Recognizing that threats to forests, wildlife and biodiversity are the most important issues in the eastern landscape of Cambodia. My Village is an NGO that carries out a number of activities to conserve natural resources by empowering indigenous communities such as protected area communities, ethnic women’s networks, and ethnic youth networks.

Project of Youths’ Action for Biodiversity Conservation (YABC) focus on youth participation to increase the capacity for widespread dissemination of forests, wildlife, biodiversity and the environment, especially to local communities effectively.

Through the above issues, My Village Organization organized a training course on: “Reduction of Luxury Wood Furniture Consumption” for 13-school youth in the target area of ​​Mondulkiri province for youths. The purpose of this training is to 

– Increase awareness of the benefits of forests and biodiversity

– Raise awareness of the impact of using luxury wood furniture

– Increase the positive attitude of the participants and share it with their friends, family as well as through Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC)

A total of 325 youths (226 women) and 159 indigenous youth (116 women) participated. Through pre-testing the ability of youths, we observed that we provided the training, only about 43 percentage have an understanding of the forest and luxury wood furniture. In contrast, after they received the training from My Village Organization on: “Reduction of Luxury Wood Furniture Consumption”, they can learn more about the forest, as well as the problem of furniture made from luxury wood up to 80 percentage. In addition, they committed to reduce of using the furniture made of luxury wood from day to day, as well as to share the knowledge they gained from this training to share to their families, relatives, friends and the community as much possible. Furthermore, they also gained a lot positive thinking and how to talk about forest issues and luxury wood furniture to their relatives, families, friends and community for reduction of luxury wood consumption and forest and biodiversity conservation. The methods that have been successfully implemented in this training course include group discussion, presentation, Q&A, watching educational videos and role play which can encourage they to reduce shyness or fear to express themselves, especially the performance from role play helped the youths to remember and better understand the relationship between the forest and luxury wood furniture. 

***Note: For scoring the test of youth’s ability before and after the training, use the evaluation level of five numbers, the lowest score is represented as number 1 and the highest score is represented as number 5. Thank you!

MVi organized one workshop at provincial levels to aware the champions for commune administration who have allocated more budget for climate change activities in commune plans and award for indigenous women and indigenous youths who are active to work with commune councilors for the success of budget allocation for climate change activities in the commune. It was attended from 120 participants (64 women, 56 youths, 03 LGBT+, 03 PWD) including indigenous women, indigenous youths from seven villages, and commune councilors from four communes, district officials, and provincial officials. This activity was implemented on 28th July, 2022 at Rasmey Pich hotel in Stung Treng province.

The outstanding commune on best praises of budget allocation for climate change in commune plans have been awarded to Kbal Romeas commune councilor. Active indigenous women have been awarded to Tourn Song women focal person and indigenous youths have been awarded to youth focal person in Samkhouy village.

This is a part of improvement for the community development work of Pou Chrey Protected Area, which is placed in Pou Chrey Commune, Pichreada District, Mondulkiri Province. On October 29th, 2020, My Village Organization team organized a meeting with the community of Pou Chrey Community Protected Area in order to present the results of the work for community management that has been implemented so far by focusing on the four main pillars: (1) Natural resources are conserved, (2) The well-being of community members has been improved, (3) Community welfare is guaranteed and (4) External support to be used as a tool for reflecting on community performance. There were a total of 15 participants, 7 females. As a result, after the community meeting, we observed that external support received 2.83 points, natural resources were maintained at 2.71 points, and the well-being of community members improved about 2.43, but for community welfare guaranteed got only 1.75 points. Through this meeting, we can assess that the management of the community in the Community Protected Area of ​​Pu Chrey should be further strengthened on the third pillar, which focuses on ensuring the well-being of the community.

Note: For each pillar, we score from 1 to 4, score 1 is the lowest point and score 4 points is the highest score, used as a tool for reflecting the efficiency of the community.

Recognizing that threats to forests, wildlife and biodiversity are the most important issues in the eastern landscape of Cambodia. My Village is an NGO that carries out a number of activities to conserve natural resources by empowering indigenous communities such as protected area communities, ethnic women’s networks, and ethnic youth networks.

Project of Youths’ Action for Biodiversity Conservation (YABC) focus on youth participation to increase the capacity for widespread dissemination of forests, wildlife, biodiversity and the environment, especially to local communities effectively.

Through the above issues, My Village Organization organized a training course on: “Reduction of Luxury Wood Furniture Consumption” for 13-school youth in the target area of ​​Mondulkiri province for youths. The purpose of this training is to 

– Increase awareness of the benefits of forests and biodiversity

– Raise awareness of the impact of using luxury wood furniture

– Increase the positive attitude of the participants and share it with their friends, family as well as through Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC)

A total of 325 youths (226 women) and 159 indigenous youth (116 women) participated. Through pre-testing the ability of youths, we observed that we provided the training, only about 43 percentage have an understanding of the forest and luxury wood furniture. In contrast, after they received the training from My Village Organization on: “Reduction of Luxury Wood Furniture Consumption”, they can learn more about the forest, as well as the problem of furniture made from luxury wood up to 80 percentage. In addition, they committed to reduce of using the furniture made of luxury wood from day to day, as well as to share the knowledge they gained from this training to share to their families, relatives, friends and the community as much possible. Furthermore, they also gained a lot positive thinking and how to talk about forest issues and luxury wood furniture to their relatives, families, friends and community for reduction of luxury wood consumption and forest and biodiversity conservation. The methods that have been successfully implemented in this training course include group discussion, presentation, Q&A, watching educational videos and role play which can encourage they to reduce shyness or fear to express themselves, especially the performance from role play helped the youths to remember and better understand the relationship between the forest and luxury wood furniture. 

***Note: For scoring the test of youth’s ability before and after the training, use the evaluation level of five numbers, the lowest score is represented as number 1 and the highest score is represented as number 5. Thank you!