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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Local Library

I think that education is really important, especially reading. Cambodian’s don’t read the book a lot because of their family economic so they don’t have money to buy the book for their kids to read so their kid has a hard time in reading and improving knowledge. So the purpose of making this local library is to improve Cambodian kid’s knowledge, reading, but it also tests about their integrity when they borrow the book to home, are they going to bring it back or not? Our group has created this local library to put in Cambodia but now we just put it around Liger community and at our hometown. So on we put this local library about 8 libraries in our community, but the next goal we will put the library boxes around Cambodia up to 30 library boxes.

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Acting as a Scrub Nurse in Children’s Surgical Centre for the First Time

I was given an opportunity to have an internship at a non-profit hospital called the Children’s Surgical Centre (CSC). The internship lasts for about 4 months, one day a week, starting from 8 am until 5 pm. I worked in three departments, rotated through a cycle of 4 departments: ENT department, general surgery, and eyes department.

In the ENT department, my main role was to take note of the patient complaints and doctor suggestions into an online database. I was also bringing medical equipment (simple one) to the doctor and scrub nurse in the surgery room. For the most exciting part of this experience was acting as a scrub nurse, working very closely with the doctor, handling their tools for surgery and helping with the process of cutting the tissue.

For the second rotation, I was involved in the general surgery room where they do most of the bone and plastic surgery. Most of the time, I was observing and assisting of whatever the doctor and nurses needed. In addition, I helped the anesthesiologist nurse taping the oxygen tube and do the basic set up before putting the patient into sleep.

The last rotation of the internship I was in the eyes department. On my first day, I learned how to do visual acuity tests (eye exams) and doing eye pressure tests (IOP). After I got the procedure process, I replaced the nurse job and do it on my own. In the hospital, they still stick with the conventional way to organize the patient documents. Sometimes the nurse needs the patient paper, so I need to search for the right patient document in the organize folder. On other times, I did the opposite thing, I was asked to help to put the documents back in the right folder. Before the surgery, I helped to write the consent letters for patients and thumbprint. On top of that, I also helped to take the patient blood pressure and heartbeat before proceeding the surgery in the afternoon. Lastly, similar to the general surgery department, in the eye surgery room I helped to bring whatever the doctor needs and understand the surgery process.   

In conclusion, I learned some valuable experiences from this incredible opportunity. This internship allowed me to exam my own interest and ability to explore the caring industry in Cambodia.

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Animal Guide

This exploration is call animal guide in this groups there are 13 members in this project. We are trying to help protect wild animals in Cambodia from hunting, lost habitats and to educate Cambodian people to understand how important animals is. We are making a book that will disturbed to all around primary school in Cambodia also to the world. In our book there are 87 species and 7 habitats. I am researched around 5 species and it is the first time for me to make a book and doing research. It’s hard for me to find the information about the animal in Cambodia but it is a great experience for me to learn and understand about it. After we collect all the information from internet and going field trips to research more information from expert or clarify the information. I turned the note that I have been research and turned it into the sentence. Some places that we go to research about our species and to get more information like Prek Toal, ACCB, Phnom Ta Mao zoo and some more places in Phnom Penh. We are not just research but we want to see and understand the real situation of the animal especially their behavior and how it look like. It’s took us almost one year to create this amazing book sometimes we are working extra time to get the final book. What I like about this exploration are that I can know more information about the animal in Cambodia but it also helping change Cambodia by making the Wildlife of Cambodia book.       

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Khmer Literature and Culture Festival

On Friday, May 24, 2019, Liger Leadership Academy had hosted the Khmer Literature and Culture Festival for a day long to share what we had learned and inspired others to preserve Khmer cultures and language. My main role was to invite the speakers to address on three topics such as “Raising Awareness about Cambodian Culture, Khmer Literature Condition in Modern Days, and How to Write Khmer Poem and Short Story?” My opinion after the day was that the speaker session ran very smoothly. As the host of the private session, I noticed that close to one-hundred students showed up in the panel discussion. I was very proud to be part of the event and able to link the speaker to share their experiences and knowledge with the other students.  

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Business Model Competition Update (Chek Rom Lek)

This post will be updating about my business model competition with the Chek Rom Lek project. After our hard work doing our business validation with authors and students we had finalized our idea. Chek Rom Lek is an online sharing platform where students and researchers can conveniently access resources (reports and e-books) in the Khmer language. As a team leader, I was able to drive this business idea and my team into a final round of the competition. We were able to present this idea in front of nine judges and a few hundred audience members. I was proud of my team and all of the positive spirits that we all kept going to push forward. But the most important thing was the exposure to try out new experience and overcome the challenge. The lesson we gained from this project was a phenomenon, it was just a starting point to exploring in the business world. I can not wait to continue Chek Rom Lek project and help to improve literacy education in Cambodia. 

