Category - LIFT

Constructive Cambodia: Getting Passport in Cambodia

May 11, 2011

A few weeks ago, our constructive Cambodian wrote about the importance of travel for a person understanding of the world and themselves. In this week’s column Dara Saoyuth raises his concerns about the costliness of obtaining a passport in Cambodia and the opportunities and experiences that are being prevented by it

Non-citizen, diplomatic, travel document, and other types of passport / Image via Wikipedia

It is not just a small book with some letters, stamps, and signatures in it, a passport is the official document that identifies you as a citizen of a particular country and, more importantly, allows you to enjoy the benefits and excitements of international travel. In sort, you can’t leave your country without it.

People don’t just need it to travel, every day people must leave their countries to work abroad, pursue their studies, join meetings, conduct business, seek medical treatment and so on.

There are three types of passports: standard, official, and diplomatic. Official passports are reserved for government employees and diplomatic passport is for those people working in diplomatic capacity for a country. So most people will be seeking a standard passport.

In order to travel, most places require that you have 6 months validity remaining on your passport. In Cambodia a passport is issued with three years of validity and the option of extending twice for two years each time, so seven years in all.

Despite the importance of travel for so many people within a modern country, very few Cambodians have ever acquired a passport. It is simply too expensive, and most people don’t even consider it. I must admit that even as a student in Phnom Penh from a more-or-less middle class family, I never considered getting a passport tin my hand until I received a scholarship earlier this year to study abroad in Malaysia. I didn’t even consider at first that I would need a passport to leave the country.

However, with the experience of procuring a passport now under my belt, I can say with certainty that obtaining a passport as a Cambodian citizen in a prohibitively expensive, time consuming and laborious process.

The first step is a trip to passport department to fill out the passport application form and give them a number of important documents that prove your Cambodian nationality, including your family record book, your birth certificate, and your identity card. When I got to the passport office, which was about the same size as a normal house, I was shocked to see about 100 people packed inside.

When I went to the ministry we site to get details on how to navigate the passport process, I found nothing, so I went to a travel agent who proved a much more valuable resource. Eventually I got in touch with an official from the passport agency, who was also helpful.

One thing I learned through these two conversations was that the price of a passport and the waiting time seems to vary depending on who you are and who you ask.

The person from travel agency told me that there are three types of passport pricing: if you pay $136, you have to wait around 50 to 60 days to get your passport, pay $180 and you can get it within three weeks. If you are really in a rush to get going, you can pay $219 to get it within a week.

However, the person from the passport department told me that it would cost $135 if I waited for 60 days, $220 within a week. Not a huge difference, admittedly, but enough to show a lack of standardisation (also, you would think the slight price hike would be at the travel agency, not the government office).

Considering the financial state of your average Cambodian, more than $100 is enough to keep people from considering a passport, and more than $200 is out of reach of just about anybody who is wealthy.

If we look at our neighbouring countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, we can see the price is dramatically different. According to a Cambodia Country Study published in 2009 by the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI), the passport fee is only $12 in Vietnam, $30 in Thailand and $35 in Laos.

Every year there are a lot of people who go outside the country to work as migrant workers to get money to support their families in Cambodia, and it was recognised by civil service organisation, and eventually the government that the high price of passports was preventing these workers, often some of the poorest people in Cambodia, to illegally exit the country, leaving themselves vulnerable to abuse and legal problems.

According to the previously mentioned report by CDRI, the Kingdom’s Prime Minister ordered the Ministry of Interior to make passports free, or as cheap as possible, for migrant workers. The cost dropped to around $45 for migrants who are patient enough to go through the formal process.

The report recommended that “the total fee should be $50 for migrant workers and other citizens ($40 official fee and $10 unofficial fee, assuming that it is impractical to eliminate unofficial fees)”.

One more point I’d like to point out is that the passport process in Cambodia is painfully slow, even compared to other countries. In Cambodia, the best you can hope for, without paying an arm and a leg, is three weeks to get your passport made, while in Thailand and Vietnam it is issued in three to five working days.

Arrived at the place, I was surprised to see more than a hundred of people packed together into a building which is the same size as a normal house. My decision to hire the services of travel agent proved fruitful as I was ushered through the crown and emerged having submitted my application within 15 minutes.

So, until the passport office gets its act together, go through a travel agent. Otherwise, you may be waiting a while.

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 70 published on May 11, 2011

Plugging the brain drain

May 4, 2011

Dara Saoyuth

LIFT

Profile of Cambodian youth who is fighting the trend toward the city and making a difference, despite the difficulties in the provincial parts of the Kingdom

Upon leaving his homeland in Takeo province in 2007, Kim Bora began vocational training in the electronics field at the Centre Kram Ngoy (CKN). When he completed his final exam, he was just as quick to set his sites on a career in the countryside and within two days he was in Kampong Cham, where he continues to work today and hopes to raise his family.

