Venghour – Page 3 – "Second chance is always available."

March 11, 2018October 11, 2018

Saigon Modeling United Nation 2017 – Life-changing Experience

After participating ISPP Model United Nations 2016 (ISPP MUN 2016), Phnom Penh, I received another opportunity to participate in other Model United Nations (MUN) in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. It is called, “SAIMUN 2017.” This was another huge event for me since it has hosted many students from many distinguished schools around Asia. The ledger was one of those schools, including me and my seven friends.

This year of MUN, our school got a student who was willing to join the Security Council. For another seven students, we individually joined in a different committee. I decided to attend in General Assembly Three with the focuses on cultural heritage sites, basic health care, natal policies, and social development. I must say that the topics were extremely difficult compared to ISPP MUN in 2016. Everything had gotten serious and complicated since this event was international.

The schedule of the whole event was similar to other MUN events. But since there were four topics that were needed to debate on, it was a little bit tight and confused. We got only one month to prepare everything, including the resolutions, and many research. The event assigned all the Liger students as the delegations of Sweden in every committee. It was an honor for Liger students to be designated as the representatives of this country. In general, Kingdom of Sweden is a neutral nation.

On the 15th of March, 2017, we left Liger to Vietnam for the event. It was held on the 17th and the 18th. It was a long destiny and it was my third time visiting there. My memorial reflection once we arrived there, was that I just realized Vietnam is a communist country. My friends and facilitators were giving me a confused and shocked face. We got to travel around the city for two days before the event started. It was really satisfying to learn about Vietnamese histories and culture, including the people, food, religion, and all the fun activities.

It was the 17th; my friends including me were starting to feel the butterflies in our stomachs. I started to feel nervous, uncomfortable, and about to pass away. I mean we were really proud of ourselves for getting this far. We were extremely determined and prepared for the research for the whole event. Once we arrived in our committee, it was joyful to meet new people and got to be friend with most of them. Moreover, getting to observed other people were in their roles was also interesting and beneficial to regard those people as your role models.

Specifically, in my committee, there were a lot of good and passionate delegates with high confidence and strong ground. It was my first time joining MUN internationally and I could feel the intention and uncomfortable moments during the conference. I loved my committee so much and one of my favorite topics was about the health care system. I was chosen to be the main submitter for this topic and for sure that my heart was beating rapidly.

Being the main submitter of a resolution is not difficult. But it is difficult when you actually do it. After giving my speech of the whole resolution, I got a barrage of questions from the delegates. The questions were tough since it was all about the origins and the reasons. After all, I was feeling proud of myself. I appreciated all the people in the assembly, who sent many supporting messages to congratulate me. I was confident and happy to see and experience that taking risk is not a bad idea. It creates many memorials, small moments in your memory. Until now, I still remember the whole situation of how did I feel at that time.

Overall, joining SAIMUN was my life-changing experience. It was changing my view of the world, especially people. I got to meet and befriend with new people; in fact, I got to know them as a person in their amazing characters. Even though the whole conference was scary and the people were intimidating, there were also many hilarious moments we had with each other. After this conference, I started to see many issues and accomplishments of the world and I feel like it is my opportunity to be a part of solving those problems.

Check out the website: https://saim un2017.weebly.com/

March 5, 2018March 30, 2018

Camkids Survey – Kampong Speu

On March 04th, I volunteered to be a part of the surveying exploration members for the trip to Kampong Speu. The exploration’s main focus is to conduct a survey which consequently not creating any bias answers while asking the questions. The whole survey was about education, loans, and healthcare. We were interviewing the villagers in one main village and the other two adjacent villages. The organization of the survey and the division of our team into each family were clear. For the whole day, I interviewed seven villagers and each interview took from 45 minutes to an hour. It was a hot and sunny day, but at the end of the day, the team managed to receive a sample size of 105 people. By volunteering to join the team and surveying the people, it was a worthy decision. I have learned a lot of from the villagers’ lives and their plights. In addition, I experienced how the survey exploration members were working with the conduction of each question in the survey. It is a difficult job of creating questions because, in Cambodian society, it is extremely important as young and bright Cambodians not to ask questions to elders that are deemed as disrespectful and sensitive. Overall, I think it was an incredible experience even though we were walking under a hot sun.