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Conservation Report of the Asian Elephant in Cambodia

Conservation Report of the Asian Elephant in Cambodia

There are two main distinct types of elephant, the African elephant (Loxodonta) and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). There are currently estimated 400 and 600 wild elephants in Cambodia. This keystone species can be mainly found in the Cardamom Mountains in south-western Cambodia, and the eastern plains of Mondulkiri Province. The population of this species had dramatically decreased over the past few decades due to a significant increase in hunting, captivity for human use, habitat loss and fragmentation for agriculture and roads.  

We should not let this negative impacts continue to occur and affect the Asian elephant. The Asian elephant plays an ecological significance role as a keystone species to provide sustainability to their community and ecosystem. For instance, the elephants digging the soil for water, they use their huge mass and their tusks to dig the waterholes which create another available water sources, especially, in the dry season. In addition, when there are more available water sources in an ecosystem it allows other species to realize and have more potential access to this water source. This community service helps other species to no longer needed to travel for long distance to fulfill their thirst.

Another major role of this keystone species is to sustain the food web and maintain the population growth of the primary producer.  The Asian elephants weigh between 3500kg to 5000kg, therefore, they require to consume about 140 kg and drink up to 190 liters of water in a single day. The elephant is one of the herbivorous apex predator and the largest land mammals on earth. The elephants usually travel in an average distance of 25 km on a daily basis while foraging for the large quantities of food such as grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. This keystone species have the commensalism interactions with the fruits, other plants, and animals. When the elephant consumes the fruits they poop back the seeds and help to disperse the seeds in the long distance across the ecosystem. In addition, their dunk is a great fertilizer that can help to maintain the nutrient rich-soils in an ecosystem. Moreover, their dunk also important for other species such as hornbills, banded mongooses, and vervet monkeys because the dunk isn’t fully digested so it can provide nutrients for other animals. Furthermore, while they travel and forage in the vegetation, the elephants create a pathway for other smaller animals to travel but as well allow more sunlight and space that is available for the tiny plants to grow. Not only that, with their huge body and roam over long distances the elephants help to disturb the insects which allow the predators to forage for the insects easily.    

Elephants use their tusks to dig for roots and water or even fight each other. Unfortunately, their ivory has gotten them into trouble because it is really valuable to some people. There is a lot of demand and trading for the elephant’s tusks in Cambodia as well around the world which lead hunting to one of a major issue that causes the population of the elephants decreases so rapidly. Other purposes of hunting elephant are also for meat and leather.  

There is also a huge problem with captivity, the villagers use the elephant for their own needs as a transportation to carry heavy goods. In addition, other tourist companies use the elephant as a tourists attraction and let them ride on the elephant to view the forest at Mondulkiri and view the temple at Siem Reap. However, it is fun for tourists but this is stressful and not enjoyable for an elephant. In addition, in return the elephants usually get punishments with less food, hitting, and capture them in small tiny space.

The Asian Elephant is an important part of the Bunong people’s culture and belief system at Mondulkiri province. Elephants are an important connection to the spirits that the Bunong believe live in the forests, mountains, and houses in the villages.

As the population in Cambodia is growing and developing there is needed to be more available space and expand on the agriculture sector to support the family and country’s economic. At Mondulkiri, the elephant is facing a major threat of habitat loss due to a lot of deforestations from different companies and individuals. The soil there is nutrient rich and has a good condition for agriculture. So there are millions and million dollars of investment that are invested in this particular area to mainly grow cassava and rubber trees. Deforestation isn’t just for agriculture but the people cutting down value and expensive trees for their own business, trading, and personal use.

Habitat fragmentation is another major issue, people starting to build more residents and more roads for tourism but as well to transport those goods from the agriculture to the main city. This lead to habitat fragmentation that suffers the elephant because they will lose their habitat, get less food, cause huge chances to community structure, and ecosystem health. affect their interaction, and lead to a decline in elephant population density. The invasive by human population cause a negative impact to an elephant’s ecological niche and lead to decline their population growth in Cambodia.  

