workplace, people and the process of the work, too. Sometimes, I have reflexed through the situation of work.

          Even though I have worked not too long, but it made me to understand of some parts of the work processing. I think I like a special skill in my life. That is, I like keeping the relationship with the people me, having a good relationship, but I also want to improve some parts of my life. I want to improve my trust. For example, sometimes I didn’t trust myself when I want to do something. I thought that it might be wrong and not good enough if I express my idea to the publicity, so I really want to strengthen this part to be strong. Furthermore, I want to strengthen my writing and research. I think both parts are helpful for me and other students. I think my writing is acceptable but it is not good enough so I want to get more strengthen about. However, one part that I have faced in the present is research because I don’t know how to research in order to get efficiently. I hope I could improve my writing and research after I have learnt with Destination Justice. Even though it is not too long for this term workshop but it still can help us to improve some parts.

When I have worked with IBJ, I also have done some achievements as well. For instance, I used to bring some letters to the courts to get the success, too. In addition, I helped preparing the workshop successfully.

Meanwhile, I also have the problem while I make workshop though provinces. Namely, nowadays, I have worked in the Career Advising Service which is a place to provide the knowledge how to choose the major logically for the high school students after they graduated high school. But when I make a presentation or share knowledge I felt a little bit shocked. So I think this is my weak point that I should strengthen it, right.

Sometime I think something that we have learnt from university and workplace are different because university contains only the theory but workplace contains the practice more than theory. But some theory that I have learnt from university is also help me too. Beside these, university is still good for the student but we have to take theory to link with practice. I hope after I have finished the workshop with Destination Justice, I will bring this knowledge to help me in writing, do research.

Last but not least, I would like to say thank to Destination Justice that provide us for these workshops. I will send you the next reflexive diary next week later.

Thank you,
Best regards,

PEOU Dara
Cambodia Legal Intern
International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) Cambodia
#25K, Street 488
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
www.ibj.org