March 4, 2018March 30, 2018

Maker Fair 2018

What an amusing day to participate in the Maker Fair 2018 event at Phnom Penh. This year the Maker Fair was a great one because there were more participants from the Cambodian government school. I was enthusiastic to see many incredible projects from many students especially the students who are coming from the other provinces. My highlight is seeing the art piece made by two male students which explaining about the physics of the building. They happily explained the process of their building project of the Eiffel Tower. Besides all of that, I also went to register to play a game. The game was really fun; there were many interesting tasks related to STEM. After joining this event for over many times, I actually believe that Cambodian youth is talented and skilled. We have the potential to pursue anything we passionate. Furthermore, all of us are is the change agent of Cambodia; therefore, we are prepared and ready to improve the education of STEM in Cambodia together with no fear of challenges.

February 28, 2018

ICANMUN, the Great Start

I have been joining the Modeling United Nations for two events in Cambodia and Vietnam. Being a delegate to the conference was already an exceptional experience for me. I was able to improve my English speaking skill, debating skill, and a better researcher. This 2018, I received another opportunity of participating the conference once again at the ICAN International School that is located in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. There was a free spot for students to sign up as the head chair. A head chair is a person who initiates debates in each specific committee. Successfully, I got accepted as the head chair in Junior General Assembly 3.

It is not an easy job to be a head chair; in fact, it requires a lot of works and effort from the person. You have to be an expert on the topics that will be debated on in the committee. In addition, knowing the exact answers to the questions that raise up by the delegates will be required from the head chair. My experience as the head chair is really remarkable, but simultaneously, I felt tiresome.

Before the event arrival, I had to create a chair report on the topic. In my committee, I had two specific topics talking the protection of endangered species and the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights. They were my most favorite topics since it matched with my passions, which are the environment and human rights. Writing the chair report was really challenging because I had to do a research as other delegates, gathering all the information, understanding the topics expressly, and finding all the information for the topic that is United Nations-related. Last, I had to ensure that the report is comprehensible by editing with the facilitator. If you want to read my chair report please click on this link: https://icanmun.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/5/5/48552847/chair_report__1_.pdf

On the event day, I was happy, excited, and nervous; it was my first time serving all the delegates in General Assembly 3 as the head chair. Also, I could never do all of these works without my deputy chair who is from ICAN. Chairing the debates was also challenging, but it was really fun and enjoying at the same time. I had to remember all the chairing script and debating process in order to assist the delegates who were having their first experience in the conference. There were some participants from Liger Leadership Academy, ICAN, and other local organization joining. It was also such an honor to confront their amazing debating skills and thoughtful discussion throughout the conference. Every delegate was trying their best to present the country’s position and all the thoughts from their states. In addition, it was a phenomenon of how much information they had been researching and brought it into the debates.

The last minute of the event, all of the students and teachers from distinguished were really enthusiastic and thankful for how amazing this event was. It teaches many students to become mainly a more confident person. I was also extremely proud of myself and students from Liger. They were trying hard to be confident and helpful to the other students. Last, I could never forget this experience; it means a lot me and it will continue my way up since ICANMUN is the “Great Start” for me.

February 17, 2018June 17, 2018

Journeys of Change _ Updates!

Have you forgotten Journeys of Change? I bet you are not because I have some updates! Currently, we have a total of 23 students (Seniors) who are interested to become a tour guide. This means that those 23 students have to go through a seven-week expertise course by becoming trainees. In order to become a certified tour guide, they have to cover up all the provided courses: Liger Tour Guide Handbook, Mission, Responsible Tourism, Emergencies, Customer Service, and Tour Script, go to a professional bike tour in Phnom Penh, test with a business manager, and go to two of Journeys of Change tours by becoming assistant guides.

