So I've decided to join the International Citizens Service and the charity VSO to volunteer for 3 whole months in the Ratanakiri Province of Cambodia.

Since 1991 VSO has been firmly committed to the development of the country and last year alone helped over 65,000 people benefit from their education services.

The basics of what I would be doing works on awareness, rising agricultural and microfinance projects, including water and sanitation, and supporting small businesses.

Anybody who knows me will know that I have a massive personal interest in Cambodia as a whole and am very well read on the devastation faced in the 1970's at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. From 1975-1979 a total or 1.5million Cambodians lost their lives through execution, starvation disease or exhaustion all in a disgusting attempt to socially engineer a classless peasant society with no western influence or hierarchy. The tragedy still sits heavy on the heart of the country and still has many stories to be told from it's brave survivors, some of which I dearly hope to meet in my travels.

The Ratanakiri Province that I will be volunteering in was bombed heavily during the Vietnamese war, devastating the entire area. Since then, rapid development has altered traditional ways of life. However with only 150,000 residents, the villages are still very sparsely populated, with low life expectancy (39 for men and 43 for women) and extremely low literacy stats, poor infrastructure and a weak local government, it sits as one of the least developed provinces in Cambodia. I'd like to help change that.

So please, if you could throw in any money at all to help me get to this beautiful country, I'd be superbly grateful and more so would be the people in which your money reaches.