The amount of people using drugs in Cambodia is increasing rapidly. There are many different types of drugs: Opium, Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin, and Methamphetamine. The common drug in Cambodia is Methamphetamine. I went to National Authority Combating Drugs he stated, “In 2000 the total of people that used drug was around 500 people, in 2017 there were 20, 000 people. We need to take that number multiply by 5 because those people spread and share the drugs to other.”
This is a huge problem in Cambodia, as a change agent, we (Liger students) have to do something. So my Exploration there are eight people. This Exploration is the first exploration that speaks Khmer only and worked with 8 World Renew students from different four provinces (Kampot, Svay Rieng, Kampong Speu and Prey Veng). World Renew is an organization that’s trying to combat drug as well. Our Exploration goal is to focus on promoting drug awareness and intervention.
Basically, the World Renew students came to Liger Leadership Academy school. First, they came to our school for the whole day to know each other, we shared what we learned about drugs to them, and create the plan for the workshop that happened in the four provinces. Then, World Renew students came to live in our school for the whole week to create the workshop.
They went to National Authority Combating Drug and Drug Addict Relief Association of Cambodia with us to learn about drugs so they can share that information during the workshop. Our main goal when we worked with them is to partner with them to run the workshop, simultaneously, to teach how to be a leader. All of them learned in government schools, which the program they learned is completely different from us. They never lead and do workshops before. So we wanted to guide them how to run the workshop and how to lead other people. After we do the workshop with them, all of them can lead the workshop by themselves without our help. We also taught them a little bit of how to use Computer, Camera, most importantly, we created educated short film about drugs with them as well.
Out of the four provinces workshops I went to Kampong Speu province. We told World Wenew people to find location and tell people to come to the workshop. During the workshop we wanted them to have fun, everyone share their ideas, and most importantly, we wanted them to learn about drugs so they share with their friends and families. In our workshops, we divided them into four groups, the four group needed to compete each other to find the winner to get the prize. We have four activities so they can rotate. The four activities are types & effects of drug, drugs trafficking in Cambodia, Reason people use drug & preventions, and symptoms and impact of using drugs.All of these four activities we tried to find games to make everyone participate and have fun. After the four activities we showed them our video, then close the event and give prizes to the winning team. In Kompong Speu we did 2 days of workshops and showed the video at night. Both workshops happened in two different pagodas. The first days of the workshop the participant age range were from 15 – 70 years old. There were about 80 participates. The four teams are competitive, share ideas, and it looked like they had so much fun. The second day of the workshop there were about 100 students participate, they were in grade 7 to grade 12. There were about 10 elders.
We wanted to show our short film about drugs to the whole village so we went to each house of the villagers to come to watch our film at night. We choose to show the film at night because want everyone to come. One of our strategies was that first, we showed Cambodia famous ghost movie to catch more people attention to come then we showed them our drug educated film. They liked to watch our educated film because the film mostly the world renew people were in it. So the World Renew people were all of their friends and neighbors.
I hope world renew people take what we taught them and can create and lead their own workshop that is fun and people learn something from them.
Anyway, our workshop was successful. I believe all participants learned a lot about drugs and they will share the information with their friends and families. Moreover, we requested the posters from the ministry and they gave it to us, so we put the poster in the village (in front of villagers houses).
