Youth Leader Responds to Environmental Issues in Siem Reap
August 12, 2023
Srey Noeurm is a young smart girl from Siem Reap who actively leads her youth group to advocate and raise awareness about environmental issues in her community. Before coming to this point, Srey Noeurm didn’t know much about the importance of the environment in her community. She never had an opportunity to join any activity to address issues until she found PEPY in 2020 as a youth group leader of “One Home, One Bin.” With support from USAID through Pact’s WE Act project, PEPY provided a series of training, including research, communication, confidence building, leadership skills, budget planning, program management, and implementation, and digital literacy.
Equipped with these new skills, Noeurm conducted research and found that waste management is an issue in Kralanh High School. She led her team and worked with the school to improve their solid waste management. The school is very open to change and collaborating with her group. Not only allowing the Youth Council of the school to collaborate with her team but also the school principal and teachers aiming to improve the school environment as well. After the school principal welcomed her team to organize events at the school to improve the environment.
“I want to see the behavior changes of high school students toward using, reducing, and recycling plastics. I believe that constantly raising the awareness and involving them to understand the disadvantage of using single-use plastic, could lead them to a faster positive change,” she said.
Noeurm has a high commitment to making changes in the school. In July 2022, her group cooperated with another group called “Youth of Cambodia” to organize a meeting with the district department of education youth and sport, and the school principal to raise a concern about the lack of greenery and find solutions. As the result, they planted 500 trees in Kralanh Highschool. Next, she plans to work on an initiative to see all the students in the school using refillable water bottles by advocating and working closely with the school principal.
Srey Noeum shows how she and her youth group can sharpen their skills and contribute their knowledge to work hand in hand with the decision-makers in her school to benefit her school and the wider community.
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Disclaimer: This Snapshot Story is made possible with the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States government.
