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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Year Five Changing Cambodia

My fifth year at Liger has passed by really quickly. Like other years, the other students and I have gone through five explorations, three of which are required for everyone to go through. Those three are Khmer Rouge, Waste Management and Climate Change & Human Health related. The other two are Liger Digital Currency and Geology of Cambodia. Each exploration has made at least little changes to Cambodia in one way or another. The two that made the greatest impact in Cambodia are Geology of Cambodia and Ecosystem Services (Climate Change & Human Health related). Besides explorations, I also joined outside-class events that have made changes to Cambodia. One of those events is International Coastal Cleanup Day which led by Soliday and me.

 

Geology of Cambodia is an exploration where I got to learn about geology such as the type of rocks, how they form and how can I relate it to a place to see what it’s like long ago. In addition to learning in class, we took three field trips to different parts of Cambodia including Kep, Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri, and Koh Kong to see the type of rocks the region is made of, learn how to identify the types of rocks and come up with a conclusion on the geological history about the place. As the products of the exploration, we’ve created a Facebook Group and a blog. In the Facebook Group, we posted information about different places in Cambodia including the type of rock they’re made of, the age of the place and how this place got there. The Facebook group has a total of 1,066 members. There have been 25 posts uploaded by our group. Those posts include tectonic plates, Phnom Srey, Bousra waterfall, shale and may other geology-related topics. All of these posts are in both Khmer and English. The Facebook group is there to spread knowledge about how some part of Cambodia is the way it is right now, how some tourist sites get formed and some basic information to geology field. Meanwhile, the blog is there to share about the things we’ve learned in class, the field trips that we took, geology’s vocabulary and what we’ve learned. With our exploration products, blog and Facebook group, the geology group has helped to provide basic information about geology to other Cambodian and explain to them how some part of Cambodia is the way it is right now via our Facebook page and blog.

 

Ecosystem Services is my last exploration for this school year. Ecosystem services are all the services that ecosystem provides to humanity. In this exploration, students were divided into three teams and focus on different things. One of the team focuses on creating a play on lightning safety, the other one focus on building an organic farm and the third one focus on creating a survey about the fish stock. The Lightning group create a play on what to do when there are a big rain or storm and potential of lightning. The play involves everyone in the group. The Organic Farming group comes up with types of plants they should have for the farm that’ll be built on our trip and the benefits of those plants. The Survey group created a 17 questions survey to interview villagers on our trip to find out about climate change and fish stock. We work very closely with Song Saa Foundation, and the idea of creating the three teams also come from Song Saa Foundation. Therefore, a big part of our exploration is going to Koh Rong, where we can work closely to Song Saa Foundation. We went to Koh Rong for one week. At there, the lightning group has everyone do the play for two villages, Prek Svay and Derm Tkov to educate them about lightning protection because lightning said to be increasing. The Survey group also survey the two villages to see if the fish stock is reducing or not and to see if there’s a change in their climate. The Survey team then wrote a report about data that they’ve collected in a survey report format. Meanwhile, the Organic Farming team work with Song Saa Foundation on the trip to involve everyone in our group, a couple of other Song Saa Foundation staffs and lots of teens who live in Prek Svay to build an organic farm in Sala Song Saa school. The farm is built as a model to the villagers that they can build a farm to support their family. To sum everything up, in this exploration we educate people in Prek Svay and Derm Tkov on what to do when there’s potential of lightning, we build an organic farm as a model of what villagers can do as climate change is becoming a problem in Prek Svay, and wrote a report about fish stock and climate change based on our survey.

 

After doing the Marine Conservation from the previous school year, Soliday and I were inspired to lead the first International Coastal Cleanup for Cambodia. Together we chose 30 students including the first and second cohort who volunteered to help clean up our beach. Students were trained on how to keep track of trash they’ve collected so it can be put into an international database for the cleanup day. On 17th September 2016, we drove down to Kep and with some MCC staffs and volunteers, we’ve collected a total of 309 kilograms of trash. These were collected from two locations in Kep. The whole event lasts a day long. When we’ve done with the cleanup, Soliday brought all the data we’ve collected from the cleanup day and submitted them into the International Coastal Cleanup database. Since then, Cambodia name has registered on the cleanup day.

 

In conclusion, the three main things I did on my fifth year at Liger that make the most changes to Cambodia are: leading the first International Coastal Cleanup for Cambodia; being a part of the Ecosystem Services and the Geology exploration.