This may seem to be a difficult journey for the 23 people, but so far, we already have a new certified tour guide, Rika. It is also seemed to be a long journey to certify all the trainees, but we are on our way.

Our first Journeys of Change tour was when the press team came to our school in November. We gave a tour of many famous journalists and reports. There were people from Good Morning America! It was not an official tour yet. We were giving the tour to them as a welcoming to our school. It was actually an honor for all the tour guides. Surprisingly, Ron Claiborne, a Good Morning America journalist, talked about Journeys of Change on the show! Overall, it was amazing.

Ron Claiborne was on the tour! [at the back]

Then, on December 2, 2017, Journeys of Change launched a soft launch. At this time, we were taking the money from the clients, it was half of the price since it was a soft launch. Unexpectedly, one of our clients is a college counselor. It was a great time to network with her. As the result, we were able to get the support from her with SAT preparation and college informational sessions. It is all turning out now that Journeys of Change actually gets us in touch with many incredible people. Not to mention, it actually help us with our education.

Are you waiting for the official launch? We just launched our first official tour on January 13, 2018! It was phenomenal and it felt really good to have our first tour with full payment. Now, tour guides are able to make some profit to support their further education. Again, we met amazing people; there were people from U.S Embassy and SHE CAN.

Last updates from Journey of Change is that we are having many platforms to advertise the business now. We currently have our facebook page and Tripadvisor! If you are interested in going to our tour, you can book through our Facebook page and later on, you can give us a review through Tripadvisor and Facebook page. I hope you our tour, the Cambodian Insights: Past and Future.

February 7, 2018April 15, 2018

First Trip of 2018 – Feb 1st – 4th

We could not go to the island in January just because of bad weather over there. So, this would be the first trip of 2018. To be honest, we did not dive that much since the water visibility was really unacceptable. We could not see anything far from one meter at all. For the whole, I did only one dive. However, we actually got introduced to our new diving instructor for is trip. His name is Manu. He is a friendly and kind man. It was a spectacular experience to dive with him. Even though the water visibility was bad, he managed to distract us with other activities understand. He taught us how to make a ring bubble underwater with our hands and navigate on land with blind eyes by covering up with the blanket. Overall, these are the only updates for our diving.

It was sad and really hard to watch on the day we arrived at the island. Along the seashore, there were rows of thick and filthy water hyacinth and rubbish floating from the ocean and possibly Vietnam. At the first thought, we did not know where is the origin of these water hyacinth. Then, we heard that at Vietnam, people were doing their river clean up and they were starting to throw away into the ocean. So you can pretty much guess our whole trip likes which were cleaning up all of those water hyacinth. Everybody was hard-working and optimistically trying to finish everything. The water hyacinth and rubbish were smelly and tangled. But of all, we did had a lot of joy while doing it since we found some weird stuff that we can joke about.

Us and others cleaned up the water hyacinth.

Sadly, this was the last trip for our lovely facilitator or LMRT leader, Karen. She is now our school counselor, and she will be leaving Liger and working from America to find scholarships, opportunities, and networking other colleges for us. We are all happy for her, but we promise that we will keep her in touch with our amazing, LMRT accomplishment.

watching life under the microscope – Lux

February 1, 2018

A Human or A Robot?

A Human Being or A Robot?

By…”Venghour Than”

You are not alone. Be who you are. Inspire people with your great single story. Most importantly, love and believe in your own skin. I am talking to all of you; but specifically, to those of you who are effeminate.

“Be a real boy,” my father has said to me almost my entire life. “You have to be bold, educated, and able to support your family.”

What does it mean to be a “real boy?” Does “real” even mean anything? Is there such a thing as a “fake boy?” And how is he different from a “real boy?” Many societies all around the world believe that “feminine” boys go against the norms of society, especially with regards to expectations of physical strength and emotional resilience.

These criticisms scar effeminate young men; without support, love, and recognition from their families and communities, effeminate boys and men can lead complicated lives of struggle and depression. Cambodian society has not yet fully accepted this concept and still reinforces the notion that boys and men must be muscular, not caring much about appearance, and emotionally apathetic. What the Cambodian public may not realize, however, is that effeminate men may also be brave and effeminate, strong and effeminate.

