Johan Gehring: a technical teacher improving the education of Don Bosco teachers.

The Hands of Don Bosco - The volunteers are persons who want to share their skill and science with those persons in the world with less opportunities. They are often associated with organizations or institutions that promote it. Throughout the history of Don Bosco in Cambodia, since 1991, many persons have come from different countries to be with us since two weeks to years, just to train our youth. There are not words to thank their effort, sacrifices and love for humanity. Their work is written in a very big book in Heaven.

Johan Gehring was born in Kerkrade, south of the Netherlands on August 8, 1940. Profession: Auto mechanic, welding and teacher in technical education.

Professional history:

1961: Teacher in a technical school.

1962 - 1982: Teacher of degree courses in high school and middle school.

1982 - 1996: Manager in technical section and director of the school. He retired in 1996.

1996: He traveled also to Curazao, in the Caribbean Sea, working there as a volunteer of the PUMP in technical advisory.

1997: He came to Don Bosco Technical School, Phnom Penh as a volunteer working for the same institution. after Father John Visser, the rector of Don Bosco Phnom Penh, asked to PUMP a manager. Knowing his experience in schools, PUMP asked Mr. Gehring to come to Cambodia to this project.

What was the first problem you met when you come to work in Don Bosco Cambodia?

There were not teachers in Cambodia then, so we have to train young new teachers to have a best skill.

How many times have you come to Cambodia?

Exactly, 8 times. As my wife is a nurse, sometimes she comes with me so she helps something in her skill, especially with prevention. She got in contact with the sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta in Phnom Penh. My wife led courses in prevention of the HIV twice. The name of my wife is Joke Gehring. In all this time, ten years coming to Cambodia, I have seen the young growing: those I knew as boys, are now grown men, with families and a best standard of life: that means we are doing well in Cambodia, they are the real results.

What differences can you count in these ten years coming to Cambodia?

In my first time in Cambodia in 1997, I remembers the plain stopped at the middle of the airport, there were no cars, roads were dirty, they were not roads actually, no traffic lights, near the rivers everything was sand... now things are more beautiful in Cambodia. In that time most of the students were orphans, many eat once per day only because they studied in Don Bosco... My wife was helping in the infirmary and the boys appreciated her very much due to her cares. I think Cambodia is growing a little bit quick: in ten years all of this have been very quick. In the Netherlands we needed 20 to 30 years after the war, here in Cambodia many things have changed in just ten years. The economic level is growing and it is nice to see. I hope that most of the people can follow it. Now I can see that in the city houses there is a television set, but things in countryside still bad. Before people were walking, today most of them have a motorbike.

You have been in other poor countries, how can you compare other countries with Cambodia?

I have been working in Uganda and Kenya and they are poorest than here. In Uganda, for example, everything is poor and there is not much presence of religious orders working for the people like the Salesians in Cambodia, at least I never have met a priest, a brother or a sister, and that is a disadvantage, I think. In Uganda people live without money, just changing what they produce - barter -, but if you have to go to a clinic, you would need money... but about Cambodia, in comparison with those countries, there is more organization that Uganda does not have. I have been also in Arabia and Jordan, but those places are full of rich people and many electronics in the cars that they do not know how to fix.

Why do you like Cambodia?

I like Cambodia because the Cambodians are friendly, very motivated in learning, full of energy and open. In Africa in stead people are more slow. The Cambodian students ask a lot of questions, are more interested in the people, if they have free time, they continue learning, it does not happy in a country like Uganda were the boys do not ask and after lessons just they do not study. Cambodians are all the times welcoming you.