Month: October 2017

Throughout the course of the year from 2016-2017, I participated in many explorations and as well as many events in Phnom Penh. In the exploration and events like Carbon in Cambodia, Ted talk and Tos-Tov project, we had a discussion from interviewed and researched. From those executions, it helps to form us a creative solution where we can propose it to make changes in Cambodia in many ways. I noticed that all of these projects have a huge dramatic impact to Cambodia in term of solving the problem we all experienced in our daily life.

Liger’s mission is to make the change in Cambodia. One way that Liger tried to do in order to reach the goal is through education, educate the students to become a change agent and have the agency through many projects and events that I listed above. Cambodia is a developing country and it’s slowly growing but at the same time, I also faced many problems from my experienced. Cambodia tried to make a lot of changes and improvements already such as education, infrastructure, international relationship and etc. Even though there were many changes already, we still need to work harder and harder to change this country into a better place. I love my country, I want to see Cambodia in the future with happiness, environmentally friendly and especially everyone lives in a happy life. Climate change is a world global issue where a lot of regions already concerned about it already like Cambodia. As a developing country, we can not do much about climate change but we can slowly stop it if everyone takes action from their daily life. In this year I involved in the Carbon in Cambodia exploration where we learned about climate change and focused on the carbon. It’s just a waste of money when people don’t really care about the value and the impact of wasting the food. Before, I didn’t know that wasting food can increase the impact of global warming but after learning in this exploration, I realized that human shouldn’t waste their food even a single piece of rice. Part of this project was to distribute the message that we had learned and created something where we can share to others people around the globe but as well in Cambodia. In Liger we did a small experiment where we tried to calculate the food that had been wasted during our three meals for four weeks. At last, we came up with the idea of getting the data that we collected in Liger, the information that gets from our researched and turned it to a short video clip as well as the graph where it explained the data from our collection. Mostly, in the video, we tried to give out the message and explained about the impact of wasting food. During sharation, we presented the information to a lot of visitors, especially we can share the information with the Cambodian students. After finished editing the video, I uploaded the video to the Liger Youtube channel which was a great way to share the message. Furthermore, I tried to send out the email to the ministry so that I can post my video clip on their website. But, unfortunately, they didn’t reply back so we couldn’t post our video. Even though we did not make it happen but we still have a determination, have a commitment and tried to become a change agent for Cambodia. All of these small steps are really important in term of changing Cambodia. Without a small step, the big change in Cambodia also not going to occur. I’m enjoyed what I had done so far and I promise I’ll continue changing Cambodia in the future.

At the beginning of the school year, there was a Ted talk in ISPP. It was a great opportunity for me and it’s finally time for me to give out the message and shared what I had learned about the impact of air pollution. Because of lack of education that’s why I’m here to give out speech and tried to get everyone to involve the action to fight against the air pollution in Cambodia. Every time that I have traveled, I have seen the effects of air pollution with my own eyes, right here in Cambodia so I cannot ignore the problem. I believe that the facilitators and anyone who traveled around Phnom Penh have seen air pollution too. We are a human being, we’re here to make this world into a better place but now if we take a look to our own region it gets even worse in term of air pollution. It’s not late to stop air pollution, but we need to work hard enough, get everyone involved with this action in order to make it happen. I strongly believed that education is the only way that can stop the air pollution in Cambodia, as well around the world that’s why I’m here. As an example from my own experience, before I get this amazing opportunity to learn in the Liger Learning Center, I didn’t know about air pollution at all. Moreover, I didn’t even know what’s air pollution. After learning in Liger for a few years, I started to understand more and more about air pollution. At the same time, I feel passionate about it and wanted to stop air pollution in this developing country. I can not wait to present the information that I had learned and experienced from my past. Part of my speech was to give out message about air pollution but also propose a solution where everyone can do it in their daily life. The solution is about each individual. If our actions create air pollution, we should be responsible for offsetting that pollution. For example, if we produce a lot of pollution by using vehicles, we can offset that pollution by using a bicycle or walking instead. Another way would be planting trees and reduce the amount of trash we burned. But it really depends on each of us, if we want to stop air pollution or not. “Be your own life and be responsible for your own work. Your dream will become true and this world will have no more troubles with air pollution if we take responsibility.” I still believe that education is the only way to get people involved in the action against air pollution. If Cambodian working harder and harder on this problem, eventually our citizen will live in a good happy environment and we will not deal with any more troubles and diseases from air pollution.

