Mile Glamcevski is a doctor with a PhD in mental health, medicine and education. He hadn't planned to move to Cambodia until after he finished his post-graduate studies 30 years ago and sat next to a gentleman at a formal dinner in Melbourne.
Through the conversation with the man who was a university teacher in Cambodia, Dr Glamcevski found out that night about the education system in Cambodia and accepted the offer to be a lecturer to teach neuropsychology at a university in the country.
“I asked him how come he was teaching a subject different from his PhD, and he said ‘because there’s no one else to do it. The job is yours if you want it.'
“It took me only a few minutes to think about it, and when I found out I would be paid 17 dollars a month, I finished my glass of wine and said ‘OK, I’m in!’,” Dr Glamcevski told SBS Macedonian.
He says it was difficult and challenging to work in Cambodia when he started in 1993. The university building where he was teaching, had no water, electricity, windows or doors.
In the absence of a blackboard, he would write and draw his lectures and notes on the walls of the classrooms.
He spoke no Cambodian, and the students did not speak English. He found himself in a country he didn’t know, and a community he didn’t know how to fit in, as he didn’t understand the position these people came from.
Dr Mile Glamcevski during a First-Aid course in Cambodia Source: Mile Glamcevski
“During my classes, I’d ask a question and expect the students to raise a hand, but that was not happening. At first, I thought they couldn’t understand me, so I started gesticulating and drawing on the walls.
“But that didn’t help either, until one day another lecturer told me not to bother asking the question as no one will ever raise their hand,” he recalls.
He says the students believed that anyone raising their hand would get shot in the back of the head.
It took two years for Dr Glamcevski to build trust and develop an open relationship with his students.
His students turned out to be high achieving and are now in some high and important positions.
“Seeing your own students, becoming lecturers or even head of departments, makes you proud and you instantly forget every obstacle you came across this period,” he says.
Captian Mile Glamcevski has been an Australian Army reservist for 11 years. Source: Mile Glamcevski
Knighted in Cambodia
A reservist with the Australian Army for the last eleven years, he was knighted by the King of Cambodia, Norodom Sihamoni, earlier this year for his distinguished service for over 25 years and his voluntary work in the field of the mental health.
He credits his parents, teachers and parter for his achievement.
“You can’t do anything on your own in this world. Starting from your upbringing - the parents, the educators, the teams you work with, your partner – they all equally deserve the same portion of your success. Award is given independently, yes, and it’s very nice, but these things can’t be achieved by one person only, this is a massive group effort.”
After spending four years in his full-time teaching job, he switched to a visiting role in 1997 and currently spends two weeks every month in Cambodia.
In Australia, he works as Operations Officer in the Australian Army, and as the Victoria and Western Australian general manager for onPsych, an organisation that provides mental health and welfare support to 400 schools.
He is also a long-term volunteer with St John's hospital, currently as Divisional Training officers - teaching paramedic science to volunteers. He has also run over 100 First-Aid courses in Cambodia, which tremendously helped the community.
He says he loves being a volunteer and doesn’t feel he’s doing something for free because he is learning through the process.
Captian Mile Glamcevski has been an Australian Army reservist for 11 years. Source: Mile Glamcevski
"If I care for you, you care for me. I do for them, and they do for me."
That’s the kind of society Dr Glamcevski says he wants to live in.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he is logistically supporting the Australian Army that’s deployed throughout Victoria, with anything they need, including doorknocking for those that are in isolation.
But he doesn’t see it as “risking his life” and says he’s doing it for the greater good of all the Australians.
“Effort and reward – these are the two things that will guide you throughout your life."
'You can be whatever you want'
Dr Glamcevski has post-graduate qualifications in mental health, medicine and education, and has provided mental health support to schools in Australia, Malaysia, Turkey, Cambodia, Nauru and East Timor.
He has published over 25 papers so far on different topics and is something he tries to do at least once a year.
He currently spends 10 days in Melbourne, doing volunteer work at the St John’s hospital as well as doing his duty as an Army reservist. For two weekends every month, he flies to Cambodia to teach, and as his partner is a teacher in Vietnam, he chooses that home as a place to recharge his batteries from the everyday hustle.
He says he couldn’t be prouder of his Macedonian heritage and recalls how while growing up, his parents always reminded him “you have to become something in life”.
Now, at almost at the age of 50, the modern-day knight jokingly says: “Don’t listen to your parents, you can be whatever you want.”
