As a 14 years old girl in Cambodia, we shouldn’t really think change in Cambodia. However, we aren’t waiting for tomorrow; we are changing our own country now. Liger has provided students many opportunities to experience and explore new things and their passion throughout the project which we call exploration. Exploration is a project-based learning experience focused on finding solutions to real-world problems where students work together in groups to explore relevant, often complex questions problem or challenge. Change Agent is a very meaningful word to me, a very inspirational word to me. When I come to learn at Liger I’ve realized that I did make a lot of change for my country. Being a change a gent is not just about how much you understand about the world or country. In fact, it’s about how much you putting effort in contribute it outside to the world. As a young learner and a young generation of Cambodia, I’ve contributed many change to my own country. Even though, it is just a small but to me it means a lot and I’m really honored to these contributions. Below are just some project and experiences I make for Cambodia this year. Enjoy reading.
Khmer Traditional food exploration is a project which basically study Khmer food and helps to promoted Khmer food back. In this exploration, I’ve learned a lot such as skills, to know my goals clearer, interview skills, etc….. In the first few weeks we research and find a restaurant that serves Khmer food and we try to contact them and go visit their restaurant. We’ve sent email to a lot of restaurants but there is only three restaurant that response us back which are Mahob restaurant, Cuisine Wat Domnak, and Sugar Palm. All of those restaurants are located in Siem Reap. Then, we decided to take a trip to Siem Reap for 4 days. The goal of this exploration is to explore more about our own traditional food and how it creates. Also, we want to engaged more with the chef and interview them about their life and their background before they become a chef. Moreover we want to about their feeling as well as their perspective as chef and we also want to know more their challenges and experience as a chef. After interview the chef. I can see that being a chef is not easy but people don’t really see them that way, they don’t give value to the chef, they don’t really support them. However being a chef is very important because either the food is healthy or it can make you sick is depends on the chef. So, this is very important that we should help and spread the words to the people change their mind and start to support the job as a chef. By doing this it will help to encourage as well as to empower to keep doing what they are doing which also help to conserve Khmer food.
Another great project is Indigenous Community exploration which is a project to research and learn about some indigenous groups in Cambodia. For this round we only focus on two indigenous group which are Kui ( Preah Vihear) and Steing ( Kratie). There are 9 theme to focus on and learn about. They are ceremony, food, geography, norm/belief, education/ healthcare, economy/daily life, language, music/art and people/ environment. The goals of this exploration help to promote and preserve indigenous groups. Throughout this exploration we also want to improve our interview skills, writing skills, photography skills, designing skill and video skills. At the end of this exploration we publish a book of Kui community and video of Steing community that help to promote those indigenous group . In order to accomplish this, we went to Preah Vihear and Kratie which we went directly to their community to interview them to collect the information and videos to create the book and to put it on our blog to help to promote their community. I think this exploration had impact a lot to Cambodia because some students and other people don’t even know about what indigenous group is which is a problem that as they are a young Cambodian and they don’t know about indigenous people in their own country. So, by published the books and videos is very beneficial for people.
Last but not least, Khmer Model United Nation(Khmer MUN) is also one of the great experiences to have. Khmer MUN is an event where the delegate of the country come together and find a proper solution the country that they represents based on the perspective of the country. In a conference there will 20 to 30 delegate with 2 to 3 topics. First the delegate will given the speech about the country perspectives on the topic that has given. Then each delegate will come together with the other delegate to make the resolutions for the topics that they have a strong perspectives with. After, the delegates finish making the resolutions. The debate time will start which the main submitter will come up and give a talk and read the resolutions. Then, the co submitter will come up and give the talks on a resolution that they really agree and wants the other other delegate to vote for. Then, the other delegates can come up and give a talks about a resolution that they disagree with or they want to delete which they need to convince the other delegate to vote for. The delegates can also make amendments to delete, change or add to the resolution and send to the chair of the conference. As it was the first time for me to join Khmer MUN it was a bit complex for me but it’s not that complex since I’m pretty comfortable doing in Khmer. It’s great to know more people and work with the other people. I think this one way to help Cambodian children to be more confident in public speaking. Also, it a great ways to help young Cambodian children to learn to work with other to create a change or create a good resolution to help their own country as well as the world.