Category: Changing Cambodia

At the end of each academic year, we are asked to write a reflection on the following questions: How did I think about change? How did I raise awareness about necessary change? How did I try to promote and encourage change? How did I develop the possibility of change? How did I actually create change?

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Mondulkiri Youth Camp

From April 2nd to the 6th, I was attending a youth camp in Mondulkiri that was run by the World Renew organization. It was a three days workshop with 68 participants came from four different provinces and Liger.

On the first day of the workshop, we got to learn about Nutrition. We learned about the three groups of food, the nutrient that our body needs daily, and many types of vegetables and fruits that contain difference nutrient. This was one of my favorite topics to learn because then I can take that information that I’ve learned to cook healthier food for my apartment mate. On the same day, we also got to learn about democracy leadership. There are three types of democracy leadership: autocratic, laissez-faire, and democratic. Autocratic is a type of leadership skill where leader tell their member what to do. Laissez-faire is when leader tell their member what to do or let them do the thing they want. Democratic is when the leader asks the member to give a voice of their ideas.   

On the second day, we got to learn about immigration in Cambodia. Many Cambodian moves to another country for many reasons: study, job, new home, family issue etc. We learned how to move to another country safely because many Cambodian immigrants were having issues in the foreign country after they move there.

On the third day was a special day for us because we got to lead the workshop. In the morning, I and the other three students including another eight students from the four provinces were doing a workshop on drugs. The workshop goes so well, the student has learned a lot from our activities while also have fun with it. At last, we got to show our educational short film and let them let create their own performance about drugs to perform to other students. In the afternoon, we also got to lead a workshop run by another group of Liger student about AIDS and HIV.  

One of my favorite highlights was at night of the last day. We got to see the performance from the Bunong people about the dance and music. We all really enjoyed this time, I got to dance, other people got to dance and we also got to take a photo together with the Bunong performer. After that, we had a campfire to finish the day.

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Drugs Workshop

          Drugs is one of the biggest issues in Cambodia as well as the rest of the world. In my exploration, we are working with eight students from World Renew organization to raise an awareness about drugs in Cambodia. On March 17th, 2018, we had gone to Sway Rieng province to lead a workshop to raise awareness of the danger of drugs usage.

          In our workshop, we divided into four big topics: types and effects, drugs trafficking, prevention and methods, and Reasons and symptoms of drugs user. There were about 180 students showed up, as well as, local authorities. We divided the students into four teams and each team stays with one organizer that lead one topic and after that, we rotated four times so that each team gets a chance to learned all topics.

          During the workshop, the students participate very well. They asked good questions, wrote down important stuff, and answering questions very well. At the last minute of the workshop, we also get to show a short story that our team had made that was talking about the effects of drug usage in one family. It seems out that they really enjoyed the story, they were laughed, smile, and kept talking about the father character because he also there as well.

          Besides the workshop, we also premiered our educational, short film at night in the village that we ran the workshop. The turn out was amazing, with a lot of people, enjoying the film.

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Gender Summit

We live in a society where human rights have never been equal. I and the other 11 students with two facilitators had created one workshop, call Gender Summit, where our goal is to Creating Humanitarian Awareness for the Necessity of Gender Equity (CHANGE). In this workshop we divided into four sessions under the theme of “Empower Change while Preserving Culture”. Our four sessions are power, economic, language, and culture. We ran this workshop in two days on the 26th (English) and 27th (Khmer) of January 2018.

We had invited around a hundred students from around Phnom Penh to participate in our event. During the event, I and another student has a job of making sure the event runs smoothly. So as I walked into each session, the students seem to participate a lot. They asked good questions, raise up good ideas, learned something new, and they also have fun with their teammate and their session leader.

At the end of the event, I can see that people have different opinion on gender equity based on where they live and what they have learned from their society. Some people have idea which I disagree, however, I can’t say that they are wrong because they lived in a different society where I do; there might something dangerous that limit them. Although, they have learned a lot and their ideas have changed a lot in the positive way of how to treat people in society.