Two years a go there were 8 students including me had a project called TosTov where we tried to create a system to help the passengers and the drivers in Cambodia to interact more with each others. We had this idea from our own experienced, most of the time when I wanted to come to Phnom Penh or go back to my hometown my family always struggled and find a hard time to get the taxi. Even though we know the station, it takes us an hour just to wait for the taxi to leave, so it not efficiency. This’s a major concern from most of the passengers that we had interviewed. So our solution is to create an app where the passengers just message to our server phone number and the app will automatically reply back with the best status for the passengers. The main reason that our team decided to use text message because from our researched, more than 60% of the population use the normal phone and also there is a bigger potential market for our app. As a change agent we always looking for an opportunity to make change and use our knowledge to apply to problem. We have a good team with many skills, some of us work on technician part, some working on designing, marketing and advertising. We’re here to make change in our own country, as a developing country we will face many problems but we cannot ignore it but instead try to solve the problem and find a creative solution that is best for Cambodia. There are many startup companies that tried to solve this issue but they not look at the big picture. Cambodia still new to the technology and not a lot of people know how to use or even have a smartphone. It’s really annoying when we want to go to somewhere but we need to wait so long until the taxi leave the station. From the business perspective meaning the longer they wait for the taxi the more money they will lose. So if we can make this system work it will benefit two things, first the system can help the passengers with efficiency and second it will attract more locals and international business to invest in our country. I still believe that our team can make it happen and I will give my best work on this project to help change Cambodia. I’m proud of my team even though we are young but we can work like the adult and especially we can help change our own country.

In conclusion, as a change agent I still strongly believe that I can change Cambodia. As an example, I already started changing Cambodia from the three projects which are Carbon in Cambodia, Tedx, and Tos-Tov. Liger’s mission is to create change that’s why I’m here and I will try my best, give my best work to make it happen and to change this country to a better place. I love Cambodia, this place is where I started my life and it gives me hope in my life. I want to see the improvement in this country, no one will start to change if we, as a Cambodian citizen not start from ourselves. There are many problems in this country needed to change, so if we put our hard work and find the best solution that could improve the country, we will get something back from it maybe not today or tomorrow but in the future. That’s why we need to start to make change from now and everyone in this country have to involve in order to improve and create changes in this country. I’m proud of Liger that has a huge dream and mission in this country by recruit young Cambodian students teach them to become a change agent. I believe, everyone will try their best to bring the best quality works and projects to change Cambodia into a better country.

Everyone here and in the world wants to change the place that they live and I’m one of them. As I traveled around I saw a lot of pollution going on. Some of the pollutions are coming from the waste of the factories. That waste flow into the river that pollutes the river and effects the fish. Not only the waste of the factory but also the waste that comes from human uses such as rubbishes and the waste that everyone exposes every day to the bathroom. In Cambodia a lot of people have their own vehicle, so every time that they travel even in short distance they still use the vehicle as their transportation. The smoke that come from those vehicles that we call it as the “carbon dioxide” is entering to our atmosphere every time. When the pollution still happen, so the air is full of pollution. Every time that we breath the air in it’s just the pollute air not the clean air. Not only Cambodia that have the pollution but around the world also face this problem too. Before in Cambodia is full of biodiversity with a mixed of different type of animals. But now there are less animals in the forest because more people start to hunt the wild animal. They hunt the wild animals for meat, skin, medicine and other uses. As they hunt more and more wild animals some species will descend into a danger position. Kour Prey is the significant species that only exist in Cambodia but when people try to hunt and deforest a lot this species now is no more left in Cambodia for the next generation to experience it.

In Cambodia there are a lot of pollution happening. If we want to change Cambodia to have less pollution we should try to use less vehicles. What I’m mation here not telling everyone stop using vehicle but what I mean that we should use the transportation in the importance moment and immediately. If we travel in short distance we don’t need to use the vehicle to travel ínstead we can walk and it healthy for our self too. In Phnom Penh there is a company that started the public bus for who that they don’t have their own transportation or don’t want to drive by their self. Most vehicles reduce the carbon dioxide that pollute the air. If we try to use the public bus we can decrease the amount of pollution in the city. This public helps reducing the pollution and provide the cheapest price and safety transportation for everyone. It also help the city to have less traffic on the road, so everyone else can travel quickly to anywhere that they want to go without worry. For who normally burning rubbishes and throwing rubbishes or the waste into the river can now try to recycle those things for the useful stuff, more resources with less money, so then we can decrease the amount of the pollution in this country. Most of the population in Cambodia they have their own TV, so by showing and advertise a short video that educate them about the impact of the pollution. The pollution can make the air smelly and bad for our health also the temperature can change if we increase the amount of the carbon dioxide. When they watch this video and see those effects, so then some people will try to help and support this video by sharing to other people. The more people watch and share the video, so more people will try to reduce the pollution. Education is still the main part that guide everyone to do something with thinking and guide them to walk in a nice way that everyone in the community agree with. For the hunter that usually hunt the wild animal for their own purpose because they are lack of money and resource. They hunt those animals for money from the people that need the meat, skin and medicine from the animal. For the restaurant and for whom that usually pay the hunter for the animal now should stop and instead help protecting those danger animals. The hunter have no choice to hunt those animals but where they belong in their community don’t have any job for them to work. In order to help the hunter we need the investor to help provide the job for them to work in the community, so they will get some money to support their family and no more hunter left.

