Category: Explorations

For this round, our Outdoor program is working on translating our English module to Khmer language which is our native first language. Since our target participant is Cambodian high school so we need our workshop to be in Khmer. Not only translating the module, we also started a workshop with our Liger students to get feedback, and also the improvement that we need before contribute it outside to other students. 

Mission Started

After trying the workshop flow, and recheck the module in Khmer, now our journey started. During the time that we worked on our module, we also started to find our partner. Kape is an organization that is located in Kampong Cham. We started by getting to know their students by playing some games; name games, and energizer games. It is not only about game, we also try out some of our workshop activities to see how can we change the structure once we work with them. Also, we observe that many students really passionate about this field, and really want to catch this opportunity

Time passed, we change, and recheck our module, and structure again. After that, we try out with another school. Happy Chandara is school that found by a French NGO that give a free quality education for every woman in Cambodia from primary to high school. Our team spent a whole morning doing workshop, played games, and get to know each other further. It was a really great experience for us to contribute this to them.

The Experience

As an Outdoor leaders, we are not only focus on workshop, but we also need to experience the outdoors, and how to lead others during trip. Our team used to go to Kirirom National Park, and Mondulkiri province last year so this year we did a further challenge for me, and also the team. We went to Aural mountain which is the tallest mountain in Cambodia. Spending 3 days, and two nights in Aural mountain was a memorable experience even though we don’t get to reach the mountain top, but we got to see beautiful nature, the sound of animals, and also challenging myself with a steep hiking. 

The Outcome

There is always sharation at Liger at the end of every exploration round. I am really happy to share people with my experience, my journey, and how I am as an Outdoor leader. I am a person who never love to hike, do exercise or anything hard, but this is me changing myself into a different person. Now, I am Kuychan You who love hiking, seeing nature, be an outdoor leader, and continue with this incredible experience.

 

I am very fortunate to have experienced the outdoor program in the last school year that giving the opportunity to us to learn more about nature, adapt living in wood and also learn much-needed education and expertise in outdoor. This successful project leads to a further project for me and other students to get the chance of becoming a facilitator that creates a curriculum related to outdoor which can contribute to government students in Cambodia. At the same time, we see that this outdoor education and experience is really needed in the government school because it provides basic skills to students that need it in the future. 

To start or pilot a program to people, we have to learn, research, experience and especially set the impact statement for the project. “To empower Cambodian youth to be outdoor leaders and environmental stewards by introducing them to natural spaces, raising awareness of conservation threats, and nurturing the passion and skills needed to positively impact their communities.” is the statement that set by our  team to be motivated and also remember that really is our mission for the effort that we put into. However, we need to educate ourselves more about facilitating people, skills needed and also understand the situation to assist different people.

Outdoor Leadership is an open topic and also it includes many different categories. Our team decided to create four main categories, such as leadership skills, medical and risk management, nature appreciation, and wilderness skills. The other two students and I are responsible for developing a further leadership module that contains different activities and games related to leadership. This is where we start to create possible learning and more detail about our workshop. Our team and other team are really look up to a future workshop that we have been practicing the activities and also revising for the past weeks.

Other members and I looking forward to the ideas to contribute out to Cambodia society that can get to know the skills and learning. This project is also a project that should consider in other places rather than Cambodia because students need different experiences and skills to expand their minds into a bigger picture. 

 

This is the last exploration for this school year 2018 – 2019. The interesting points about this exploration are that we contribute the learning from an actual actress and actual movie director; Lianne O’Shea and Avive Rubinstein. It is a really great pleasure for us middle students to have a chance and learn with them. As we learn, it seems like we are the professional and we know the ideas of how the actors and set crews need to prepare for filming. 

Story:

We need to know how the story goes and we learn about monomyths or known as the hero’s journey. Anyone can create a story, but a good story needs conflict into it so that readers started to feel the feeling of uncontrolled of how the main characters suffer.

 

Cinematography:

It seems like one of my favorites things to do, but it is too complicated if you have no passion for it. I learned that there are 2, 799, 360 shots so that if you are real professional cinematography, you properly don’t use only wide-angle and closeup for your film. There are more about this, but it’s too long to just write it.

 

Acting:

I am a shy person in front of strangers, but Lianne makes me start to have confidence and stop thinking about other people opinion. Acting class is not all about act and act and act, but it also includes meditation and knowing about the position where you can tell people that they are different without talking. 

