Category: Explorations

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Travelling Theater

     Traveling theater exploration is the project that builds a mobile theater, which is moving from place to place. We aim to show our performance in the rural area while they may not have a lot of chances to watch different shows. Our team wants to have a truck and redesign it by dividing space for a changing room, microphones, and room for keeping our items. However, for now, we do not have a truck, so we need to be more flexible. 

      In the class, we learned about the process of setting up and tearing down. At the same time, we also learn more about the place, weather, time, and audiences. It’s my first time working on this project, and I am delighted to get new experiences. Our facilitator wants to make sure that we understand clearly about those processes, so he has a plan to go on the trip to two provinces, Takeo and Kampot. We want to show our performances at the schools and in the small village. There are my different roles, I’m a set design and communication crew, but mostly I’m working on contacting school directors, village chefs, District Governor, and police. This is also the first time for me to make a phone call too. I’m a bit nervous and excited at the same time. Though, I think I would learn and get a lot of experiences while I have to talk to many high range people. Every time, I make a call my heart is beating so fast. Besides, there are some problems which sometimes I need to apologize to them. Because we have some changes to our plan. Sometimes, my partner and I face the music, but we can handle it and make a trip to happen.

 

      For three days of performance are the best memories that I couldn’t forget. Smile faces of audiences to show that they are enjoying the performance. I’m delighted and thank you so much to my teammate to achieve our goal. Even though we meet a lot of issues, we still encourage each other. There is a girl who comes forward and says, “Will you have a performance tomorrow?” I’m surprised and glad to hear it.

     Learning isn’t just sitting in the class, but we could learn it anytime and anywhere. I’m thankful to be a member of this project while I could get a lot of new experiences and understand more about the process of working with the government. I​ want to say I love the communication job. 

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Entrepreneurship

         The Entrepreneurship platform development was an impact project of our seniors, Mr. Sammang Noun. This project aims to create a short video about the startup journey by following two different teams. We believed this video will be a model and inspire others.

       This was my first time working in a small group of members. We divided a role for each of the members for responsibilities. I was responsible for Khmer writing and working closely with the storyboard person which was Bopha. This project is collaborated with Impact Hub, so we often went there at least once to two times a week. At the same time, it was time to start a new competition of Smart Spark. So, many teams were participating in this competition. This was a great experience to interview with different groups about their experiences. We have selected two teams to follow along which means we would take every footage of their work and interview everything from the beginning until the end of the competition. This was a way to showcase the journeys on what would happen along the road before we could succeed. On the final pitch of the competition of Smart Sparks, we also got a chance to be participants. I was excited to listen to their ideas and appreciate all their hard work. They did a awesome job . It was a fantastic time to meet with different people and do networking with them. 

 

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Khmer Children Literature

      Reading books at the very young age is a key lead children to education path. There are a lot of advantages of reading books to children, which they could start to adobe with study, aware of vocabulary, imagination, or good communicators while they are growing up. Besides that, we know that parents now a day, they are very busy with their jobs and not really have time with their kids. However, we are really encourage parents to spend sometimes and read story books for their children. Reading books to kids before going to bed or on free time is the perfect time to build strong relationships between parents and children. That’s why, there is an exploration called “Khmer Children Literature”. 

     This exploration aim to create story books based on 6 core values are Ingenuity, Determination, Stewardship, Integrity, Appreciation, and Optimism. All of those six story books would be in Khmer and English which make Cambodian children easy to read and learn more Khmer and English vocabulary. The, we divided into six teams to take over one of those core values. So my team is Ingenuity group that we came up with short story connect to this theme. Before, we could publish a book, there are many processes with challenges that I and my team was facing. First, we have to brainstorm ideas of story are characters, setting, and plot in the story. This was one of the most difficult because we thought of stories that connect to the topic, spread the main idea into the story, and the ways to make reads to continuous read with curiosity. After, we finished brainstorm and begin to write the story. The next part, it wasn’t my skill at all, but I need to take attempt and learn from these challenges. I could draw and paint which I didn’t know that it would look nice or whatever. However, I need to do what I’m really confident and learn to adobe with this situation. This was a middle road of challenges that I and teammates were facing. Thought, there was one of the biggest problems is Translate English to Khmer which we have to read a story again and translate those into Khmer. Also, we couldn’t translate word by word that could make nonsense. There are many things that I and teammates were facing, but we tried hard to push yourself, challenges, explore, and get experience with new things to achieve our main goal. Therefore, I also really appreciate my teammates, we always attempted with something new, encourage, and good collaboration. This is one of the main reasons that make our goal get success. 

