Ok so here's the story, Justice Ink was a small little seed that had no name and no description 2 years ago. I had a dream to start a community centre where I would teach people to live their lives to the fullest. To achieve the potential that was inside of them. To start achieving their dreams and goals through simple things like learning to read and write and plan and achieve life goals. I wanted to use my counselling and educational training to create a place where young adults especially could receive holistic life skills instead of compartmentalised skills that they found difficult to pull together to achieve their goals.
At the beginning of 2009 I found myself unemployed and started a journey of planning and dreaming and creating the plans for Justice Ink. Naturally I thought this dream was for Australia since thats where I was but I always had a heart for Asia and as I travelled I started to wonder if it may actually be a dream for Asia. My first love in Asia was Thailand and so I always thought that, that would be where I would start this centre. So my goal was to start moving towards going to Thailand and starting my centre.
At the beginning of 2010 I started working as an Employment Consultant assisting people get jobs and I developed a new set of skills in assisting people work towards achieving a goal and working through that process with them. I met someone who changed my whole idea and planted some new seeds on what my centre should be about and what I should be achieving from starting a centre like Justice Ink. He gave me the confidence that I needed to believe that this wasn't beyond me, I could do this and I could do it well if I planned and worked really hard to achieve it. He helped me take the next step beyond planning and dreaming and move towards action. I created a business plan, a mission statement and the name Justice Ink was born. I also came across a volunteer placement opportunity to go to Cambodia and teach English. I decided this might be a good opportunity for me and give me a chance to see what it would be like to live overseas and see if there was any opportunity for me to take Justice Ink over there. Cambodia was a new and exciting place for me, somewhere that had never crossed my mind before but I thought I'd give it a try.
So at the end of November 2010 I got on a plane headed to Siem Reap Cambodia for a month to teach English and see what life would be like to live and work in Asia, a taste test if you like, a sample of what was to come.
I had no idea how much this trip would change my life, how much it would impact me. I have been in Siem Reap for 3 weeks now and it has been like someone has created the perfect life for me over here, its been tailored to suite me down to a T and its just been waiting for me to come and take it. I have felt so at home here, so comfortable and so alive here in Siem Reap. I have become local so quickly and I love it.
My placement was at a NGO community centre called Self Help Community Centre in a province called the Puok District and although I was originally meant to be teaching english after a five minute conversation with the Director we realised that I would be of much better use if I assisted with team management, goal setting and creating structures and strategies to achieve those goals within the centre. So for 3 weeks I have been working closely with the director assisting him and his staff to organise and plan for the goals of the centre both current and future and it has been amazing. I have learnt so much and been so blessed to get this opportunity. It has been such a great experience.
I have discussed the possibility of creating a partnership between Justice Ink and SHCC in the future and it seems more than likely that we will be able to do that. So if all goes according to plan SHCC will be the first project of Justice Ink. We are working on it and I look forward to what the future holds for both Justice Ink and SHCC as we work together to achieve our goals.
So thats the beginning of the story of Justice Ink, I look forward to telling you more as it happens. The goal now is to go home to australia and prepare and plan to come back to Cambodia for a longer period of time so that Justice Ink can start doing what it was created to do and I am so privillaged and so happy that SHCC gets to be the beginning of that.
Stay tuned as we walk this journey together and the story develops, I am very excited to see where this goes and I feel like I am on the edge of the rest of my life and that both thrills me and scares me but I know I cant go back now, this is it! This is who I am meant to be how can I do anything else?
