How Have I Change, Think about Change and Promote Change In Cambodia

 

• Technovation

 

Technovation is a program that introduces and promote the idea of creating apps that solve solutions to me. It is a 3 months program. Females students around the world can participate. Students age 15 or above will be considered a senior and will compete with the other seniors. I am 14, so I am in the Junior division. The ideal amount of member per team is 5. Each team had to choose a problem and brainstormed some solution that they can solve using an application. Once they got problem, solution and ideas on how they are going to solve the problem using an app, they will start planning thing more…etc. But that is not important to talk about in here. The problem that my team, Liter-Tree wanted to solve is about poetry in Cambodia. Khmer poems are complicated. In a poem, you will have a specific structure of syllables and rhyming and they are the hardest part that limits your usage of words. Khmer poems are popular among the students but not as popular as before because students face some problems while writing the poems. Those problems are; hard to find Khmer rhyme word, don’t know what to write about and do not how to write different types of poems. By creating an App and present our idea to the pitch, we hope that the audiences have gotten to be more aware of poetry in Cambodia. Though we failed the competition we or I will try to make this app available to Cambodian and really make this happen because I don’t want Khmer poems to vanish. There’s a possibility that this small problem compared to other big problems in Cambodia will be solved. We/I just have to continue working toward making it happen in the future. 

 

• STEMgineering

 

By introducing STEM to Khmer students. Making them use their ingenuity and get them excited to do more STEM project which is good for Cambodia. We have potential, we don’t have to spend so much money to hire foreign designers. We can hire ourselves. Which is good because we have employment for Khmer youth. Having interests will lead to passion when you have passion, you will learn more. 

 

We brained storm cool ideas for Khmer students in the government school to getting them interested. We got amazing results. A lot of them wanted more! Which is a good sign that people are started to get interested in STEM. and I love that fact.!! It is not solving that big of a problem. However, isn’t it better than solving nothing at all? If more students got interested if more of them are willing to study STEM than Cambodia will be better at STEM in the future. 

 

• SDGs

Learning about the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals is part of the curriculum. Honestly, before learning about these goals. I have no idea that the world these day has so many problems that are needed to be solved. Through the courses, I’ve gotten more aware of my existence on this Earth. In class, we did some research about different countries on their current state of different goals and I have come to see that, Cambodia needs this, Cambodia needs that. Now, I’ve got some problems that I see and want to change in Cambodia all thanks to Liger for making this class part of the curriculum. 

 

• Outdoor leadership Exploration

 

As I travelled to my destination, I see the roads and everything. I thought about how can I improve the current situation of the place. The goal of the exploration is to get everybody to experience a trail, a camp and a life in the forest. And to also get everyone loves nature. For me though, when we went on the trips, I not only learn about the place and observe the nature, however, I thought about teaching it to my brother and my BFF which I’m going to on this summer break. I also wanted to teach them to do CPR and stuff like that. Teacher Da said that a lot of people in Cambodia do not know how to rescue a person so I hope to share the knowledge to many Cambodians as possible. Apart from that, I have also thought about developing sites around the area. 

 

• Say no to plastic in Liger

 

In this exploration, we were trying to promote change in Cambodia by changing Liger. We thought that if other schools look at us as an example and then reduce the use of plastic, then when it is trendy to use less plastic, Cambodia will have fewer people using plastic which is good. First, we started by reducing single-use plastic. To do that, we tried to find alternatives to the single-use plastics such as straws, plastic cups, the cover of the plastic cups, styrofoam…etc. We also created a campaign which we gave out metal straws and reusable bag in hope of reducing the usage of straws and plastic bag. We are proud of our work and I will continue to encourage my family and myself to eventually reduce to only 5% of single-use plastic usage in our daily life. Students were asked to plan for their summer break. One of the goals for me was to reduce to not use any single-use plastic for the whole break and see if I can survive without it…. I am promoting and encouraging this change here and I will continue to do somewhere else so…. I hope there is another exploration like this. 

 

• Precious plastic

 

In Precious plastic, we raised awareness about recycling plastic. We went to visit organizations such as; Rehash trash to learn how to recycle plastic bags into bracelets, baskets and more. I thought about this and raise awareness for myself that I should keep the used plastic bags in a safe place and recycle them into bracelets for me, myself and I….

 

• Travelling theatre

 

It was an honour for me to be a part of the exploration. I got to act in a play with cohort 1 also known as ‘The Seniors’ and some of my cohort 2 friends (The Juniors). The play was about society’s beauty standard. The main character is a girl who wanted to be beautiful. People looked down at her and that’s what I thought is something we should change to make a better society. After showcasing the play to two different schools, we then went to other places to share the message. We performed four times in three different places. After successfully showcasing our plays. We saw that people complimented it and saw some positive reactions which in my opinion is that they understood and got the message and hopefully, they’ll pass it on.