The 27-year-old Kim Bora works for the Electricity Tboung Khmum Enterprise as a manager of their branch in Ou Reang Ov district in Kampong Cham.

He is tasked with not only ensuring the distribution of electricity to the people in the community he lives in, but also must ensure that his neighbours, and other customers, pay their bills on time.

“Electricity is very important in people daily life,” he said. “However, in some areas connections are still difficult and I often receive complaints that car batteries are much more expensive.”

Kim Bora admits that he has much work left unfinished, he is also proud of the accomplishments he has made. He said that so far, he and his team has equipped around 30,000 households with electricity and around 30,000 more households will be connected shortly.

Although Kim Bora moved swiftly to the province he currently lives in, he remembers the difficulties of settling in vividly. “At first, I didn’t have any friends and I felt very homesick,” he said.

But he remained persistent and after sticking it out for a while, he got used to the environment and everything has now reached a point where he feels very comfortable in his surroundings.

When asked about his future plans, he said he that he no longer considers taking a job in the city or making a return to his hometown. Why? you might ask. Well, that has nothing to do electric connections.

He fell in love with a woman while he was negotiating life in Kampong Cham and they want to stay right there to start a family together.

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 69 published on May 05, 2011

Virtual friends, digital discussions & real worries

April 13, 2011

Dara Saoyuth

Feature Story, LIFT

Dara Saoyuth steps away from his own Facebook page long enough to talk to anyone in the country who would know about what consequences Cambodian stand to face if they are overly critical online.

My Facebook profile

It went public in 2006, and since then Facebook has become the world’s largest social networking site with more than 500 million active users worldwide. Facebook has increasingly become integrated into Cambodian internet users’ daily experience as more than half of the users surveyed used Facebook at least once a day and another one-third used several times a week, according to an online survey of 468 Cambodian Facebook users published by the Department of Media and Communication.

There are 255,660 total Facebook users in Cambodia now as reported by socialbakers.com, one of the biggest Facebook statistics portals in the world. Users know that Facebook is an effective tool for networking, communicating or advertising, while tending to ignore or simply not knowing about some important aspects that might lead to legal action, especially involving privacy.

For example, Cambodia is no different from the outside world, where a person can be accused of defamation and face legal action if they post something on asocial networking site that is considered a public place. However, no such case has happened in Cambodia, so far.

“So far, there is no point mentioned in Cambodian laws related to Facebook privacy,” said Sok Samoeun, an executive director at Cambodian Defenders Project, who suggested the possibility that a page might not be a private place anymore if everyone can see its contents or that page has hundreds of friends or members.

Pen Samitthy, the president of the Club of Cambodian Journalists and editor-in-chief of the Rasmey Kampuchea newspaper, said that social networking sites are very good because they create a new form of broadcasting news that he called citizen journalism.

“Now everyone can work like a journalist because they can provide information whenever there is computer and internet connection,” said Pen Samitthy, who acknowledged that there were some negative points with this kind of citizen journalism. He said people who use social networking sites as a tool to disseminate information normally don’t have a professional background, so they cannot balance a story and they just write what they see and put what they think with doing proper research.

Posting, commenting and uploading photos or videos are normally what people do on these sites, to share their experiences and emotions towards daily life. Facebook also allows users to create groups, invite other people to join and make discussions on their topic of interest.

Among the numerous groups created by Cambodians, Khmer Motherland (Meatophum Khmer) is supported by its 1,350 members and Khmer People Network (Bondanh Polrot Khmer) is supported by its 294 members. These are two groups that get updated very often. Most of the topics being discussed by these groups is related to politics and social issues.

A 24-year-old university student who asked to be callled by his nickname of Roumket Roumsomrech Roumtver is a member of the two Facebook groups. He said that normally someone puts up a posting and that leads to a discussion which sometimes turns into an argument.

“Since members try to reflect their personal views, especially on politics and the fact that not all of them have the same tendency, some of them have attacked each other in the form of comments back and forth instead of trying to understand one another,” said Roumket Roumsomrech Roumtver, who explained that by not using his real name on Facebook he felt more confident commenting on politics.

Pen Samitty said it will not cause any problems if a person creates a group to discuss things with a few of his or her friends, but it might lead to problems when putting in links for everyone to see. He added that although there is no law on internet use yet, it may violate another law like defamation if someone went too far.

Facebook is an international website that attracts all nationalities, but AngkorOne.com is the international website that attracts Cambodians living all over the world. To help its members get around any legal problems, AngkorOne.com, a Khmer social networking site with nearly 14,000 members, have created some policies for posting things.