 

     In addition as the quote from Robert H. Schuller said “Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.” Even though, I was facing a lot of challenges with drawing, writing stories, or translate, but I never stop and walk away. I have to learn from problems that I was facing and take them as tutors. Besides that, I was able to get experiences of writing and teamwork which I could aware of life lesson that never give up and step back because of challenges. 

 

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Community Based Ecotourism

    Now a day Cambodia is a developing country in Asia. There are many tall buildings are starting to be born in Phnom Penh, the capital city. Everything has changed after a dark dream is gone and we won’t hope to see it again. Change is a new word has grown in my mind, when I came to Liger. Before I didn’t know what’s that mean? and how can I make a change? Throughout, many projects have happened since year 2 to 3, those were mirrors to reflect and open more space for the world to show me that “the outside is exuberant, but there are some issues still need a change. Even though, it is a big or small thing if we could make it’s different and better”.

Drawing by Vouchnea, Chan and Mealea

     Preah Vihear province is located in the north part of Cambodia and it’s a province given named by the temple (Prasat Preah Vihear). The place has a beautiful temple stand up high on the mountain with green scenery of nature surround. Besides, there are a lot of amazing ancient temples and interesting resorts. Though, there are also groups of indigenous communities. Bonkernphal village, Romtom commence, Rovieng district, Preah Vihear province is one of Kui indigenous communities.There are 236 Kui indigenous families (827 people) and most of the villagers are farmers. Therefore, the community has a protecting forest of 1891ha. The large area of forest, but only five villagers who volunteer to patrol in a forest called Protecting Forest Community Champan to stop all illegal action since 2006. Because of loving the nature they are working to protect their forest without think of salary. On the other hand, all of the families in the community are also facing some problem of living under the poverty line average annual income of $1,500 per family ($0.83/person/day). All of those issues in the community is a reason to make us want to create a Community Based Ecotourism in Bonkernphal village. Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) is an activity that provides tourists involved with nature and interacts with villagers in the community.
     The work is starting to begin with research and explore with existing Community Based Ecotourism to comprehend and get some feedback from excerpt people about CBET. Before we create a CBET, there are many works that we have to do step by step. Round one, we did an interview with 255 tourists in Phnom Penh come from 32 countries. Our goal is to know about their perspective, will they interesting to visit our CBET? When we got all of the information we went to Bankernphal village to explain about CBET, told the information of market result, dissuasion, and get to know the perspective of villagers also. Along with, we spend a lot of time to working on this project the result for the first step had come out were tourists and villagers are open and support to this project.

I was delighted to all result we got from hard working and collaboration with a teammate to get success on our task. Round two was starting with some new members and assignments. Our mission is to study more about the Feasibility of place what are attractive places that can make tourists come to visit our site? We spend 4 nights 5 days went into the Protecting Forest Community Champan for exploring and observing the natural feature and people in the community. Apart from this we met with five stakeholder support to know about their idea of this plan and all of them are agree and willing to support us if it happened.

 

       In addition, this’s long journey had touched me to get out of my comfort zone to train myself and if I want to make a change for someone I should start to change myself first. I can tell that previous time, I was a little bit shy to talk with strangers, but one thing to push me was “If I didn’t do it, how can this idea happened and what’s about villagers? This was a tip to cheer me up and get out of my space. Subsequently, round 2 of the project done I satisfied all of the work I did and have a great participate from my group. Every step I walked into a class I was ready with the vitality for work and aim to see this idea happen. In addition to this to be a member of the CEBT project, I contented to be a part of a change in Bankerphal village if it’s a tiny thing I was grateful and willing to help. Last but not least, the word Change has started from myself, appreciate what I do, and understanding of real need. You have changed me, find my passion and help me to see a change for other citizens.

