Brisbane hairdresser Bronwyn Ball had always wanted to volunteer overseas but when the day finally came and she left for a remote corner of Cambodia, high on her list of concerns was the humidity — 99 per cent, according to her weather app.

"Not sure if my hair will like it," she mused to anyone following her social feed — by now a frenzy of excited posts about her upcoming mission to "change the world one haircut at a time".

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That and a week without make-up or hair products, as stipulated by Hair Aid, the Australian humanitarian group that sends professional hairdressers like Ms Ball off to some of the poorest corners of Asia to teach mainly women and children — many of them sex workers — new skills and give them choices.

Ms Ball, a mum of three with a thriving home-based salon in the upscale suburb of Bulimba, said she first heard about Hair Aid's work in countries such as the Philippines and Thailand.

"I'd just had my second child. I wanted to go 'save the world' — who wouldn't — but I just couldn't leave the kids. But then there's never a right time, is there?" she said.

A few years later — and now with three boys aged from 4 to 10 — she saw a booth set up by the Australia-based non-profit group at the industry's biggest trade gathering, Hair Expo in Melbourne.

"I've always wanted to go and volunteer, but I'm not good with medical things, and I'm not good at building things," she said.

"But this was hair, and I can do that! Something that I love, and the chance to pass it on — I was all over that."

'It's not just an income, it gives them hope'

Ms Ball said there were strict rules around how teachers and students interacted. ( Supplied )

Ms Ball set about raising money from family, friends and community, achieving what she needed "and then some" to make the trip, which last month took her to Stung Treng in Cambodia's rural north.

Asked why her skills might be needed in a little visited place like Stung Treng, a six-hour drive from the country's bustling financial capital of Phnom Penn, she said the answer was simple.

"The basic idea is to go over there and teach them a trade so they have a sustainable income," she said, adding that many women and girls Hair Aid taught — some as young as 12 — were already working in the sex trade industry.

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"But it's not just an income, it gives them hope. It's about them showing an interest and saying we're proud. They get a certificate — they've never had that, or a graduation ceremony. It's such an overwhelming experience for them.

"It's giving them also a vision for the future, and knowing they're not just stuck with what they're doing. It's also a bit of a confidence boost — some of them have no self-confidence, given the conditions they live in.

"There are some beautiful organisations over there helping them — we just come in and give them the trade. The hard work's already done."

Modesty aside, Ms Ball was full of praise for the "star" in their midst, Tabatha Coffey — a bona fide celebrity in the US with her own TV series, Tabatha Takes Over.

Described by Ms Ball as the "Gordon Ramsay of the hairdressing world" — owing to her fierce treatment of failing salon owners whom she is called in to save — Coffey, who is Australian, joined the trip.

Coffey posted regular social updates of the trip out to her massive following unscripted and unkempt, in keeping with the restrictions on cosmetics and other personal grooming luxuries while in-country, stipulated by Hair Aid.

"We came from all over, and were all different, but we had the same intention: Tabatha — she's a celebrity in real life, but there she was just one of the team," Ms Ball said.

Two nuns walk into a bar

Students practise their comb-over-scissors technique, one of the basic moves of hairdressing. ( Supplied )

Hair Aid founder and chief executive officer Selina Tomasich said Coffey was one of several hairdressing identities to lend their support to Hair Aid, which works with other aid agencies in Asia to establish where its help is most needed.

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Ms Tomasich, who has taught business studies at a tertiary level and started Hair Aid nine years ago after a chance meeting with two Catholic nuns sneaking a beer in a Manila pub, says her passion for sewing led her to charity work in Asia.

"My husband and I had been backpacking for four weeks, and the night before we were due to fly home we're looking for the Aussie football and the beer, walked into this small pub, and two ladies were there," she said.

"I will talk to a fence post because I'm interested in people, and I said to one of them, what do you do? She said, I work for an organisation that collects the children from the street that have been left there because their parents are too poor to feed them.

"The parents have had to make a choice, which of their four, five, six or seven children they'll leave there in the hope that an NGO or an orphanage will pick them up instead of the drug dealers or the prostitute gangs or the mafia, and hope those children will be OK.

"Now I've got three kids. They're all grown up now, but I'd hate to make that decision — which one of my three children I have to leave in the street and hope. That would be a horrendous situation."

Ms Tomasich said when asked how she could help, the nuns said that after the children's immediate needs were taken care of, the most valuable gift their families could receive was a skill to give them a chance of overcoming their immense poverty and disadvantage.

"They can't start a micro business, they can't even do micro finance lending. They are desperately poor. But, if we can give them a skill, find them a job, then we can reconnect the child with the parents and the family will be whole again," she said.

Ms Tomasich initially set up a sewing centre in the backblocks of Manila, taking volunteer students in to work with the locals.

It wasn't long before they identified hairdressing as not only a basic need, but a chance to climb out of the debt and poverty cycle.

"In Manila, it's illegal for boys to go to school if their hair touches their collar, so it's a beautiful ready-made market," she said.

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"I'm not a hairdresser but I came back. I do know how to do business. I put a call-out to the hairdressing industry and they said, yes, we will help you."

Ms Tomasich said Hair Aid now trained more than 300 people during regular trips to Manila, and thousands more across South-East Asia.

"We started Hair Aid in Indonesia last year. We are about to head to our second Indonesia project in about three weeks' time," she said.

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"Very soon, we'll be going into Thailand, working with the ladies that have been rescued from the sex trade and then removed to a safe location, and we'll teach them how to cut hair.

"We also teach scissor, knife and tool sharpening. Fabulous. Two nuns walked into a bar and now I have Hair Aid."

'You can't wear make-up and hair'

Bronwyn Ball (left) and Selina Tomasich (right) with other members of the Hair Aid team before heading to Cambodia. ( Supplied )

Ms Ball was one of a dozen professional hairdressers on the recent Hair Aid mission to Cambodia.

Back at home in her salon, Bronwyn Ball says she's ready to "do it all over again next year". ( ABC News: Freya Petersen )

She listed the isolation, the physical discomforts of Cambodia's wet season, the tragic tales of students and their families as her biggest challenge.

"Time away from your family, not being able to help as much as you want to, plus it takes you out of your comfort zone," she said.

"You can't wear make-up and hair, you're so exposed. And then you have to get up and train people, and I've never done that before.

"I think it was really good for me — I got just as much out of it as my students. I've met some amazing people, and I have a newfound love of our industry and its people."

Ms Ball said while the trip had been emotionally and physically draining for herself and her young family, they had all come out ahead — including her own three boys.

"I think they were quite proud. They'd followed me the whole trip — (husband) Charlie showed them my photos and posts. Their teachers emailed me and asked for photos to show the class, and my son had been talking about what I was doing," she said.

"I'm going to do it all over again next year. Just don't tell Charlie!"