Steven Path, the founder and chief executive officer of AngkorOne.com, said he has staff and members to review all the content to make sure that members are respectful to one another and not get involved in political discussions. “When it comes to political attacks, we see on other websites that they attack very violently and we don’t want this to appear on AngkorOne.com,” he said.

“It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. We are not concerned about having thousands of posts every day, but we do get about 300 to 400 posts per day that are quality ones.”

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 66 published on April 13, 2011

Schools Led by Students

April 6, 2011

Dara Saoyuth

Feature Story, LIFT

1 Comment

Although poor funding is almost certainly the main obstacle standing between Cambodian students and an internationally competitive education, it is certainly not the only thing that needs to be addressed for the Kingdom to start producing world-ready intellectuals. Dara Saoyuth looks at plans turn things around that will put students behind the wheel.

learning how to grow vegetables / by: World Education

Carrying a green sack on her right shoulder, 7-year-old Chan Eng was opening a rubbish bin along the riverside with a 10-year old boy, looking for empty cans and bottles to sell. Last year she went to a school and studied in grade 1, but three months later, she had to drop out of school because her parents, who work as scavengers, could not afford to pay for her studies. She was asked to scavenge and to make some money to support the family.

She is not the only child in this predicament. About one-third of children in Cambodia aged five to fourteen work, leaving them with less time to concentrate on school, according to a document released in January 2010 by the American Institutes for Research.

In article 48 of the Cambodian Constitution adopted in 1999, it states that “the State shall protect children from acts that are injurious to their educational opportunities,health and welfare”. It is also a government policy to provide children with basic education, from grade 1 to grade 9.

The Child Friendly School, or CFS, is a programme that has been tested and practiced in Cambodia by the Ministry of Education and its development partners in order to implement this policy.

“CFS is a school where educating techniques focus more on children’s rights and all stakeholders have to work together to produce a learning environment that is more friendly to students and to assure them that they can get knowledge, have life skills, have good behaviour and be able to live in society peacefully,”said Mom Meth, a Technical Assistant at the Secondary Department of the Ministry of Education.

The CFS programme is also focused on child centered learning, which means that children take anactive role in their learning and work in a more independent way to discover their potential and uniqueness, while the teachers’ role is to facilitate them.

There are six dimensions in the CFS programme. The first dimension is inclusive education. The second is effective learning; the third,health, safety and child protection;the fourth, gender sensitivity; the fifth, engagement with children,parents and communities; and the sixth, support from educational management structure.

The CFS pilot programme was implemented in 2000 by the Ministry of Education. Some NGOs and development partners such as UNICEF, Save the Children and Kampuchean Action for Primary Education (KAPE) are helping with some primary schools in Cambodia.

Kou Boun Kheang, a Senior Education Program Advisor at Save the Children, said the organisation has supported CFS since 2000, but is mainly focused on the first, second and sixth dimensions that relate to schools seeking out excluded children, effective learning and school management structure.

“We look around so we can clearly find children who are not able to go to school,” Kou Bounkheang said when explaining how they find excluded children. He added that after finding them, his organisation will then make contact with their parents, explain things to them and give a loan or scholarship to the family and children to make sure they can go to school.

Minister of Education Im Sethy officially approved and announced on December 14, 2007, that all schools in the country should implement the Child Friendly School programme.In the Education Sector Plan for 2006-2010 from the ministry,one priority is to initiate CFS in all 24 provinces to build some quality in basic education.

Por Sokhoeun, a director at the Hor Namhong Sangker secondary school in Kampong Cham, said he adopted the CFS programme in March 2010 and has organised classrooms, school environments,teaching and learning techniques based on the CFS programme.

“It’s different from schools that haven’t practiced the programme because here, students are mobile from one room to another according to the subjects they are studying, unlike in previous times when they had to sit in one room for all subjects,”said Por Sokhoeun. He added that this has improved the quality of education because both the students and teachers can find all the equipment they need for each subject.

Por Sokhoeun gave, as an example,a geography class where there are maps, globes, pictures and tools related to the subject of geography, so students feel they are sitting in a room full of knowledge and they can absorb as much as they want.

No matter how good the programme is, it has not yet reached all schools in the Kingdom, especially for secondary education.

Liesbeth Roolvink, a Basic Education Advisor at World Education,said: “Officially the policy refers to CFS as a policy for basic education. However, the strong focus has been on primary schools and only a small number of pilot schools in lower secondary have applied the policy so far.”

She also acknowledged that the number is expanding and mentioned the project she is working on, Improved Basic Education in Cambodia(IBEC), is being implemented in 101 secondary schools in Kampong Cham, Kratie and Siem reap,and Care International is supporting it in lower secondary schools in Ratanakiri.

