Changing Cambodia – 2016-2017

Cambodia is a developing country, what this country want is people to be change agents and now this exists. In term of just approaching the Liger Learning Center, Liger did a really great job on connecting how each thing that they provide us affect Cambodia and also help to make changes. Everything that we give intention on always results as the effect of something. So, there are some reasons to prove that we’re changing Cambodia and we truly are.

A throwback to the exploration called “Geology of Cambodia”, this exploration gave such an inspirational things to help Cambodia. In this exploration, we are studying the history of how rocks form and geological history of Cambodia. Why it is shaped like the way they look now. The goal for this exploration is to spread information about geology to others Cambodian since there weren’t many sources about geology in Cambodia. In this exploration, we traveled to 5 provinces to see, learn about rocks and also do a lot of field research with pencil and notebook in each hand. In term of that, we are the first young bright mind Cambodians who came up with our own problems and solve it. For example, when we travel to the provinces, we saw lots of different rocks that look like ordinary rocks, but despite that we desperately curious of how that rocks are formed and decide to learn and find it out together. We were learning how Cambodia used to look like since it is the rare subject for our national curriculum. Moreover, we had created facebook group and blog for spreading the information about Geology of Cambodia to the public. While we are learning, lots of sources that we are using are from other countries. So, we eager to create our own source for Cambodia about this subject. We are changing Cambodia by commencing to learn a subject that Cambodia hasn’t thought of for a long time ago. By that, I hope that in the future, I have a chance to write a book about all the information about geology and share it to all over the country.

Previously, I am a part of the Khmer Rouge round 4 explorations, one of the final products for our exploration in term of what we have learned is hosting an event at DC-Cam in the favor of having an exhibition about all of the Khmer Rouge products from round 1 until round 4. In round 4, we are in the process of learning the downfall of Khmer Rouge and from now until the future. We have been to Killing field, S-21 and soon will be ECCC. By having what we have known, we want to inspire lots of other people to look back to their past and think. So, the good way of doing that is hosting an exhibition of Khmer Rouge products at DC-Cam since this organization is the most well-known place for Khmer Rouge documentary. We want to share our information about Khmer Rouge to High Schoolers, Workers and many other people to look how Cambodia has grown so far since the Khmer Rouge had fallen. In this exploration, we are trying really hard to come up with a solution to know which is the best way to share. Right now, we had solved it by increasing the next level of thinking and calculating problem to solve and it is also one of the change agents characteristics. In this point, we are trying to change Cambodia by the braveness and intention of young kids to do something that related to its own history. Now, we will do it. We are doing what Cambodia wants the young generation to do. I expect that everyone that join this event will be inspired.

Recently, there is an opportunity offered by Karen and MCC about being a long-term marine field researchers. As one of the students of the Liger Marine Research Team. This opportunity gives a really big impact on Cambodia on Marine Ecosystems. This opportunity is about doing work in a science field and also learning to scuba dive. The goal is to survey the fish population in different marine ecosystems such as Coral reefs, Seagrass beds, and mangroves along the Cambodian coastline of the Kep Archipelago. We will learn how to properly do marine survey including reef, invertebrates, substrates, seahorses, and seagrasses. We will focus strongly on marine organisms while having a good partnership from MCC. As we all know that illegal fishing such as trawling is really causing a big damage to Cambodia marine ecosystems. We came up with a possible solution on surveying marine organisms, including the way to protect our fish population for example by deploying artificial reefs and others project. Some of us will be taking an AP statistics class next year in order to learn how to make statistics of something or how to make a graph about something way more easier. This is a big impact on Cambodia as a new generation to study and do field research about marine ecosystems in a long term. Moreover, it is about the passionate on these students to eager not just to learn, but to implement and deploy our own projects in the real science field. This is a big adventure and challenge for us since we need to travel to our field work to do the projects every month. This opportunity allows us to involve and care more about our marine ecosystem since there are lots of things happening to our ocean. Historically, Liger had many different opportunities for students to learn about their marine biologies such as marine conservation in Cambodia, crimes in Cambodia and lots more project that involve marine ecosystem. This is what happens when Liger introduces them to their underwater marine ecosystems. We will start this project next year after our summer break. These eight students will have a strong commitment and strong intention to put all together the hard work for these long-term marine research.

To sum up, it is important for us as students to start to do something that helps to make changes for our own country. Throughout these projects, such as, Geology of Cambodia, DC-Cam event and one of the students that participate in Liger Marine Research Team, we can know how much Cambodian kids had done and about to start more of their inspirational projects. I hope that in the future, we can create something that more extremely impacts Cambodia as a young kid.        

Thank you!