Developing social awareness and engagement through the creative arts is an arts-based service learning project led by the University of Newcastle (Australia) and Dr Catherine Grant.

Dr Grant will accompany six undergraduate creative arts students from the university's School of Creative Arts and travel to Cambodia for three weeks in June-July 2015. The small group will be hosted by three non-profit partners: Music Arts School; Empowering Youth Cambodia; and Cambodian Living Arts. Students will undertake creative, research-based, learning-and-teaching, and other activities that support the work of the three non-profit partner organisations. The students will also undertake basic Khmer language studies before and during their travel.

With only a few days before they take off one member of the group, Emily, wrote on the project's blog about her excitement for departure, her willingness to learn from the experience and her desire to, '...nail the phrases "hello', "sorry", "thank you" and "bathroom"...'.

We are looking forward to reporting more on the group's learning experiences over the coming weeks and will showcase an edited version of their video performance report on this page when they return.