“For some schools that never received support in the process of adopting CFS, this may be a little difficult and therefore, they have decided to make three different development stages, basic, medium and advanced,” said Liesbeth Roolvink. “The basic level has a small number of very basic CFS requirements that schools are expected to do and this should be possible with the use of programme based budget and guidance of district technical monitoring teams.Once schools have the basic requirements in place and successfully implemented, they will move up to the next development level and for this level, there are new and more activities that must be implemented,”she explained.

Chum Sophea, director of the primary education department at the ministry of education, agreed that the level of practicing CFS is not the same for all schools based on the resources each school has.

“In some primary schools, there are only classes from grade 1 to grade 2 or 3 with a few teachers, so practicing CFS cannot be the sameas other schools that have enough resources,” said Chum Sophea, who added that the ministry plans to build more rooms and provide more teachers for schools that don’t haveclasses from grade 1 to 6 and lack teachers, so every school can develop their level of the CFS proagramme.

“Now we have 6,767 primary schools across the country and we plan to build around 400 more this year, so with 95-96 percent of children in school presently, there will be no Cambodian children that are out of school in 2015.”

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 65 published on April 06, 2011

A day in the life of artists – Moeu Diyadaravuth

March 23, 2011

Dara Saoyuth

LIFT

3 Comments

“A picture has been said to be something between a thing and a thought”. It was said by Samuel Palmer, a British landscape painter and etcher. However, this sentence cannot fully explain a day in the life of a painter like Moeu Diyadaravuth who has been working since 2005 as an office assistant and graphic artist at Our books, a non-profit organization that creates and distributes books throughout Cambodia and provides illustrations for various publications.

I’ve spent last Thursday morning with a 28-year-old Moeu Diyadaravuth to reveal his experience of being an artist. In an apartment near Royal University of Fine Arts, Moeu Diyadaravuth was sitting in his office room at his desk checking his phone when I arrived, and he put it down when our conversation began. Everything on the desk was in order, and in the left corner, I could see a pile of picture he has done while there was a box of some foreign cartoon books on the top right hand side of the desk and below that was a large white box which he called a light box that he normally uses to ink the picture, copy the sketch to another white paper using a pen, by putting papers on that box and turn on the light so that he could see the sketch clearly and copy it easily.

He told me that he’d just finished drawing pictures for an organization and that he was free to talk. It seemed to be a bit frustrated for me that I could not see his drawing processes; however, it turned into a good chance that he had more time to explain me about his works and show his achievements.

Moeu Diyadaravuth can make three different kinds of pictures like black-and-white picture, watercolor painting, and digital painting. But, he said the most popular ordered picture is a third category because color from computer has better quality.

Moeu Diyadaravuth cannot start drawing until he understand what his customers want and that require him to talk or read the text to understand the context. Even though most of the time he can imagine the picture as soon as the customers tell their idea, some challenges cannot be an exception.

“Our customers want picture that fit to their contents, but they are not professional, so there are chances that we cannot draw for them because sometimes they are too imaginative,” he said, explaining that drawings aren’t like video that have action, so you have to capture the main idea in one image.

When it comes to being a good artist, he advised many hours of practicing and researching other people’s work. “Drawing is one of my leisure activities, I read some others artists’ books and Google things I know I’m not good at. This helps me improve my skill constantly.”

[slideshow]

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 63 published on March 23, 2011

My First Column in LIFT Magazine – Traffic in the City

March 16, 2011

Dara Saoyuth

Commentary, LIFT

4 Comments

Road blocks aren’t just an annoyance, they are also standing in the way of developing a safer and more modern city.

The traffic in Phnom Penh city is getting heavier every day because of the growth in the population and the fact that more people now own vehicles. Traffic jams usually happen when people leave their houses for their workplace in the morning and when they return home in the evening.

You might be late for class or work and fail to withstand the stress of getting stuck on the road. Even emergency vehicles like ambulances and fire trucks, when every second counts, are sometimes caught in bad traffic because people cannot move aside easily to free up some space for these vehicles. Imagine if a seriously injured person was in an ambulance waiting to get to hospital or people were waiting for the fire brigade to help them put out a fire. There are a lot of factors that contribute to traffic congestion.

One thing that is usually unreported is roads being blocked when there is a celebration like a wedding. Sometimes they block only half the road and leave some spaces for vehicles, but there are also times when they block the whole road. Even though it’s not a main road, every road is linked. For example, when there are a lot of vehicles on a main road, people can turn off and use a smaller road, but what happen if these roads are blocked for a party? I have seen two wedding parties being celebrated on the opposite sides of a road which was completely blocked. People get struck in a traffic jam because they cannot turn to right or left.

Wedding ceremonies usually take place in front of the bride’s house. They turn the road into a dinning and cooking area. In the countryside where it is not so crowded and there are not so many vehicles this is not a problem.