Even though there are currently a few local and international organizations that are trying their potential to preserve this keystone species. However, the population of the Asian elephant is currently endangered. The population will still continue to decrease because we need more conservation actions and more effective ways to approach the above issues if we want to sustain this keystone species. In addition, Cambodia needs to improve our environmental policy and enforcement from the government toward this problems. And due to our current economic circumstances, we need more international support and financing.   

In Cambodia, there are current conservation actions from different organizations and government such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Fauna and Flora International (FFI), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Elephant Valley Project (EVP) and Ministry of Environment. Most conservation actions take place in the Eastern Plains of Mondulkiri Province and the Northern Plains of Preah Vihear Province which is the hot-spot of the elephant population. In 2005, FFI had established the Cambodian Elephant Conservation Group to help sustain and protect the population of this species. FFI had gathered different institutes and work with the Ministry of Environment to provide fundraising and technical support to help to protect the Asian elephant in Cambodia. They had worked closely with the forest communities to reduce human-elephant conflict and raise awareness about the effects on the elephants.

FFI and WWF had also set up camera trapping different places of the forest to understand the threat and gather more information about the elephant condition and their current population. Moreover, WWF had tested the DNA from the elephant’s dunk to estimate the population of this species in the Eastern Plains. WCS has established a Seima Protection Forest at Mondulkiri that had one of the largest protecting areas in southeast Asia. The protecting area helps to conserve the habitat of the elephant population from hunting, deforestation, and other human disturbances. When the team knows any cite of deforestation and hunting WCS will send their team into the forest to stop the human actions.

Elephant Valley Project (EVP) is a non-profit organization in Senmonorom, Mondulkiri province. Their mission is to improve captivity elephant’s health and try to bring those elephants back into their wild habitat by creating a sanctuary protected area for the elephant. EVP work closely with Bunong people to provide the support and education to stop using the elephant for their own needs. Instead, EVP uses the sanctuary protected area to create a tourism place that gives the elephant back their independence, natural behavior, and with hurting them but still provide a unique cool experience back to the tourists. The tourists can observe how the elephants live visually, study about their characteristics but as well providing care and support to help maintain the sustainability of the Asian elephant. The sanctuary help to support the local community by bringing more tourists, create more jobs but at the same time help to protect their forest, natural resources, and the elephants.

The forest, the elephants, and other species had suffered enough from human actions from the past few decades. For future conservation actions, the government needs to implement and improve the enforcement of the law to anyone who contributed to illegal actions that cause an impact on the forest and animals. Local community and citizens play an important role to help preserve our nature. Most of the villagers still have a lack of understanding and education toward their own actions that could cause an enormous negative toward the forest and animals. The villagers have no other option besides getting the advantages from nature, they need to make money, support their family, and get their child to go to school. That is why we need more projects like the EVP that help to support community services and create more will educational activities and actions to make the citizens feel like they should help to preserve and care about our nature. Lastly, the conservation teams that we currently have isn’t enough, we need more teams to fight back the illegal activities that are happening every single day. If we do not put more effort and actions to sustain our nature, in the next few decades we will experience a larger negative impact on our forest that could result in more animal extinction. 

References:

“Elephant Conservation in Cambodia.” Fauna & Flora International, www.fauna-flora.org/projects/elephant-conservation-cambodia.

“Asian Elephant.” WWF, cambodia.panda.org/projects_and_reports/endangered_species/mammals/asian_elephant/.

“Direct Protection to Forests and Wildlife.” Wildlife Alliance, 27 July 2018, www.wildlifealliance.org/.

“Saving Wildlife Elephants.” WCS Cambodia, cambodia.wcs.org/Saving-Wildlife/Elephants.aspx.

The Altruistic Traveller. “Discussing the Importance of Cambodia’s Elephants– An Interview with the Lead Guide of the Mondulkiri Project.” The Altruistic Traveller, 9 Dec. 2016, thealtruistictraveller.com/blog/discussing-the-importance-of-cambodias-elephants-an-interview-with-the-lead-guide-of-the-mondulkiri-project.

“The Role of Elephants in Maintaining an Ecosystem.” Greentumble, 15 Mar. 2018, greentumble.com/the-role-of-elephants-in-maintaining-a-healthy-ecosystem/.

“Corridors Project off to a Great Start.” Save the Elephants, savetheelephants.org/about-elephants/importance-of-elephants.

“Asian Elephants In Peril | Earth Focus.” KCET, 1 Oct. 2018, www.kcet.org/shows/earth-focus/episodes/asian-elephants-in-peril.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4SETSsXkx0

“Asian Elephant | National Geographic.” A Guide to Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park, 21 Sept. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/a/asian-elephant/.

