The article has been originally published on FutureChallenges

Soluy Hansen was a young adventurous woman who wondered through life experimenting different things in Cambodia but always believed in the saying that “everything is possible.” One such experiment was living in a pagoda and interacting and spending time in the jungles with monks who enriched her with the Buddhist philosophy and practice. Another was praying with members of a Muslim community at a provincial Mosque which cleared many doubts she had about Muslim religion. She also spent a few months with soldiers at the Preah Vihear province a border area where there were constant conflicts with neighboring Thailand.

All her experiences show that that she was willing to engage in activities which were usually a social taboo. Women in Cambodia are expected to stay at home, not to mention about living in pagoda or with soldiers. Her message to other young women in Cambodia was to get out of the comfort zone in order to learn.

When she spoke at a civic mobilization conference on June 4th, she inspired many others with her experiences. I was also amongst these speakers where I was also given a chance to inspire a great number of audiences; but instead, I felt that I had more inspiration from the other speakers whose personal life stories were very powerful and compelling.

Over the past few years, civic mobilization in Cambodia has gained momentum with the emerging power of digital and social media. Unlike in rice production where farmers awaited the rains for a good yield of crop, the young generations no longer await the initiatives from the government or civil society organizations to yield results.

They are taking their own initiatives through social movements led by youth groups and mobilizing their peers to be the agents of social change for the sake of their country’s well-being. Having attend some of these social movement, it is promising for Cambodia to see many young are very proactive and are willing to sparkle their dream for the country development.

A number of events including TEDx Phnom Penh, KhmerTalks, Cambodia Women in Business, and Barcamp Phnom Penh has been highlighted. Please read more on the original article published on Future Challenges

Get Trapped by Kids’ Smile and Kisses

It was an early morning of Monday 29^th Oct 2007, when a group of youths from different institutions gathered in from of the University of Cambodia to depart for exploring a rural Cambodian Community in Kompong Speu province, organized by Youth Network for Change.

After spending about 2-hour drive, we arrived the Orphan Care and Training Organization (OCTO) which is a center helping about 90 orphans whose parents were dying of HIV and these venerable kids are brought from other provinces such as Koh Kong, Kampong Cham, Kampong Thom and where else. It is located in Deiambel 1 Village, Trengtroyeung commune, Phnomsruoch District, Kampong Speu province.

It was my amazing experience with these kids. Their faces were wearing love and hope. Without delaying, our members choose 3 or 5 kids to set up a group to be able to discuss and help to educate them on health and socio-cultural arena. Then we gathered in a whole group to reflect on our discussion. They are so brave, intelligent and quick learners. They could performed traditional dances and played the jokes very well. Comparing to other kids I have met during the community explorations, I could see the different is that these orphans are taken cared and well-trained. Yet, their teachers are the young voluntarily youths who are still in high school and coming from different provinces. It is another impressive appreciation to them who is devoting their effort and time to help kids.

From this exploration, what impressed me the most and trapped me to plan visiting them again is:

Kids’ warming smile. I have never been asked by kids what my name is! I was so excited. It meant that they were proposing a communication without waiting to be asked. What is more connected to these kids, they treated us like a very-known sisters or brothers. They kept asking us when we would come again to visit them. They leave me kisses which I can say that it was the first kiss I had received without asking (Generally, we always ask kids to kiss us).

At the moment I enjoyed this feeling, I recognized that these orphans needs more cares and love. They were so happy to have us visiting and playing with. I understand how lonely they are. Therefore, I would like appeal to everyone to help to:

“Do Not Discriminate the HIV-infected Kids or Kids whose parents were dying of HIV/AIDs”. They are the same as other normal kids. They have heart and they deserve more care.

“Protect Yourself from HIV/AIDs”. “Do not leave your bad legacy for the burden of your kids”. If it is not for your sack, Please think of our poor kids!!!

]]> http://sopheapfocus.com/index.php/2007/11/explore-a-rural-cambodian-community/feed/ 4 http://sopheapfocus.com/index.php/2007/10/announcement-trip-to-kompong-speu/ http://sopheapfocus.com/index.php/2007/10/announcement-trip-to-kompong-speu/#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:51:00 +0000 Sopheap Chak http://sopheapfocus.com/?p=50 Continue reading →]]>

Dear all,

Youth Network for Change (YNC), a voluntary youth network, would like to invite you to join our trip to Kompong Speu province to distribute the study material to orphans and to engage them to dialogs, so that they experience social discussion and involvement.

Community Event
When: Monday, 29 Oct 2007
Where: Orphan Care and Training Center, Phum I, Khum Treng Trayeung, Srok Phnom Srouch, Kompong Speu province. We will proceed our trip to Kirirom Resort for Lunch.
Who: YNC team and interested participants.
Sponsor: Fund raising.

I would be appreciate for your kind contributions either financial, material, and spiritual support to make this event possible. Please feel free to contact me or my team for furthered detail of our work. I also provide you the background of our team.

Bests Regards,

Sopheap Chak
Public Relation Officer,
Tel: 855-011 943 213
www.sopheapfocus.blogspot.com
Youth Network for Change (YNC)

Background of Youth Network for Change (YNC):

Bordering Vietnam‘s central Highlands and Laos are the remote province of Ratanakiri, with thickly forested hilly terrain, hilltribe people, and abundant wildlife. Commercial enterprises in the region include logging, gem mining, and rubber plantations.