Nowadays city people not only ask permission to celebrate a party, but they also ask permission to block the road. I think this should be reconsidered in a city where millions of people are living and the numbers of vehicles keep increasing. I think if people want to throw a party and there is no free space inside their house, they should consider celebrating at a restaurant or rent a building.

Putting small business of parking vehicles on the footpaths also contributes to congestion in the city. According to the law on land traffic adopted by the National Assembly on December 20, 2006, Article 5 of the law states that “sidewalks are not allowed for vehicles to park.”

However, the sidewalks are still being used as parking places when customers want to go in and buy goods from stores along a road. So far there has been some action taken by Phnom Penh police against people doing business on the sidewalks, but it has not been very effective.

In an article published on The Phnom Penh Post on January 14, 2010, police fanned out across Phsar Kandal I commune to inform shopkeepers and street venders that they could no longer block the area’s pavements and roadways with their displays, and threatened to confiscate the goods of offending merchants.

In an interview Hem Him, Phsar Kandal I commune’s chief of police, said “the commune’s new policy on sidewalks and road use is part of the Phnom Penh municipality’s plan to widen the city’s streets and avoid the congestion caused by venders using streets as their own land”.

In addition, some people who usually travel with their carts selling goods along the roads just park when they find customers and they also make the traffic worse.

There is also the issue of people using their mobile phones while driving. For motorcycle riders, they sometimes place the phone next to their ear inside their helmet so they can hide from traffic wardens, while car owners usually drive with one hand on the wheel and a phone in the other hand. Even though their activities can sometimes be hidden from the traffic police, they cause trouble to other people.

When people focus on talking on their phone, they drive their vehicles carelessly, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. This not only can cause traffic jams, but can also cause accidents and as a result, some innocent people might be injured by them.

As noted by government, NGOs and other relevant agencies, casualties from road accidents are now the second leading cause of death in Cambodia. Among the leading causes of traffic accidents, the first is human error followed by bad roads, vehicle defects and weather conditions.

Some factors mentioned above are manmade, meaning that the authorities and citizens can help eliminate these things, so why we don’t try together to improve the traffic in the city we live in.

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 62 published on March 16, 2011

Is the Sam Rainsy Party’s candle burning out?

March 9, 2011

Dara Saoyuth

Feature Story, LIFT

1 Comment

Image via Wikipedia

People are sitting in a room looking at a large TV screen. They are watching a person on the screen and if they want to speak, they have to get out of their seats and go to a desk and talk in a microphone so that the person on the screen can hear and respond. This is the method employed by Sam Rainsy Party members to communicate with their leader, Sam Rainsy, who is now living in self-exile in France.

Sam Rainsy was convicted in January 2010 of destroying public property and racial incitement with Vietnam by pulling up border posts along the Vietnamese border in Svay Rieng province in 2009. On March 1, 2011, Cambodia’s Supreme Court rejected his appeal and his sentence of two years in jail still stands.

“The court is used as a political tool to shut Sam Rainsy’s mouth or eliminate him from the political arena since he is the leader of the opposition party,” said Yim Sovann, a spokesman for the Sam Rainsy Party.

On the other hand, Cheam Yeap, a senior Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker, said the ruling party did not order Sam Rainsy to remove the border posts. “Our country has law, so Sam Rainsy has to face court because of his wrongdoing, and if one day in the future I do something wrong, of course, I will face the court as well,” said Cheam Yeap.

A press release issued on February 22 by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights stated “the convictions against Sam Rainsy may leave the country’s largest opposition party without a leader at the next general election”.

Sam Rainsy fled the country in early 2009 and will serve 12 years in jail if he returns to Cambodia because in a separate case, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced him to an additional 10 years in jail on charges of forging public documents and disinformation after convicting him of disinformation and falsifying public documents.

The executive director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy (KID) in Cambodia, Hang Chhaya, said what has concerned him is that Cambodia is a democratic country, so Sam Rainsy’s case should not have reached the level of removing his parliamentary immunity and sentencing him since he had rights as a politician. “What the ruling party want is to make a good leader who people see, love and support, have to stay abroad as long as possible,” said Hang Chhaya.

While Prime Minister Hun Sen can stand and talk to CPP members and his supporters directly, Sam Rainsy needs support from technology to be able to communicate with SRP members and supporters.

However, Yim Sovann said the fact that Sam Rainsy is not in Cambodia is not a problem for the party. “If you want to meet the party leader, we can make a phone call or video conference that you can see the picture and there is no difference in communication by having or not having him present,” said Yim Sovann, adding that Sam Rainsy is still the party leader who leads meetings and keeps communicating between all levels of leaders and members.