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Sea Festival

On the 23th through the 24th of December, I and the other 11 students went to Kep to participate the 6th sea festival. It was a really big event there, there are so many sports to play like biking, running, boxing, swimming, volley ball, Frisbee and more. Not just sport that is hosted at the event, there are so many more stations that are selling or trying to promote their product. Even though, they’re so many things to do there, we decided to only participate in Frisbee because Frisbee is new to Cambodia and therefor, we want to promote it

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We work with the Swa Ultimate Cambodia and divided the people into four small teams and compete together to find the winner. On the first day, we are just trying to promote Frisbee by doing a friendly match together and at the same time, trying to interact with people and asking them to play. Something that is also fun on the trip, but not hosted by the event was trying to find places to eat, there are one time that we end up eating dinner around 11:30 pm.

On the second day, the real game had come. My team played pretty well and we haven’t lost any, but in the last game we play to find the last two teams to play final, we lost. Even though we lost the game and can’t get to the final, we still have fun and enjoy the game. It was a great experience with amazing people at the amazing event.

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LMRT – Third Adventure

On November 16th through 19th, The LMRT was down to Koh Seh again to improve our diving and survey skills. This particular trip was focused on practicing on fish survey and doing a substrate identification exam. Diver are very lazy, they kick super slow just like a turtle walking on land. But doing this fish survey is the god of laziness, we need to kick much more slower than a normal diver, around 1.5 – 1.7 meter per minute. Personally for my first dive to practice the fish survey was super confusing and difficult. We need to responsible for many things and that’s was too much for us. Also to swim super slow was the most difficult for me because it’s uncomfortable and it’s also my first time to do it. But as time past, we were always getting better. On the fourth dive of practicing the fish survey we all done fantastic, our speed was on the right track, we took a lot of information and I even saw a super tiny octopus that was like one centimeter or even smaller than that while focusing on the speed. I’ve got a good eye right? Not just we have done a really good job or the practicing fish survey, but we also pass the substrate identification exam. We are waiting to do our real survey!

Photo of me checking out the grouper in the art official reef.

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Climate Summit

Climate Change is the biggest disaster on Earth. Climate Change can cause many things to happen like drought, flood, sea level rise, rising temperature, rising ocean acidification, and many more. Me and the other 11 students had run one workshop, call Climate Summit. Climate Summit is a workshop where different groups of people represents different country or region and they all need to come up with the solution to reduce the co2 emission. The co2 emission now a day is 4.5 degrees Celsius per century and the goal of this workshop is to reduce it to well below 2 degree Celsius per century. We had invited many schools around Cambodia to joint our workshop like JPA, Zaman, Little Heath, NFO, and Logos. The workshop was going pretty well, and at last they end up with the co2 emission of 2.6 degree Celsius which was not our goal but pretty good.

PHOTO COMING SOON

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Vex Robortic

The robot is amazing, they can do many things where human can’t. In one of my exploration, we had learned about building and programming the robot. I used to do a competition in Singapore on Lego robot. This time we had to build our robot to compete in Taiwan for the Vex Robotic competition. I had worked as mechanical team to build the robot. For my experience work on mechanical was a bit difficult because Vex Robotic is new to us, so we need to understand of every part and what its job. Another problem is that we don’t have enough time and we also don’t have a clear design of the robot. For us to attend on the competition was awesome because we can represent Cambodia, but what’s more important is, we had inspire a lot of Cambodian students since we are the first team who join in this VEX competition from Cambodia. On the day of the competition we had met lots of amazing people. Something I find out that sock I was, one of the team controller had practice controlling for like two months and that almost the same amount of time for us to learn and work on the robot. However, we did our best for the competition, we end up with played six games we won three games. At last we also got one trophy the Judges Award. Then we spend the time left to enjoy Taiwan.

