In 2011, at the age of 25, Sally Hetherington bought a one-way ticket to Cambodia, with the goal of helping people living in poverty. She soon discovered that voluntourism (short-term foreign volunteers from high income countries like Australia) was causing more harm than good on the local level and that in fact, local communities were becoming more entrenched in poverty. For true sustainable development to happen, initiatives need to employ local Cambodians instead of relying on unskilled and short-term foreign volunteers.

In 2012, Sally made the move from working as a volunteer coordinator at a school for disadvantaged children, to supporting a team of Cambodians to develop a locally registered organisation - Human and Hope Association Cambodia (HHA). They built their own community centre in rural Siem Reap, and developed the locally-run organisation with the goal of helping locals lift themselves out of poverty.

With the ultimate vision to make herself redundant on the ground in Cambodia by 2016, Sally achieved her goal and is extremely proud to say that HHA is one of Cambodia’s first NGOs to become entirely run by local Cambodian staff, with no foreign staff members, volunteers or board members.

in order to continue to financially support local communities in Cambodia, in 2013 Sally founded Human and Hope Australia, a registered charity, to raise funds for HHA so they could run their own projects with their local expertise. Over six years, Sally volunteered thousands of hours before she transitioned to a part-time CEO role in 2019. Sally is a passionate advocate for the reduction and elimination of voluntourism on a local and global scale. This led her to write her first book ‘It’s Not About Me’, which was published by Elephant House Press, and highlights the negative impact voluntourism has on local communities in Cambodia and the world at large.

STILLS TAKEN BY LOCAL HHA STAFF