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Mondulkiri Province

   Mondulkiri is the biggest province in Cambodia and collection of forests with wildlife animals. This is the first time for me to visit Mondulkiri province. When I hear someone said about this province I usually think of forest and weather would be cold because there is a place where forest located. We spend eight to nine hours driving. Along the way, I have observed the nature in that area, also there are rice fields with green and gold color mix together to make it more beautiful and all of the beautiful scenery is touch to my mind to know more how amazing of Cambodia. Moreover, the way close to Mondulkiri I could see mountains, forest, and hills have tall grass with cold air, which makes me feel warm Welcome from Mondulkiri province. We arrived at the place to sleep is in RDI and we had to take off our stuff and pick up the tents. There is an appealing place that has trees around and cold air.

Elephant
In the Morning
Along the way
Leng Trok
Waterfall

 

 

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Kirirom National Park

   Nature always stay in everywhere, on Thursday/25/ October/2018 in outdoor exploration we went to the Kirirom national park, which is located in the Kampong Speu province. While we spend three to four hours for the drive. Along the way, I saw a beautiful view of Kampong Speu province, lives of people, and rice field that full of green color like a golden mat.

   Kirirom is a place full of nature with amazing scenery of mountain and tall trees were moving to follow the wind. Cool wind blow makes me more relax, enjoy, and fresh with the smell of flowers are in forests. The conversation of birds to communicate with each other mix with music that makes tourists feel “WELCOME”. When we just arrived at Kirirom we tried to find a place to pick up our tents, there had tall trees around like fences to protect us. Oh! Wait for the air touch to my skin was cool and hear some sound of….waterfall wow!. My heart was jumping up and down excited to see waterfall and wadding of water. We had to come to find the located of the waterfall, which is three kilometers. I didn’t feel tired, but joyful to see different animals, plants, and listen to a concert of birds. During I walked I saw a worm as long as plastic straw. I should notice the life of animals on the mountain and in Liger is very different. Look at over there was a waterfall, there are many people come to visit and swim with their family and have a smiley face on. The sound of waterfall make music, sunshine show light on a big rock like the large diamond with the light is shining with power. Water cool like ice float along the way across rocks as life meet a lot of challenges, but there is still a solution on to fight off problems. Moreover, we have been seeing gibbons jump on branches and they are so cute. Now it time for me to take off my mind for waterfall and scenery around to walk to our bus, but I didn’t want to leave because I was happy to play with nature.

   After we came back from the waterfall, so our next plan we would go to the lake called Srah Srang. There is so beautiful view around of trees and lake. Than our facilitator decides to pick tents near to water. In the afternoon we cooked for the dinner time, which is pasta, but before could eat that food there was also problem that our stove doesn’t work, so we have to find other solution to make fire. Everyone tried their best to find wood near to place that we sleep for making fire and we also saw a Khmer stove. Make campfire sat around, eat food, sang songs, and dance under full moon shine the shining light to our place with many stars stay around. If you just take a look to everyone face there were full of smile shine on. At night time was so cold, one highlight from this place is there aren’t mosquitoes. In the morning was rainy that make everyone feel a little bit cold and we could still see the good scenery of nature. This was the last day for the trip we had to go back to school. I didn’t want to say goodbye. Before we leave we went to visit other waterfall called O’Ta Sek.  

   I really appreciated everything that has in my country. Besides I enjoyed with nature I could learn and get more experience that it couldn’t learn from books. Everyone has a great time and memory with each other that we couldn’t forget.  Overall, I didn’t want to go back, but I hope that we will meet you again Kirirom.

Kirirom National Park
Waterfall
Along the way to waterfall
Group Photo

 

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The Geography of Cambodia

Cambodia is my country the place that I have born, live, and study. There are many wonderful things that everyone is really appreciate. Cambodian Geography Book is a project that I have been working for one year. This is a book written by students for students and it has information about 25 provinces. We have to divide into four regions, which northern, eastern, southern, and western. Our juniors cohort went on trip to different provinces to get information. Our team is really work hard with determination to make this book more fun, interesting, enjoy, and readers know more detail. The goal for Cambodian Geography book is for tourist and government schools to apply for their curriculum.

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