To gain more support in the upcoming election, the HRP and SRP have been working on merging the two parties. After the 2008 national election, on January 15, 2009, Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha singed on a joined declaration officially establishing the Democratic Movement for Change. Since then the alliance has not reached 100 percent agreement and recently each party created a working group of five people to discuss the merger.

Mu Sochua, a SRP lawmaker and one of the five people in a merger group on the SRP side, said some conflict of ideas and misunderstandings from the past were the reasons for slowing the merger. However, she said she believed it would be successful soon. “We are democratic people and we have the same goal,” Mu Sochua said.

Mu Sochua said she was sure of success in the next election when the alliance reaches full agreement. She gave as an example Kampot province, where the SRP needs about 10,000 votes more to get one more parliament seat, however the HRU gets more than 14,000 votes. “Because we were not united at that time, about 14,000 votes were useless because none of us got any seats from there,” she said.

“Previously, we didn’t work well on the merger, but now we have a clear objective and we have clear steps to take,” Keat Sukun, a coordinator in merger group on the HRP side, said. He added that both sides had recently found common ground for a lasting unification of the parties.

Keat Sukun said that in Cambodia, each party cannot do everything alone and unification is very important in terms of exchanging human resources.

“It is the right decision to join as an alliance,” said Phnom Penh-based political analyst Chea Vannath, who explained that the seat allocation formula in Cambodia makes small political parties waste a lot of votes if they are not united.

However, she said she is not sure if this unification can last much longer because based on her observations, it would be easy to break up.

“To unite successfully, it’s very important to have trust building between the two parties, as wife and husband do,” said Chea Vannath. “We have to think that there will be a lot of obstacles with each step we take, and if we can trust each other, this unification will last forever.”

“While the frog tries harder, the snake also tries harder,” said Cheam Yeap, explaining that the ruling party was also working harder. Cheam Yeap said the ruling party did not fear the union of opposition parties.

However, Cheam Yeap said: “All CPP members are not advised to ride a horse with a free hand.” He added that they are not just sitting there happy with their victory, but they are working to keep it.

By: Dara Saoyuth

Additional reporting by Sok Eng

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 61 published on March 09, 2011

The Students talent exhibition of Faculty of Fine Arts

February 23, 2011

Dara Saoyuth

Commentary, LIFT, Personal Interest/Experience

2 Comments

Artwork of student of Faculty of Fine Arts / by: Dara Saoyuth

It’s 5:30 in the afternoon of Thursday, February 17, and hundreds of people are milling around on street 178, looking in a building as if they are waiting for something to happen.

It is neither a coup nor a protest – the people are there for the opening ceremony of the largest exhibition ever which organized by the Royal University of Fine Arts.

The program hasn’t started yet, so public are not allowed to go inside the university exhibition hall except the Cambodian Minister of Culture and Fine Arts Him Chhem, some journalists, and some dignitaries.

An event organizer recognized me in the crowd outside the building and invited to enter with some other journalists.

The building that is mostly empty and silent is now filled with 198 pieces of artworks in various forms including paintings, drawings, sculptures, bronze-castings, photography, and interior design projects produced by graduate and undergraduate students at RUFA.

The students talent exhibition of Faculty of Fine Arts is the first student graduate student show since the 1960s and its main goal is to give the students the opportunity to present their creative works to a broader audience.

I start walking from one end to the other end of the room, entering every room along the corridor since there are artworks everywhere, even on the walls along the passage. Even though I don’t have much knowledge about art, I have a look at every single piece of art because they are so beautiful.

About 30 minutes later, the formal ceremony starts when the Minister of Culture cuts the symbolic ribbon following a speech by the university’s rector and some remarks by the minister.

The program lasted for about half an hour, but it was hard for me to pay attention to the speeches because the hall was so stuffy. There was also some noise from outside as people there kept talking loudly.

In his remarks, the Minister of Culture said he appreciated the students’ efforts producing these works of art and this exhibition shared the national policy under the slogan “Cambodia, Kingdom of Culture”.

As soon as the speeches ended, people standing outside start squeezing into the building. It was a mix of Cambodians and foreigners. I felt packed into the building and it was getting stuffy since there was no air-conditioning, only some ceiling fans.

I began to feel hungry and wanted to leave the hall, but when I saw more people were coming in, I decided to stay there to see how the audience reacted to the artworks. I was standing against the wall, observing all the activities and surprisingly a young lady, with a snack and drink on a large plat, come to offer me some. I realized that she was a volunteer at the event, so she had to make sure the audience had something to eat and drink. Everyone in the room also enjoyed eating and drinking with their eyes still focused on the students’ achievements.

Seng Vesal, 23, is a senior student majoring in painting at RUFA and had 12 pieces exhibited in the event. Seng Visal said he was very happy since it was the first time he had his work exhibited. “Students will try to compete against each other to make their work available to show to the public,” said Seng Visal.