Liger always think about changing Cambodia as a main point for student project. That project is not only about changing Cambodia but it also a good lesson to educate the student and help develop them. We are changing Cambodia by doing a seven weeks project at Liger. We take a small step to change Cambodia because we are lack of resource. This small step project it will help building the student mind about changing in the future. By doing the small changing it gives us an idea and a useful experience to improve the project after we have enough resource. When we have more resource and more experience we can improve it better and bigger to develop Cambodia.

Education is one of the important sector in Cambodia. In Liger we always think about change and we use the project that we do here and help to change Cambodia as much as we can. This year is the special year that Liger allow us to create our own exploration and choose our own teammate. Last year I decided to make an exploration with four  members in a team that we plan to make the local library for our community. As we notice that Cambodia have less book for the students to read, so the kid don’t have the opportunity to improve their knowledge. Local library is a box that retain some books inside and let anyone that interesting with reading can borrow it to home. This local library is useful idea for Cambodia. We are still learning, so every changing project we need some resources to run the project like this exploration we need the money, book and someone to help us build the box. In each exploration Liger give us with limit recourse, so for the local library we just change Cambodia with small step and try to use as much recourse that we have. We not just use Liger money to run this project but we try to communicate and work with to other organization to help us with the project. We asked them to donate us some books for the box, so then we can create more local library in different places around Cambodia. Our plan to create 30 library boxes to put in Cambodia but as we lack of recourse and have limit of time we can only create some to put in the provinces and the City. As the Liger’s students have the holiday we survey them about who would like to get the library box home, so the kids that live around their home can come to get the book to read.     

Learning in Liger we exposed to many amazing opportunities and projects. But if we take a look to the kids in the countryside most of them didn’t have the accessible resources to the learning materials like the book to read. So the local library is a creative project to get kids involved in reading and as well helping with their learning.  

I think Cambodian people should not throw the rubbish in the river, road and eco-tourism place and beach (our government finds the money a lot from that). The government should develop the places that have a lot of rubbish and put more rubbish bin near that places. My solution was to write a book about it and in the book can talk about the drawback of throwing rubbish and promote them by TV, radio, and teaching in the school.  The big problem that I want to change is logging because nearly every time I went on trips I always saw the people had been cut the tree, especially in Mondulkiri province. I really like science and natural forest if, I have changed I will make more jobs for Cambodia to work and get money to support their family also educate the people that are corruption and let them stop. Also, educate the new generation to know about the disadvantage of logging and corruption and what will happen in future.  

After I think about the problem and solution in Cambodia I had many conversations with my friends especially education and technology in Cambodia. When we describe about education everyone shares their own idea to solve the problem and solution in the feature. One idea that I share with that conversation is teaching the student with more learning project and go to explore outside and the government should spend more money for teachers to support their family. When all teachers get enough money they will teach have a good lesson to teach and they will have more animation to share their knowledge with the students. In the future, if I can I will try to raising money and my own money for teacher and give the students to explore outside by the pre-trips.  

In my third years of learning in Liger, I had been changing Cambodia a lot. In agriculture exploration, I had a trip to Pursat for learned about agriculture in that time our whole groups also went to government schools to teach some English to the students. The thing that we teach them about study material and kitchen stuff. We had the strategies from Liger teacher that they taught us to teach the students in government school by using the pictures, let the student guess the pictures what in Khmer if they know English they can guess it. After one student guess, we told them the word in English and let them speak the word loudly 2-3 times.

I want to share my science knowledge about animals to students in Cambodia to understand about animals.  The exploration in this years was the animal guide and I like it because it was a new thing that happens for me also in Liger. We had been working on this project about 6 months to make a book about animals in Cambodia. This project can help a lot to Cambodian people who don’t about animals and this books will publish in all around Cambodia. This is the small step to educate Cambodian people from now and the future.

As a Cambodian and a change agent student I always want to create change in my own country. No matter how small or big it is, it always a good thing to do to create some sort of change in this country. In this school year, I started to understand more about change agent, I will try to involve more in the project that will help myself to learn but also create changes in Cambodia. I’m so proud of myself to get this amazing opportunity to learn in Liger. I learned so many things here so the knowledge that I had learned from this school will be useful to help others and create changes in this country.

Liger student has different experience and has different knowledge to change Cambodia. For me my exploration is leadership and we learn about electrical safety and we make the games, book, and video to teach the student about electricity because the people in Cambodia they die because they get shocked and the kids are like to play with electricity. We make the book, games, and video because make the kids easy to understand. The trip that we go at Takeo we teach the young kids at the school and we show the games, book, and video about electricity safety and our group give the book, games to the school when the student wants to read to can know more about electricity. We read the english book to the student and teach some english word. When the student saw us have a trip can speak english and have a lot of knowledge the student will try hard when they learning and be brave to like us. We have another trip to Kep to teach the student we teach the same thing when we went to takeo but have some change make it more easy for the student. When have sheraton I am teach the kids from community about ecology and zoology. The cambodia people and people come from another country i am share a what I learn in forest ecology tell the people about trip to mondulkiri like what I saw people cutting the tree hunting the animals because some people they don’t know when we cutting tree and hunting the animals what is the problem.