Leading up the tour, the boys and Hale Service Learning Coordinator, Mrs Jill Maskiel, spent many months fundraising for the new school and collected many extra kilos  of donated toys and equipment which they took with them to give to the children in the various orphanages. 

The tour commenced in Vietnam where the students visited several orphanages, shelters, and children’s homes. After spending four days at one orphanage in Hoi An, significant connections were made with the children. After Vietnam, the boys then travelled to Cambodia where they spent time visiting projects supported by WA based Charity Ride Aid. Again the boys had a wonderful time interacting with many disabled and homeless children and those from exceptionally poor and rural areas.

The Cambodia trip culminated in a real high with the opening of the “Hale” middle school, in a small village two hours out of Phnom Phen. This middle school caters for poor local village children and compromises two large class rooms and equipment.  Hale Headmaster, Mr Stuart Meade, joined the boys for this leg of the journey and officially cut the ribbon for the opening.  This school is part of Ride Aid’s undertaking to build ten new schools in rural Cambodia. The opening of the Cambodian Hale Middle School was the emphasis of all the boys fund raising, but the relationships the Hale boys were able to make with the underprivileged children was the feature for them.

Year 12 student Alex Newman said, “This has definitely been a life changing experience for me to see such poverty. The people living through it really made me aware of how well off I truly am living in the world I live in. It has put those things I cherish and value into perspective a whole lot more. I truly feel it was a great experience, something I will take with me forever.” Alex was not alone with this thinking; the tour touched each and every one of them, several now planning to make careers out of medical charity and aid work.