If you haven’t seen the exhibition, don’t be worry because it will be on display permanently.

[slideshow]

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 59 published on February 23, 2011

Exhibition Hall at the Royal University of Fine Art
#2, Street 178, Khan Daun Penh, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
(Behind National Museum)

Bringing rural schools up to speed online

February 16, 2011

Dara Saoyuth

LIFT

5 Comments

About 32 kilometres outside Phnom Penh stands a public secondary school that is one of the small, but growing, group of government-run schools in the Kingdom connected to the internet. Thet Visith, a grade 9 student at Samraong Leu high school in Kandal province, said he is only able to use the internet for two hours a week, but he is still grateful for the free use of online resources. “It is good to have an internet connection at my school because I can look for interesting news and gain new knowledge easily,” he said.

E-learning, as the process of getting knowledge and skills through digital sources is called, can bring educational material from around the world directly to students is places that are otherwise isolated. In the 21^st century, it is one of the most powerful tools that a person can have for learning, but in Cambodia there are millions of students who go to schools with no internet access at all.

It’s already been 14 years since the first computer user sent a message over the internet, to their counterpart in California, but the reach of the internet is still very limited in the Kingdom. Due to a lack of electricity, digital infrastructure and technology education, students in remote areas of Cambodia struggle to connect to the internet at all, let alone use it regularly as an academic resource.

According to data from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications obtained received earlier this month, the Kingdom had 291,589 internet subscribers out of 14.8 million people total, just under 2 percent of the population, not including people who access the internet through cell phones or other mobile devices. According to these statistics, internet penetration in Cambodia is one of the lowest in the world, and well behind the average in Asia, 21.5 percent, and the world average, 28.7 percent.

The students at Samraong Leu secondary school are able to utilize the internet thanks to Japanese Asia Pacific Technology, as part of a Research and Human Development project. Project manager Tuy Lay Veasna said they are working with hospitals and high schools in Kandal province to promote the use of the internet in education and health services (E-health). He added that the project is in its pilot phase, but he hopes to get more funds to expand the initiative to other remote areas of the country.

Ean Savy is one of the few public school teachers in the Kingdom who teaches computer classes, but she said many of the students at Samraong Leu secondary school aren’t benefiting due to a lack of English skills or familiarity with technology.

“People in remote areas do not know what a computer is, and some are even afraid of computers,” said Chea Sok Huor, the project manager for iReach (Information for Rural Empowerment and Community Health), a project with 10 centres in Kep and Prey Veng provinces, funded by the Canadian government, which provides the internet to students and residents in those areas so they can stay educated. “Bringing the internet to their areas helps them understand more and know where they can get the information they need.”

With the aim of helping children learn through creative exploration, CAMBODIA P.R.I.D.E., founded in 2005, is another organization looking to expand internet access in Cambodia. The Reaksmy Primary School in rural Preah Vihear province is their main focus, and so far they have given more than 300 students regular access to computers and the world-wide-web.

Despite the stated mission, student explorations aren’t completely self-guided. “We don’t allow students to use the internet independently because there are many things both positive and negative in the internet world,” said Svay Pearak, an English teacher at Cambodia P.R.I.D.E whose students are learning to learn through the internet.

Once students get to university, the internet is essential, said Hor Sokpolyne, an 18-year0old sophomore studying at the Institute of Foreign Languages, but she isn’t sure how crucial it is for younger students in rural places. “I wonder if the internet provides better standards of living to people in remote areas if there is still poor electricity in some places,” she said.

This is exactly the situation that Pen Sokun, the director of Damnak Ampil secondary school in Kandal province, faces in teaching his students to use technology. “I have only two computers running on solar power for more than 300 students. It is not enough,” he said. Only with more computers, and more teachers who can train students, will he be able to properly teach technology to the students at his school.

1997

First computer in Cambodia with full-time internet connection.

Two commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) started to offer services

2003

The Asia Foundation launched a network of 22 Community Information Centres, within two years they had half a million visits.

.kh Domain names are made available by Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

2004

The Open Forum of Cambodia made Khmer fonts, a Khmer software application called Moyura, and an all Khmer operating system available to the public

By: Dara Saoyuth & Cheng Lita

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 58 published on February 16, 2011

TEDx hits Phnom Penh

February 12, 2011

Dara Saoyuth

Conference Notice, LIFT, Personal Interest/Experience

1 Comment

Dara Saoyuth

Dara Saoyuth while joining TEDxPhnomPenh

I was very lucky to be one among the 150 people who had the chance to join the first TEDxPhnomPenh. I arrived at the event some time before it started, spotted some people I knew and we enjoyed chatting while waiting for the auditorium doors to open.

