Project Report
üDate: 28-‐29 May, 2011
üVenue: Samdach Ov High School & University of Management & Economics (UME), Battambang Province, Cambodia üReported by: Mr. Bun Chamroeun (855)12 791 229, chambun@gmail.com Organized by Sponsored by
SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference
Day 1 •
Date: May 28, 2011
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Venue: Samdach Ov High School
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Numbers of participants: 69, (Female= 33 )
Workshop Agenda 8:00-‐09:45: Plenary Sessions on:
-‐ Future Goal
-‐ Scholarships Preparation
-‐ Volunteerism
09:45-‐10:00: Break & Refreshment 10:00-‐12:00: University’s Major Consultation 12:00-‐13:00: Lunch 13:00-‐14:45: Parallel workshop (Students are separated into 5 different topics)
-‐ Personal Development
-‐ Leadership and Teambuilding
-‐ Public Speaking and Presentation
-‐ Leadership and Teambuilding
-‐ Effective English Learning
14:45-‐15:00: Break & Refreshment 15:00-‐16:00: Students’ Presentations 16:00-‐16:30: Evaluation 16:30-‐17:00: Closing The program began with registration from 7am to 7:30am followed by National Anthem ceremony, welcome speech from the school vice principal and Mr. Seng Pyseth, president of SYCA-‐Cambodia. At 8:00am, the workshop kicked off with a plenary session covering 3 main topics:
I. Plenary Sessions:
1. Goal setting by Ms. Srun Sovan: Participants were asked some questions such as what did they think a goal is? How do we set our goal? etc. The session mainly focused on a goal setting strategy called SMART (S = Specific, M = Measurable, A = Attainable, R = Realistic, T = Timely) and some inspiring advice on how to keep ourselves motivated towards our goal.
2. Scholarship preparation by Mr. Him Sophal: 2
SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference Essential information regarding local and some international scholarships were given respectively by Sophal. He also provided the participants with some useful tips on how to prepare themselves to successfully obtain the scholarship to study their desired major. 3. Volunteerism by Ms. Hout Siekhuoy: Siekhouy started the session by telling the participants about her own experience volunteering for NGOs and youth groups and how those experience help her in both academic and social life. Then she continued with the benefits of volunteerism for their future and what the students can do to get involved more in this useful activity.
II. University’s Major Consultation
After the break and refreshment, the workshop proceeded with the University’s Major Consultation session, which the participants had the chance to go around 11 booth, where the organizers would gave them helpful information about the major of that booth. 2 other booths, one about volunteering and another one about employment, were also included for extra-‐curricular activity and future career consultancy. The 13 majors included: Information Technology, English Literature, Foreign Languages, Medicine, International Studies/International Relation, Tourism, Law, BusinessAdministration/Economy, Accounting, Finance & Stock Exchange, Agriculture, Marketing, and Volunteerism. Thanks the fact that we had more organizers than the previous workshops, this time SYCA-‐Cambodia was able to cover more university majors than ever before! Once finished, the trainers of the 4 parallel sessions in the afternoon were invited to the stage to give the students a brief summary about their workshop so as to help them decide which session that suited them best.
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SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference
III. Parallel Sessions
At 13:00PM, after having a merry lunch with the organizers, the participants went with their respective trainer to the parallel session that they had chosen. There were 4 topics in total – Effective Learning, Leadership and Teambuilding, Public Speaking, and Self Improvement. *N.B. It had also been planned that the workshop would only take up to about 1 hour, since students would be given 30 to 45 minutes to prepare for a presentation to share with their friends about what they had learned in their respective class. 1. Effective Learning – Chap Chetra, Suon Sokha, and Yi Rasi: The participants were given a few self-‐evaluation tests to get some idea about their learning styles and their perception about learning strategies in general. Then the speakers provided a numbers of useful tips along with realistic examples regarding the keys to learning actively and effectively. Some of the keys like “Stop multi-‐tasking” and “Use test to boost learning” were quite interesting to many participants since they used to have the opposite idea about these points. However, after listening to the explanation of the trainers and having their questions answered, they finally understood and were happy to realize about the reasons behind these advices. 2. Leadership and Teambuilding – Bun Chamroeun, and Him Sophal First, Chamroeun started by explaining what leadership was, its importance, and some main points about being a good leader. For the last point, Chamroeun explained the term LEADER in detail to make the message short, simple and meaningful – Listening, Enthusiasm, Ability, Dedication, Encouragement, and Remember it’s not all about you! As for second part, Sophal continued with the concept of teamwork T: Team spirit, E: Encouragement, A: Accountability, M: Morality, W: Willingness, O: Optimism, R: Reliability, K: Knowledge. A number of games related to the topic of the workshop were also played to make the lesson more relatable and fun! 3. Public Speaking –Him Sreyrath Nika and Chua Hong The session began with the definition of public speaking, and continued with the main elements and structure of an effective public speaking. Later some practical tips were given by the trainers regarding some important do’s and don’ts about public speaking. Last but not least, in order to show the participants what a useful skill public speaking is, the trainers raised a number of benefits that public speaking can help to increase the chance of employment in today job market. 4. Self Improvement – Srun Sovan and Srey Sorphea The lesson was primarily based on the book by Sean Covey titled “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens”. However, the explanation of the trainer was very relatable to the context of the participants. All the examples were linked to the life of high school students and Cambodian society, which made the lesson even more personalized. 4
SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference 5. Effective English Learning – Heng Sophyrum and San Bromeichan Students were provided with some useful tips and keys from our 2 speakers to help them learn English more effectively. In addition, they also get the chance to practice their English through the group work and creation of an interesting a role paly to present to the other participants of what they have learned.