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Changing Cambodia 2016-2017

Being a Liger student, I always think of being a change agent in my country. Liger provides us a high quality education and many projects that have a really big impact in Cambodia. To be a change agent, it doesn’t matter on how big you had changed, many small changes can make a big change, but if you already make a big change that is great. I have joint many projects in Liger, but there are three projects that have a really big impact in Cambodia. Those three projects are Marine Research, Iron Deficiency, and Waste Management.

 

The ocean is the main sources of supporting life on Earth. Cambodian is lacking in knowledge about marine ecosystems and how they are important for our lives. Few knows that the ocean provides food, transportation, and tourism sites, which enhance the living condition of humans. We can see the forest is getting destroyed, but we can’t see the ocean is getting destroyed because it’s hidden from our eyes. With the lack of education, this ecosystem is diminishing due to illegal trawling and electrofishing. I am one of the members of the Liger Marine Research Team (LMRT). Our goal is to survey the coral, seagrass and mangrove area along the Cambodian coastline, of the Kep Archipelago. In order to accomplish our goals, we will work very closely with MCC (Marine Conservation Cambodia), an organization that is trying to conserve Cambodian ocean from all the threats, for instance, illegal fishing. By doing this project, we can then use the information from our survey and turn it into a report so we can share this information with other Cambodian. By sharing this information about Cambodia ocean ecosystem with other people, they can then understand how important our ocean are. When fishermen have a better understanding of the ocean, and why they need it, they will help to protect our ocean. Not only protect the ocean, but they will stop using illegal fishing method such as trawling and electrofishing because it destroys all the marine ecosystems that touch it. Furthermore, having our team doing research about the marine ecosystem in our country might convince other people to do it as well. In conclusion, Cambodia ocean is damaged and threatened by illegal fishing and an uneducated population. We passionately want to know more about our ocean ecosystems by conducting marine surveys. We can then share our knowledge with fishermen, citizens, governments and protect our ocean.

 

Anemia is a condition in which a person has fewer red blood cells than a normal person and usually happens to women and children. Red blood cells contain iron which our body need for transferring oxygen from the lungs to the tissues. Generally, Cambodian is not well uneducated and is a poor country. Most of Cambodian don’t have enough money to buy all those healthy foods. Around 43% of women and 53% of children got iron deficiency anemia in Cambodia. We work closely with the Lucky Iron Fish company to do this project. Lucky Iron Fish produces an iron fish that use to cook with the food (must have water) to release a small amount of iron that store in the fish to your food and it releases a perfect amount of iron that your body need. With this fish, even though the family doesn’t have enough money to buy healthy food they can still use the fish to give the perfect amount of iron that their body need. This fish cost only 5$ but it can be used up to 5 years. Therefore, the family can save a lot of money. According to the Lucky Iron Fish, it states “After using the fish for one year the rate of iron deficiency in Cambodia decreased by 43%” This clearly shows that the fish is really helping to decrease the percentage of iron deficiency in Cambodia. We had done a workshop on three different places in Siem Reap about iron deficiency. In the workshop we had taught them about iron deficiency, healthy food, and the importance of Lucky Iron Fish including how to use it. Moreover, we don’t sell the fish to them, but we actually give the fish to them for free.By doing this workshop, I can help many people to be aware of iron deficiency and tell solution of the problem to them. But this is not the end, they will tell this to their family, friend, and the people that they care too. In conclusion, iron deficiency is one of the biggest health issues in Cambodia. Cambodia is a poor and uneducated country, people don’t have enough money to buy all those healthy food and some of them not even know what are the healthy for them.Our team had worked in the Lucky Iron Fish company to do a workshop in Siem Reap about iron deficiency and the solution to this health problem.