Then it was time! An event organiser announced some rules we should know because the presentations would be live streaming to people around the world and I felt a bit nervous to hear them say that everyone should choose to sit at a table with people they hadn’t known before. The reason for this was that they wanted us to get to know different people and share ideas after each session of the presentations.

A few minutes later, the people at my table were not strangers any more. We started sharing basic information including our names, where we were from and so forth.

Our conversation ended when the moderator announced the official start of the programme. Everyone concentrated on what each presenter was saying. Our conversation started again in the form of a discussion about the subjects given by the moderator.

Kung Nai, a Chapei Master, and Keeda Oikawa, a live painter and illustrator, came together to show their talents at playing Chapei and painting as a welcome addition to the event. After that, 12 presenters came on stage one after another to present their topics.

Even though it was a mix between Cambodian and foreign presenters, to me all the presentations were great. I can see very little difference between these two types of presenters, apart from the use of English. I felt that some Cambodian presenters could not show their full potential because of a lack of English skills. However, they all managed to keep it interesting, convincing and they inspired me through their expressions and meaningful content.

If I was asked to choose my top two Cambodian presenters, Kounila Keo and Phloeun Prim would be my choices. As the author of the Blue Lady Blog, Kounila presented the topic “Blogging: The New generation of Cambodia”. Blogs are also my favourite things to read in my free time. Putting a few letters, but big and mostly fun pictures, made me easily catch and remember the points she made. With her clear explanation and convincing voice, I decided to choose her as my first choice.

As a Cambodian who was raised in Canada from the age of three, Phloeun Prim was my second choice of the most convincing speaker. He didn’t focus much on the slides he showed, but used his facial expressions combined with his great intonation which nearly made me cry as he started narrating his own story from childhood. He made it very clear about why he loves Khmer art and culture and why we should try to protect it.

If there is another chance in the future, I would love to go to this event again.

Tivea Koam

Phloeun Prim during his presentation in TEDxPhnomPenh / by: Dara Saoyuth

Building the Future” was the theme for TEDxPhnom Penh, which was held last Saturday. Since there was going to be many great people who would be really amazing for me to meet and talk with, I would have felt very regretful if I missed the event. However, I was fortunate enough to get the chance to join in.

TEDxPhnom Penh brought both Cambodian and foreign speakers from different backgrounds together – artists, social entrepreneurs, filmmakers, bloggers, human rights activists and software developers – who had interesting experiences in life and wonderful ideas to share on the stage with a passionate audience.

While I was part of the audience at the event, I could see most of the speakers were really energetic and inspiring in presenting their great perspectives for how we could build the future of Cambodia and the world and how individuals could contribute to development and peace around the globe.

Some speakers made me laugh, some made me think critically about their topics, some aroused my emotions on what they were talking about and some made me thoughtful. I can say that the topics which were presented during the event were undeniably motivated and beneficial to me as a part of the audience.

Though some speakers like Kounila Keo, Sithen Sum and Phloeun Prim were Cambodians, they provided interesting presentations with global visions for the development of Cambodians. However, the topic that impressed me the most was “Midlife Crisis”, presented by Mike Rios. It was so compelling to me, for he gave a charming and humourous presentation, but he also gave me an idea that I had not thought of.

He showed the evils of some advertising he had done, which made people think of being cool and awesome if they possessed those advertised goods, and then explained what made him quit his job and his push to use advertising for a better way of life for people. He said that sometimes people do not even know they inspire others to achieve what they want, and that people were interdependent, with one inspiring another. That really pushed me to think more of what I am doing and what I have to do to better my life and my country.

Chris Brown, a software developer, talked about how to fail in business by focusing on customers first rather than moving straight to product-focused issues, which gave me more ideas about to how to start a business successfully.

Colin Wright’s talk on “Extreme Lifestyle Experiments” gave me another taste of life, on how to make positive change to lives. Chris Noble’s presentation of “From Little Things, Big Things Grow” did inspire me to feel that the small thing I did today can make a bigger change tomorrow.

Besides gaining knowledge from the speakers, I was really delighted to share my ideas with the people at my table and get more ideas from the discussion sessions which TEDxPhnom Penh provided.

I am so proud that I took part in TEDxPhnom Penh for the first time and it went so successfully, but what I think they could do to make it better would be to have more speakers so I could learn more from them.

I can say this is the greatest event I have joined in so far and I would love to engage myself more in such events with the hope of knowing more people, sharing ideas worth spreading and listening to meaningful, motivating and fascinating presentations demonstrated by passionate speakers, both local and international. I do hope we will have TEDxPhnom Penh next year, but with more speakers.

By: Dara Saoyuth & Koam Tivea

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 57 published on February 09, 2011

Category - LIFT

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