IV. Presentation of the Participants
At 15:00pm , after the second break and refreshment, came the presentation of the students. All the 5 groups decided to start their presentation with a short role-‐play then linked it to the main points of their presentation. Witnessing the creativity and confidence of all the groups, we were very impressed by how much they fully understood the meaning of our lessons and by their spirit of sharing their knowledge with their peers.
V. Closing
Following the laughter and constant applause of the presentation, came the evaluation part which the participants were asked to give comments and feedback regarding their impressions about the whole workshop. Finally the program was closed with the closing remarks from the vice-‐principal, the president of SYCA-‐ Cambodia, and some of the organizers, and a group photo session in front of the high school. 5
SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference
Day 2 •
Date: 29 May, 2011
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Venue: University of Management and Economics (UME)
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Number of Participants: 122 (Female = 67)
Workshop Agenda 7:30-‐8:00
: Registration and Seating
8:00-‐09:00
: Scholarship Information Sharing Session: üUndergraduate and Graduate Scholarships üUndergraduate Educational Exchanges
09:00-‐09:20 : Break & Refreshment 9:20-‐10:00
: Employment tips
10:00-‐11:00 : Scholarship consultation booth (Fulbright, Australian and New Zealand, International Certificates, USA’s Undergrad Exchanges, ASEAN, Japanese, and Volunteerism) 11:00-‐11:30 : Closing Our second day began with registration from 7am to 7:30am followed by National Anthem ceremony, welcome speech from the school vice rector of UME, and SYCA-‐Cambodia’s project leader, Mr. Suon Sokha. There were 2 main activities for the second workshop – Plenary session and Scholarship consultation.
I. Plenary Session: 1. How to prepare for undergrad and graduate scholarship – Mr. Bun Chamroeun Chamroeun’s talk focused on the necessary requirements in order to obtain scholarship to study abroad such as English proficiency (TOEFL, IELTS, and 4 macro skills), an interesting personal statement, impressive professional and social experience (work experience and/or community/voluntary service), the importance of establishing a good network with people around us, and making the best use of the internet to get access to the latest information about scholarship information and resources needed to prepare oneself to achieve this goal. 2. Tips to be selected for undergraduate exchange programs – Ms. Nara Sokhema Khema began with what an exchange program was since its concept is still new to many Cambodian students. Then she moved on to give the participants a numbers of practical tips in order to successfully 6
SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference get selected to join those programs including a good background in community/voluntary involvement, how to get those experience, and what to do to meet the requirement of English proficiency, etc. To conclude, Khema raised a number of benefits of joining such programs for ourselves, our friends and families, and our country as a whole. 3. Employment tips – Seng Pyseth After break and refreshment, the workshop proceeded with the last session by Mr. Seng Pyseth, president of SYCA-‐Cambodia. Pyseth’s talk focused on the concept of 2 main elements of employment – employer and employee. Centering on these two types of people, he explained what each side desired and how to prepare ourselves to be either of the two, which was strongly related to our goal and ambition. He also stressed on the requirement that most jobs require, and some strategies to meet those seemingly impossible requirements to convince our future employer that we are a highly potential candidate.
II. Scholarship consultation After the plenary came the scholarship consultation which was quite similar to the university major consultation done on the previous day. The organizer of each booth would inform to the participants about what the program of their booth was, the requirement for that program, and some contact information such as websites, emails, or phone numbers about that program. The scholarship booths include Fulbright scholarship, Australian and New Zealand scholarship, International Certificates, Exchange Programs, ASEAN scholarship, and Japanese Government scholarship. Two more booths, employment and volunteer work, were also included for those who were interested in enhancing their chance to obtain the scholarship abroad. Finally, the workshop concluded with a closing by Mr. Suon Sokha at 11:30am.
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SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference
Conclusion
All in all, these two workshops were another success of SYCA-‐Cambodia. According to the responses in the evaluation forms given from the participant of the workshop done at Samdach Ov high school, all of them reported that they were very satisfied with our work and suggested that we continue doing this workshop in the future. As for the university students, the majority of the participants showed a lot of interest in the scholarship consultancy. Many asked the organizers about how to study for TOEFL and IELTS whole others asked about techniques to fill in the application forms and writing personal statement. We, the organizers, are very impressed by the potentials of all the participants, their desire to absorb new knowledge, their spirit of sharing, and their curiosity and drive for a better future for themselves and our nation. These are what keep us motivated to continue our effort in contributing to capacity development in our country. In addition, it’s also a wonderful time for us to learn and practice new skills like leading, working in the diversified team, teaching and discovering more about society so we all, grow and help the other youths grow to be great leaders! 8
SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference
$ Financial Statement $ Item
USD
USD
Sponsor from University of Puthisastra
1400.00
Expenses:
Observation trip
11.50
Transportation
194.50
Meal
341.90
Refreshment
28.50
Water
25.60
Hotel
116.00
T-‐shirt
114.00
Banner
20.30
Workshop materials
98.90
Documents (copy and print)
17.60
Gifts for School and University
41.10
Communication
15.00
Press (Newspaper)
60.00
Total expenses Remaining amount
1084.90
315.10
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SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference
SYCA on Media
On Norkorwat News Daily-‐ Wednesday 15th, 2011
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SYCA-‐Cambodia Workshop: Education-‐Means towards a Difference
On Koh Santepheap Daily-‐Thurday 16th, 2011
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