Over 80% of Ratanakiri’s population of 72,000 is classified as hilltribe, mainly Jarai, Krunh, Brou, and Tampuan. The 12 ethnic minority groups are collectively called Khmer Loeu (highlanders), a name coined by Sihanouk in the 1940s.. Many also still wear traditional costume – Krung women in sarongs and bare-breasted, Brou women with tattooed faces and ivory tusk earrings in their elongated earlobes.

It was such exciting trip as all participants were looking forward and wish the departure day coming as soon as possible. There, we spent 3 nights and 4 days together with 63 youths to share knowledge as well as to experience the rural livelihood of indigenous community. Different from the camping to Kompong Speu where we spent a night at the top of the mountain, this ratanakirri camping was spent at the Tribal Hotel for security reason and health issue.

During the trip, we had debating session; meeting with CEDAC team; sightseeing; and more importantly, we could visit two schools and met the indigenous people.

Indigenous kids struggling for education…

indigenous people eagered to see the youth’s activities…..

Look, what was he thinking of?….about his future, i guessed.

This is Sreng Sopheap’s school project…he is committed to a better education for his community.

Group picture………hey pagna, what were you thinking of?

Library: small but very comfortable

Teacher, Let me answer!!!

Ok, we will show you the map of Cambodia!

Phaoun, phaoun!!! Bong will show you how to greet in different circumstances!

Ah, we are girl band!

Thank to H.E Kol Pheng, Education Minister for attending this event!!!
Otherwise no media would cover up this activities.

Notably, Kompong Trabek Primary School- it is the only one main school where all the children in the six villages had to come for their study. There were approximately more than 2,000 primary school pupils. But owing to the big amount of students and there were not enough classrooms for the students to study, two school were built in the other two communes in the Trabek district. But unfortunately, Most of every year, the pupils cannot go to school during rainy season because of flooding. Due to these reason, our team choose to come to this province again.

Be independent from illiteracy!!! is my slogan to remark 53rd Anniversary of Independent Day in Cambodia.

We left Phnom Penh at 3pm and arrived the location before 5pm when we could see the sunset from the top of the mountain.

After enjoying the view, we cleaned the resting area to have dinner and start our program: Gender films and discussion. The movies, donated by Women’s Media Center, aimed to educate on gender discrimination and child rapping. We also raised some topics, such “Arranged married and Freed Married” to challenge and compare which one is better to apply in our society today. After discussion, we played a Welcome game which show how to welcome each other in different culture (Khmer, Japanese, Chinese, European country, etc.).

Though everyone had spent a lot time in travel and debate, we seemed not tired at all. Everyone still awaked till the morning as the group was dancing altogether.

In the morning, we packed our stuff and was ready to go to the Chrey Hophnov primary school.

The beauty of palm tree under the sunshine was very amazing to me!!!

Just the moment i expect that this trip would be wonderful, the 45-seat bus stopped on the main street and everyone wondered what happened. Then the driver came and told us that the bus could get through the small gate. Then our team had to walk about 3km distance to the school. Though we all had to carry the gifts and small trees, i still could see their smiling face and they even had time to chat together on the way.

Ah! it was raining; I realized that I forget to check with fortuneteller—Khmer belief to check for the best day to organize important events by asking the fortuneteller or the monks. Though it was the mixture of joyful as we was welcomed by the kids at Ta Ngok primary school, Preah Sdach district, Prey Veng province.

Then our event was preceded as we had done in previous event by raising awareness to kids about social issues and good morality, and then we ended the program by plating tree as symbol for environment protection and group picture:)

After communicating with the primary school’s principle by phone, i had done the announcement to classmates and professors that the school we were going to visit named “Sdach Poun”, in khmer-The hidden King. So everyone, especially my History Professor, Sombo Manara, was wondering about the school’s history: what was the school’s connection with the king?
After all, i was misquoted the school’s name when little kids recalled their school’s name, Scach Poun, in khmer-The pile sand.

Luckily, May 1st 2006 was the International Labor Day, so many friends could join our event. With smiling face everyone was chatting and getting to know each other.

Suddenly, I felt shocked again when we arrived the school as the a little kids stood at the gate to welcome us as we are the high ranking officials. It was out of the agenda and i never ever wish to have such arrangement. “Everyone is equal”, so i do not prefer such arrangement.

After having few talks with kids, our team was divided into small group to communicate and educate kids on different topics such as health, education, environment, and other social issues. After that, we also encouraged kids to help protect environment through planting tree.

Finally, this events gave me a lot of lesson-learns and even motivated me to continue to organize other events. What shocked me again is that the Khmer rural kids did not know where famous Angkor Wat located. When our professor asked them, they replied Angkor Wat is in Kompong Speu, at where they are living. So it reminded me the joke that we repeated in Vietnamese sound that “Angkor Wat is located in Bongbeu” (Bongbeu is referred to Kompong Speu). Then, we gave them the correct answer that “Our Angkor Wat is located in Siem Reap”. It was so fortunate that the books we brought for them attached with Angkor Wat image and even the money (500Riel) we gifted them is also printed with Angkor Wat picture.

With classmates and other friends’ financial and spiritual support, our team could organize the event successfully. Thanks to all!!!