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Year Four Changing Cambodia

This is my fourth year of being at the Liger Learning Center, here are the Exploration I’ve done this year, VIP, Local Libraries, Marine Conservation, Entrepreneurship and Coding.

VIP: Change Liger
Local Libraries: Reading, Trust, Communication
Marine Conservation: Raise an awareness
Entrepreneurship: Learn
Coding: Learn, Better economic knowledge,

Visitor Information Palace (VIP)
At the end of this exploration we have created a visitor welcome center for our school named VIP. This VIP has change Liger a lot, not much for Cambodia though but at least a little bit. So how has it changed Cambodia? It will give the visitor a better understanding about Liger.

Local Library
We have created a small library box and locate it in front of Liger. We also made some for the other students and facilitators to take home. By doing so the other people, especially kids have access to free books in their community. They will improve their reading skill from the books, learn to take care shared-properties and be honest because they need to sign out and sign in.

Marine Conservation
By the end of the exploration we have written a proposal called “Algal farming as an alternative livelihood for Cambodian fishermen” to proposed to Dom and Mr.Jeff for a whole-year project to see if our solution is feasible or not. In the book there’s also a section where it’s about problems that is happening with Cambodian’s marine and marine life which will raise an awareness to the readers. If Dom and Mr.Jeff accept the proposal it’ll take the Change-Cambodia to the next level, which they have but it will only happen in a small scale. Therefore only a couple of volunteered student will be doing it.

Entrepreneurship
We didn’t make any changes for Cambodia. Instead we learn the process of how to start and run a business by using chilli sauce as an example.

Coding
The goal of this exploration is to learn and create a game where people can create their own economy. Player could invest on different sectors of the economy to make their citizens happy. Overall they have to think carefully and critically about how they want to spend their money. Somehow I feel like playing games, video games in specific, help me think faster. I hope the other players find it the same way as me too.

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Year Three Changing Cambodia

On the third year of being I do changed Cambodia, here are the changes that I made:

● Think about change (what things did I notice need to be changed in my country; what solutions did I think about, even if I couldn’t DO the solution?)

I think the people shouldn’t throw the rubbish on the road, river/lake, Eco tourism place (our government find a lot of money from that), beach (not a lot) and waterfall (leave the food at the waterfall or in the water, I’ve been experienced). My solution is to create a lot of rubbish bin in Cambodia, especially the place that I had wrote, then we can advertise it on the TV, radio, Newspaper and write poster to post it on Social media (Facebook), stick on school wall/building about how important to humans to throw the rubbish in the bin, to encourage them to put the rubbish in the bin.

I think Cambodian should start to use more solar energy and recycle charcoal (link to recycle charcoal) because they can save their money (they are cheaper) and take that money to work on other things such let their children go to school (in they’re not yet), take it to buy materials to put in there house or other things that they need.

Teachers in government school should focus on teaching students a bit more (don’t think about money too much), give the student more chances to share their idea, don’t use violence too much (only use if necessary), don’t sell the test paper to the students and encourage students to try hard more, at least this is what my old school is like.

Older kids shouldn’t fight the smaller one, even though they did something wrong a little bit because they’re younger than you, should not ask them for money and if the smaller one don’t give don’t fight them, again at least this happened at my old school.

● Raise awareness about necessary change (did I talk to others and share my ideas about what needs to be changed; possible solutions? did I talk about that with people? with friends? family?)

I have talked to my friend (Mengthong) about the rubbish just like what I have mentioned. I also talked to the students in my old school that was grade six to not fight the younger kids, don’t go to Internet to play games while they supposed to go to school and take the money that their parents give to school to put in the game (like AK).

Most of my holiday when I saw members of family, my friends, student in government school or people that come to buy something from my aunt stall and they throw the rubbish away or not in the bin I told them to pick it up and put in the bin, sometimes it worked and some not.

● Try to promote and encourage change (did I do my best to teach others/show others/be an example and model of change? did I try to educate others about change? ex: Sharations, trips, networking)

In Liger Tech Support I went to Green Umbrella (an organization in Takeo province)and taught the kids English and played some game with them. Another one was Tiny Toones (Tiny Toones site) and I also taught the students at there English and fixed their computers.

In Poverty exploration when we were on a trip to Kampong Chhnang province, we taught some of the kid and adult about ankle sprinkle and also the exploration.

● Actually create change in Cambodia this year

The actual change that I create was the Cambodia Animal Guide book.