 

Screenplay:

Writing screenplay is not as easy as you may know. You need to write that can shoe the director, actors, and cinematographer to understand what do to want to act in that part or at this part. “Cinematographer think that they are creative in taking cinematography, but instead it was the writer who writes the screenplay that shows what the cinematographer need to do.” said Avive.

 

Last but not least is my own experience. Onset, I am an assistant director which everyone found it to be so cool, but it is not. It is an endless job even before the set start or even during the set. It seems like the actor and actress are kids, I need to keep them where I can see them or where I can know them easily. As I run around, shouting to keep everyone along with me and keep up with the director and cinematographer, it is tiredness, but a great experience.

 

 

This is a new experience for me to go trekking, seeing the beauty of nature and camping to enjoy my life more. In this exploration, it means a lot to people and students like me to learn of living in nature and learning to help people especially the wilderness first-aid that include many steps that I never imagined I have a chance to learn it. Also, I learned how to adapt more with the environment when I’m outdoors and the determination to reach the goal and it’s worth to do it. There are many risks to take once I’m outdoors, but it what I can choose to challenge and choose to stay out of my comfort zone. To sleep in a tent is not comfortable like I sleep on a soft bed, I need to make myself from the feeling of uncomfortable until comfortable and I need to make sure it’s clean and always close the door because it might have some insects.

The long distance of trekking for me to see the waterfall is very unique and experience to do. Also, the long way to see different nature and birds fly from one tree to another tree. As I arrived in a different place, I saw different things like a place where butterflies all gather in one bush and where fish live happily in their habitat. The path that hard to trek gives me the challenge to do it, the strong current of the waterfall that inspires me to push more and the birds that persuade me to explore. The needs vs wants that need to decide to bring on the trek. The fun that from friends even though it is tired or some of us get, but there is still power to encourage us. The songs during the trek like a playlist that never stop to create more energy for us. I enjoyed a lot during the trip and in this exploration even though there are problems or sadness that were happening.

This is the best experience that I never imagined. I scared of using the natural bathroom, but there is no choice for us to choose when we are outdoor. I scared of insects, but things may or may not happen when I am outdoor to explore nature. I afraid of weather that can cause problems to my health, but that is life to live outdoors. I never know how hard or joyful it is until I experience it on my own.

This my third exploration and it is the exploration that continues from the first traveling theater. For this round, we are doing plan B which is trying to use what we have for the traveling theater and it is traveling by bus.  Last time our plan is about building in a truck, but its theme not working because of the budget so we try our plan B that travel that set up by our students who we called “Crew”. Our exploration went to two provinces in Cambodia and do different shows, play, musical performance etc. As we go on, it’s really successful seeing our people, community, villagers and different students enjoy seeing the performance that we put on during the trip. Also, in these seven weeks of learning, we really enjoy setting up the stage for performers, actors, and actress. This experience makes us become a professional setting crew.

This is a traditional food exploration which we are focusing on explore tradition in Cambodia, story behind each dish, to understand the transformation of Cambodian traditional foods from the past to the present and future and discover and share how food impacts family, society, and culture. To find good answers for our goal, we need to go on the trip and interview some of the professional chefs to see the different perspective from them. As we interviewed them, we found two different definitions of Cambodian food and Khmer food. From a perspective of chef Joannes Riviere who own Cuisine Wat Damnak restaurant in Siem Reap said that “Cambodia food and Khmer food is different. Cambodia food is some kind of food that influenced by other countries but has been eaten in Cambodia a long time ago. For Khmer food is foods or recipe that created by our ancestors themselves.” For chef Kethana who own Sugar Palm restaurant in Siem Reap said that “There are no differences between Cambodia food and Khmer food.” To end our exploration successfully, we had created a blog called “Khmer Cuisine”.

To start the new school year of 2018-2019, I have been in one of the explorations called Traveling Community Theater. This exploration is very different from my personality and my hobbies. It’s basically related to marketing, mechanic and interior design. I have been assigned to be a manager of team with one of my friends. I have 7 weeks for this project, but there are still more we need to work on for this exploration. We working different things by challenging ourselves seeing different kind of trucks, ideas and how to build it. Our team also go on trip to do some survey about theater in rural some areas located in Kampong Cham and T’bong Khmum. By doing many things, I learn a lot by communicating not telling as a manager, interviewing along with different Cambodian personality, solutions for buying truck, strategies for building it and work together as a team to make our dream come true. I really love and enjoy doing this exploration with challenges I have never done before.