I am a feminine Khmer boy. Living within my country’s society is quite challenging. There are people who are providing me support and encouragement, but there are also people who always contradict me verbally. Potential bullying could be the main consequence if someone realizes that I am feminine. “Also, [being feminine] may lead to many depression and suicides,” stated Makara Poy, a student at Liger Leadership Academy in Phnom Penh.

Every year, close to 800,000 people (1 person every 40 seconds) die by committing suicide. It is the second leading cause of death in the world. In fact, “in just about every country, men commit suicide more frequently than women, which is intriguing, since women typically have higher (at least, reported) rates of mental health disorders like depression,” according to “Why Are Men At Such High Risk” in Forbes magazine.

Why is this happening?

“It has to do with the society,” Makara said. Societal histories establish many modern-day perspectives and expectations that indoctrinate people’s minds to accept what is considered “normal” and what is “abnormal.” Most societies around the world, including Cambodian, believe in a ‘patriarchal’ ideology, wherein boys and men are expected to display themselves as externally and internally masculine.

Makara added that society also influences the family. Families learn effeminate behavior is “wrong,” and therefore boys and men struggle with to uphold these unrealistic expectations of masculinity when they are effeminate.

“I think it is a lot harder for a man or boy to be more feminine than it is for a woman or girl to be masculine,” stated Caroline Bell, Lead Learning Facilitator at Liger Leadership Academy. “I also think there is a lot of blending between masculine and feminine.”

Effeminate boys and men are limited and pressured to live their lives within the society and family. “[Boys and men are] not supposed to show other feelings, like vulnerability”, said Tony Porter, co-founder of A Call to Men, an education and advocacy group. In other words, they can’t express their feelings, emotions, and identities because in doing so they will expose their inner selves to harsh judgment from society. As expressed in a gender equity class at Liger Leadership Academy, people see these weaknesses in the form of:

Emotional expression, mainly crying
Being inactive
Fashion (apparel, beauty, etc.)
Participating in some certain type of activities (dancing, beauty care, etc.)
Not being masculine

Aside from all of these negative pressures, effeminate boys and men are often supported and befriended by girls and women. Makara stated, “[To be honest,] I used to have friends in my government school who were effeminate and I liked to play with them. I didn’t actually discriminate; I felt more open with them because they understood more about girls.” According to the article “How to Raise a Feminist Son” in the New York Times, “Children who are encouraged to play with friends of the opposite sex learn better problem-solving and communication.” Furthermore, “Boys who have friendships with girls are also less likely to think of women as sexual conquests,” said Mr. Porter.

Personally, I feel more comfortable playing with female friends in my school. There is just this affectionate friendship between us. I observe that girls provide me with more kindness and love. But when I interact with some of the boys, it is sometimes difficult for me to communicate with them because they are so serious most of the time. It is neither their fault nor mine, but I am sure that, identifying as an effeminate boy, I prefer the company of girls.

But what do parents think of having an effeminate son?

“At first, I would be just fine with my kid experimenting with whatever they want, doing whatever they want, and being whoever they want,” said Ms. Bell. “[But,] it starts to get scary when your kid gets to school…you start to get worried about your kid being safe and not being bullied…but still, you have to be realistic with your kids.”

It is now 2018: women and girls are still dealing with many serious problems, but boys and men are also facing several challenges. Dealing with your surrounding environment, especially when it is influenced by strict societal norms, is really tough. You need to raise your voice and take some actions, for example, participating with the activists in your society, to prove to people that it is okay for boys and men to be effeminate.

“I think that there have been a lot of people who have had struggles…if you are a boy and you are very feminine; you are just following the footsteps of other people who have had to fight for their rights.” Ms. Bell stated. “So, you should feel supported by that community and know that it is an unfortunate part of the process, but it is part of it and hopefully, you can be yourself.”