 

Our Environment is an essential part of our life. A clean environment is very necessary to live a peaceful and a healthy life. Now the world’s biggest problem is pollution. Pollution is caused from many things, but one of them come from trash. Now, most of the trash goes directly to the landfill and more than 97% of our food-waste ends up there. When organic waste dumped in landfill, it undergoes anaerobic decomposition (because of the lack of oxygen) and generates methane.When methane released into the atmosphere, it is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Instead, those 97% of organic waste should take to make compost. One of my project is to promote the compost business idea to the community of Chompus Kaek. As there is a lot of organic waste in this community, we don’t want them to throw away and affect our environment, but instead, we want them to make compost out of it and earn more money for their family. We think that this is a good business for them because they can easily access to the market where people throw a lot of organic waste away. Moreover, n this community there are a lot of farmers so that mean they’re going to have a market for this compost business. Our team had interviewed many people in this village, as the result people are willing to make compost in this community and many farmers also willing to buy it. We call this a Win Win Win business because the farmer can buy the compost which is cheaper than the fertilizer and also their crops will easily get the market because people willing to buy organic food than inorganic. Our environment will get better because there is less methane release from the landfill. Our compost maker also get extra money for their family as the waste from the market used to cost nothing. This clearly shows that this business is a good business to do. In conclusion, the world and Cambodia are facing with trash problem. All the trash is going directly to the landfill even though some of it shouldn’t go there. Organic waste is one of it, they release methane because it it undergoes anaerobic decomposition (because of the lack of oxygen). So our team comes up with a compost business. The farmer can buy with a cheaper price than chemical fertilizer. Our environment also gets less methane release, and the compost maker also can get extra money for their family. So, we call this as a Win Win Win business.  

 

In conclusion, this year I have joined many projects that involve in changing Cambodia. There are three projects that have a really big impact in Cambodia. Those three projects are Marine Research, Iron Deficiency, and Waste Management. In marine research project our team will conduct marine surveys. With those surveys we can then share our knowledge with fishermen, citizens, and governments. In Iron Deficiency project our team went to do a workshop in Siem Reap to teach people about healthy food and the food that contained iron. We also give them a product which use to cook with the food so it can release iron to the food. This helps them to prevent iron deficiency as they don’t have enough money to buy all those healthy foods and food that contain iron. In Waste Management project we help to reduce waste in the community by telling them about the compost business so they can collect all the organic waste in this community and turn it to compost beside throw it away to the landfill and causes methane to release. They also can use the compost to sell and earn extra money for their family. Those three projects are my top projects that have a really big impact in Cambodia.   

 

 

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Liger Marine Research Team (LMRT)

I’ve been chosen with the other seven students to be the Liger Marine Research Team (LMRT). We are really passionate in studying marine research and protecting our ocean. In order to do the marine research, we need to know how to dive properly, we had worked really hard during our summer break to study the dive course. However, in order to do research, we need to have the budget to go to our search site, buying equipment, and such more. We had submitted a three year grant to a foundation, requested a budget of $15,610 and they have accepted our grant. We were really excited for the grant and hoping we use this money well to protect our marine ecosystems, educate our people, and follow our passion. For our marine research project, we will focus on three different types of survey, fish, invertebrate, and substrate. On the 28th of September, 2017 we went to Koh Seh, where our research location is, and we stayed there for about 5 days. We’ve there to do our open water diving course, and learning new skills of scuba diving. It was a bit difficult for the first time because we are new to this, however, our effort pay off. We are now certified as an open water diver. We will visit the island every month for one weekend. In the next three years of our research, we hope that we can educate people about the importance of the ocean and help to protect it.

 

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Beach Cleanup

Plastic is one the world’s biggest problem.there are about 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide and more than one million bags are used every minute. For me I think we need to clean the plastic now because if they get into the micro plastic it will be super hard to clean them. On the 17th of September, 28 of the Liger students and around 10 foreigner from different country join us to do beach cleanup at Kep. This event happen all around the world but Cambodia never participate. So we spend half of the morning and half of the afternoon picking up rubbish at different two locations at the coast of Kep beach. We collect a total of 85 trash bags for the two locations.I really join doing this because it really wants to help and care of the environment . I was proud of myself because my group is the first ever Cambodian to participate. I was exciting that MCC (Marine Conservation Cambodia) staff come and join us too and they were all foreigner. But the most exciting part for me is that not just us and the MCC staff come to join the beach clean up, but we also get help from the the people in the community and the seller at the beach too.