The team will fly to Cambodia next year to help build basic homes for families and experience a different way of life.

Before heading over, each team member must raise $2000 – the cost of a house and well to provide fresh water.

Team leader Maryanne McKenzie made the trip in 2015 with her eldest daughter Lauren and, after friends followed their trip via Facebook and said they would like to do it too, decided to organise another trip.

This time she will take son Hugh, 14, with her.

“You come back really changed and realise how lucky your are … you don’t whinge about much at all after seeing how they live,” Mrs McKenzie said.

Five mothers and their five teens, aged 13 to 16 when the trip will take place, will travel together to Cambodia as well as another mother and teen, friends of the McKenzies, from Perth.

The trip is organised through Tabitha Australia, a group building homes and a women’s hospital for people across Cambodia.

“They have lots of teams that get together and go over and build houses as part of the Tabitha build project – homes for families that are living in slums and need good homes above ground because in the monsoon their homes flood and the shanties would sometimes disappear in to the river.

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“It’s a great thing to do with the kids of today. We have everything we want.”

Before arriving in the community where they will build the homes, the group will tour the Cambodian killing fields and museums dedicated to the memories of thousands of Khmer who were tortured and killed during the Pol Pot regime.

“These are all families affected by the Pol Pot regime, who are still recovering. Generations were wiped out yet they still manage to smile,” Mrs McKenzie said.

She said it was difficult history lesson to learn, but gave the teens and adults a better appreciation of what the Cambodian families they were building homes for had been through.

Local builders will erect the frame and roof of the house before the Ballarat builders arrive, and once there they will hammer in bamboo floors, put on the tin walls and complete other building works.

“It’s really hot, humid conditions to work in but the family who are going in to the house are around and watching, and they are always thanking you and saying hello.”

The families are also part of a budget and saving program that Tabitha Australia coordinates, and they make a contribution toward their new home.