My last hopeful words to all those boys and men who identify as more effeminate are that you must not deny who you really are; remember that you are a human being not a programmed robot from your society.

And most of all, it is 100% okay to cry.

Sources:

January 4, 2018

My First Dancing Competition

While waiting for the upcoming 2017 Christmas, Soliday and I submitted our dance one-minute dance video in a competition, called “Christmas Dance Challenge.” The rule of the competition was to choose a music or song to dance for one minute and it had to be Christmas theme. Soliday and I chose a song, called “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (Trap Remix).” We were really happy with the chosen music, but we were having a hard to think of the choreography.

Choreographing a dance is not easy as it looks. It requires your stamina and thinking. Poses, styles, personalities, techniques, and expressions are demanded in dancing. The music we chose was a little bit fast and full of beats. Therefore, we need to choreograph a dance that shows our strength, sassiness, and coolness. Our one minutes dance choreographing turned into one day. We did not expect that it was going to consume a lot of our time, effort, and determination. Simultaneously, it was fun and silly because we got to create any styles we wanted and saw the inspiration from other competitors who were also submitted in the competition.

I really love and admire arts and I really do love dancing. It is something that has become a part of life. By participating in this dancing competition has changed my life with arts. It helps to boost up my competitiveness and effort to pursue my dream in this area. This was also my first time submitting to the dancing competition. It is inspired to learn and try hard to my limits. But most importantly, this competition makes my best memory of all time, especially working with my dancing partner.

For sure next year, I will try to join this competition again. As a matter of fact, we did not qualified to the top 5 in this competition. As a promise, Soliday and I will join this event again by bringing new dancing moves. Dancing is a beautiful talent. I am proud of myself and my dancing partner to pursue this dream together. If you want to watch our dance video, here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/yon.soliday/videos/555183261481097/

December 30, 2017October 11, 2018

Gender Equity − Fight for the World

I came out to people about my sexuality about two months ago and now, I am a part of something big−something could potentially change my life forever. I thought revealing my identity was the final step of my life; in fact, it was not. I thought of wanting to expand my love and passion of promoting the positivity for the people who struggle with their gender. Well, that opportunity communicated to me. I got the chance to be in exploration called, “Gender Equity.” My team and I created a mission which “is to raise awareness about global gender issues with a focus on Cambodian society. In order to affect positive change, we must examine the past to transform the future. Through communication, passion, and risk-taking we will investigate various aspects of gender discrimination and inequalities by sharing stories, exchanging knowledge, and interacting with others to create a healthy and constructive dialogue about gender equity.” Personally, I do extremely love this mission because before, I have thought that what is the best medium I can use to impact change within this area? The answer is dialogue. Conversation and discussion are the keys to empowered people to be opened and always be themselves.

(Interaction Institute for Social Change)

For the first week of the project, I already felt like a professor or wizard that is skilled in the is topic. I had a lot of memorial times when my facilitators, teammates and I had many thoughtful and philosophical family discussions about the differences between equality and equity, common stereotypical statements (e.g., women are weak) gender problems in distinguished areas of society across the globe (e.g., culture, religion, education, etc.), poems, and different media (e.g., videos and photograph). More specifically, we discussed deeply about gender stereotypes and their origins, sexual orientation, boy and girl’s behavioral expectations and roles, physicality, etc. My best highlight from the first week is the discussion we had that based on the question: “Where is the origin of all the gender stereotypes and problem?” It turned out that this is an extremely philosophical and deep thinking-required question. I said that “The most accurate origin we could say is us. We are the one who creates all of those dramas because we see our own flaws, but we are not embrace it.” There were even more answers from my friends and facilitators. Some were said, “Men.”

