“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”, Nelson Mandela.
Education is really important but the problem is rural schools don’t have access to those materials that can lead students to success. As an agent for change, this needs to be changed, I can’t let this problem continue.
By the word of CHANGE, there are 2 points that I did last year to impact my country. It may not be a big impact but for Cambodia to be a developed country is a stepping stone.
Project Little Dreams was an impact project of our alumni, Sreyneang Oun. The project name was straightforward, she is creating this project to give hopes and dreams to students in the rural area to become a change agent of Cambodia as the students of Liger Leadership Academy. To be specific, we have chosen to work with the old school our alumni studied at, called “Tnoat.” So, our mission is to create activities for classroom learning. We will introduce the student’s fun activities but yet educational. The one and only one vision for our project are “Make education more enjoyable, people think about change and build leaders in my community”.
The biggest goal for the project is to experiment with a project-based-learning style with those kids.
Today is the day that I have to come to class proudly, ready to work, and ready to change. The team and I work together in finding fun activities just to test them at the first stage. They are just kids between the ages of 8 and 12, we can’t be too serious with them, so those fun activities would help so much. “The best way to make children good is to make them happy”, Oscar Wilde. Plus, we’re bringing them some of our old books, and let’s see if those students are the bookworms.
A week passes by, we have gathered all the activities we compromise moreover start testing them with the students. It was fun visiting their school for the first time because I get to spend my wonderful time with kids which I don’t usually do. All went pretty well, they enjoyed the activities and, most importantly, they were so kind, friendly and showed us a great deal of respect as their teachers.
It’s just an attempt on them, said our mentor. I already know there’s more work to come but everything is possible as a change agent.
The time to work on our main project goal had come. Since we wanted to experiment with the project-based-learning style, we were thinking of an environmental workshop. It is not easy to think of what to include in the workshop but because of our determination and effort, we managed to make everything achievable. Poster teaching will be included in our workshop followed by more fun activities related to our theme, the environment.
What is poster teaching? Our team will create posters teaching the students about the cause and effect of climate change plus showing the heroes that have contributed to this huge issue surrounding the world.
So, for the activities, we have come up with a bunch of ideas such as umbrella roll play to represent the importance of trees, trivia games after they are done with the poster section, videos explaining trash bins, and last but not least is a creative art where kids get a chance to express their creativity through art.
It is a well-planned workshop by far without any obstacles and we are ready to convey all of our knowledge to them.
The second trip has come and as a change agent, I’m always ready to face any complication. Same as the first trip, the students’ attitude does not change. They show respect to us, I can say even more than their teacher. This is warm for me as their visitor. I wish to see more Cambodian show this same attitude.
The workshop has started and every single student at the school shows up to this event as they are ready to receive all the knowledge we conduct. We begin the workshop simply by dividing them into smaller groups. Each group has 15 minutes for activity including umbrella role play, trivia, watching educational videos, and poster teaching as we called, then they will rotate. We wanted to see their creativity, so we set it to 1 hour just only for the creative art section. I can see that everyone expresses their curiosity in trivia and educational videos. They seem to enjoy umbrella role-play activities so much because they get to play around with umbrellas. I was impressed so much by their creativity, they built a house out of cardboard and some drew many beautiful arts. Well, now I understand that “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, they tend to be so smart and ingenious but they never get a chance to display who they are to the world. This wants to make me cry knowing that they will have a bright future and I’m stepping one foot forward as a change agent.
The workshop is done and I’m tired but seeing those kids smile and joy made me proud. We spent our last hour with kids playing soccer, drawing, and many more. Remember when I said, let’s see if those students are bookworms? Yes they are, their teacher told us that they always go into the library before class starts to read. They seem to remember our names clearly which is impressive. I don’t expect them to still remember our names in the next few months but let’s hope they remember how we make them happy just like a quote says, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” It was a good time spending with those students. I wish to see them again soon.
Now that I have impacted others, have I done any impact on myself yet? Yes, I did a little but the biggest impact came during the quarantine.
Well, let’s see what COVID had done to me. To be honest, being in quarantine changed me so much. It’s like I’m a new person now. I discovered my new passion which is architecture. As of now, I like being productive during the day, such as working out, doing some reading, spending time thinking about life, meditation, and more related to health and studying. One thing that I’m proud of the most is that I played fewer games during this pandemic time. The majority would say they hate quarantine but I like it. It changed me so much as a person to guide me for a bright future.
You will succeed if you put in hard work and dedication.
“There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determination”. Start to change, make goals. Importantly do not procrastinate, it is always great to start early. But if you have no idea what to impact, just make somebody’s day, make them happy. Spreading information about important issues around the world through social media is also an impact you could start with. Just making someone happy is the easiest impact you can do.