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Khmer Poem Book

Last year, the senior started to write their own poem about any topics that they feel interested to write about. I had written three different poems that were mostly related to education and the issues in my society. This school year we have been working on our poem book and in the first few weeks, we tried to edit to our poem. After we finished our editing, we started to put all of those poems into a format of the book. My first role with the poem book was to write the instruction and show a proper way to write the poem. In addition, my role changed to work as a person who manages and organize the book format. This role was really important because if the book didn’t have the same format it will look so awkward. So when the format was finished the students started to follow and use it as a sample. Even though this job was mainly run by me but I needed to communicate with other students and show them the update of the format since we had a different period of Khmer class. On September 24, 2018, we had our first book draft and it looked astonishing, everyone was really happy to see the book and what we had accomplished from the past few months.  

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Changing Cambodia 2017/2018 (Light the Fire)

The change goes along with passion, action lead to change, the more changes I make, the closer I will reach to my true passion.

I will not be able to find my true passion if I never “force myself” to explore and engage with new projects.

I admit that  I knew nothing about filming or any of the cameras stuff, however, I still want to give it a try. I believed in myself that I’m going to be useful in some way to create this incredible music video in Battambang province. I met Ryan, who was the filming director and he explained the overall schedule of the filming project and I was surprised when I heard that some days we needed to work up to 14 hours. On the morning I wasn’t sure what to help at the start but later on, I started to play an important role as a bridge between the designing team and the filming director. The colors slowly started to appear from the body of the performers as the designers tried their best to be creative within the painting. Each performers’ body was full of solid colors: green, blue, purple and orange. Everyone who involved in the filming project was amazed by my incredible work and the ability to solve the problem and communicate with elders throughout the whole project.   

Normally, the staff would plan and guide us throughout the whole project but for this particular experience, I was so independence. Most of the time, I traveled alone, manage my own schedule, find my own food, and solving my own problems.  

This filming was a collaboration between Human Agency and Phare Ponleu Selpak, and the film was under the theme, “Light the fire.” Fire can easily permeate from one location to another and as a change agent, we should also be the fire. I want to spread my knowledge, and my skills just like the fire, so that I could help to improve my own communities and the country. In addition, with a lot of experiences, I will spread my knowledge through my independence and confidence. I’m old enough to do it alone and to spread my word to the communities just like how the fire ignite and cause the effect.

I continued spreading out the fire through a project called Khmer Sight Foundation’s, a community service that helps to cure the villagers’ eyes for free. I was apart of the team to check the patient’s’ ability to view the E eyes chart. Another big responsibility for me was to communicate with the patients to explain to them the foundation. But also, to provide them support and instructions of what to do with each step when checking their eyes. All of these works were done independently by myself, I was really satisfying to help the patients to get their sight back.        

I could not stop pushing forward to help my community so in the fifth exploration I am currently involved in the exploration called Mosquito-Borne Diseases in Cambodia. Exploration is a project-based learning, where we not just focus on theories and discuss the problems, but also taking action to create impact. In this exploration, our final project is to do on data analysis report about dengue fever around the school community. The risk analysis was focused on two main villages, Champous Kaek and Koh Krobey and we interested to find the associations of the main three variables: knowledge, behavior, and perceived risk. For the future plan, we would like to distribute out the report to the village chief, local clinic, and the government. In addition, we decided to do an awareness campaign that could help to remind villagers to clean their surrounding environment in order to decrease the risk of getting dengue fever.

Change agent permeates the changes for the community just like the fire with a powerful movement, confidence, and independence. My other three friends and I been thinking about spending our summer break doing cycling around Cambodia two years ago. As we are now independent, we have the knowledge, and we are ready to roll the plan to create impact in this country. I want to inspire those young students, show them how STEM and project-based learning could better their lives and their community.

Aside from that, I also believed this is also another great opportunity to expand the survey and the data analysis, seen we will cycling around Cambodia we could interview the villagers along the way.

As a change agent, I believe in change, I believe in my own words, I believe in my community, I believe that what I share today will be a potential to create impact tomorrow or future. Tina Seelig said, “Passion follows engagement,” the more we are involved, the more passionate we become, I get my passion from engagements and from the journey to create change for Cambodia.

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2016/2017 Yearly Reflection

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.

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2015/2016 Yearly Reflection

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.