Having discussions was powerful, and our teams wanted to make sure that we can document those words. Furthermore, we thought that dialogue does not exist in only an oral form but in written form. Therefore, we decided that we can write articles, but where can we share it? As a change agent, we finally came up with an idea of establishing a digital platform: blog. We named it as “CHANGE.” It is abbreviated from the name and theme of our summit we hosted (I wrote about the summit in the post; check it out) which stated that “Creating Humanitarian Awareness for the Necessity of Gender Equity.” There are many categories that we chose as importance. So far, we have a fair amount of articles on the blog. This project was widening itself to our literacy class. Basically, every senior student contributed towards this blog. Here is the link: http://changeforequity.ligeracademyblog.org/

Asides from all of these in-class activities, we even took the opportunity to have experience outside the class. We went to a social enterprise called, “SHE Investment.” This enterprise wholeheartedly working many Cambodian women to improve their family economy and break the glass ceiling of what the society always expect them. It was such an incredible moment for me. I got to ask many questions and made a lot of comments which potentially help their project. I also wrote a whole article about SHE Investment. If you are interested, please check it on our CHANGE blog and my blog. Besides this meeting, we also had another meeting two Cambodia teenage activists. They were both girls who strongly passionate about gender problem as we do. It was an honor to get to know them and have many discussions with them. In my perspective, meeting with them and seeing them as the activists like us give me the encouragement to change Cambodia and the world. I feel like I have an actual team who I can communicate and work with all the time. Amazingly, we can share our personal stories that we have confronted with each other.

Talking about having a discussion, I remembered that one discussion my teammates and I had in class. It was about how our holiday was. Everybody shared their fun moments and allusions about gender problem with their parents. Interestingly, I thought I was alone who attempted to talk to my parents about this. It was my turn to share. I felt my eyes were watery and my vision was blurry. I was crying. I told my friends how I tried to tell my parents about my sexuality the fact that I am bisexual, but I could not do it. I brought up the fear I had at that time to friends. Tears were flowing from everyone’s eyes. I fear that my parents will abandon me or negatively comment me. To be honest, it was extremely difficult to come out to our parents until now. The matter is that I need to find the right moment. RIGHT MOMENT.

Finally, we collected all the moments and discussions and summed it up into a summit−as I stated earlier, it is called, “CHANGE.” It was incredibly a phenomenal day for everybody, including me, my friends, facilitators, and guests. We ran it as a bilingual summit: English and Khmer. It was the way to approach two different audiences. Again, if you want to know more about the summit, you can visit our CHANGE blog and my blog, to get to understand expressly about it.

December 15, 2017March 31, 2018

Last Trip of 2017! Dec 7th – 10th

Our diving instructor, Amick, was giving us instruction before descending.

We were on the adventure for another trip. It was the last trip of 2017, then we prepared for our winter break. The schedule was not that different from the previous trip. We were continuing our practice with the survey of fish, invertebrates, and substrate. For the first day, LMRT was having a relaxed diving; we were back to our practice with neutral buoyancy and fin pivoting. Our diving instructor was letting swim through the hoops at a different height and it was extremely fun.

The substrate team with the sunset background.

After feeling prepared with neutral buoyancy and fin pivoting, we were ready to practice our survey once again. This time we divided eight of us into four teams. Each team was responsible for different jobs. There were four jobs related to the survey: set up the basement line, fish survey, invertebrate survey, and substrate survey. I chose the fish survey. Basically, the teams have to go in order. The baseline time had to go first since they had to layout the 100-meter line for the other surveying. Then, it was my team’s turn. I did the survey with Sythong and it went really well. Our practicing location was at Jasmine reef, and it was beautiful. As I remembered, for the fish survey, we had to swim with the pace of 2 meters every minute. It was super slow! The next team was the invertebrate team. After that, it would be the substrate team. Unfortunately, the substrate team was not able to finish the whole survey because it was getting darker as the sun was setting.

On the day we had to go back to school, we had the last picture of 2017 with the MCC people. It was a great adventure. Thinking about diving, I was surprised to reflect all the positive changes within myself. About three to four months ago, I was a non-certified diver, but look at me now, I am a certified diver with the other LMRT members! From zero knowledge about surveying and hundreds of species to a person who inherently has all of that knowledge. Overall, I feel empowered with the others; we made a lot of great moves so far with persistence and optimism. Next year, 2018, we are still going to fight and save our ocean as long we are taking baby steps.