Floating school class in Chhnok Tru, Cambodia UNESCO.

I come from a post-conflict society in Cambodia where peace remains fragile. It has a wounded and unfortunate past ravaged by protracted warfare, brutal regimes, and foreign occupations.

Click here to enlarge the image.

My country is faced with various negative issues including high levels of corruption, rampant poverty, foreign aid dependency, heavy debt trap, maladministration, mounting cases of human rights violations, injustice, unequal wealth distribution, poor education system, environmental degradation, issues of national unity and reconciliation, cultural contamination, and overflows of illegal immigrants, etc. All of these contribute to chronic human insecurity and unsustainable development.

In addition, recent findings of vastly unexplored oil and gas reserves in Cambodia's river- and sea-beds may further plunge the country into a so-called resource curse due to poor natural resource management policy, weak governance, and ineffective rule of law. Political stability is threatened whenever the ruling Cambodian People's Party establishes links between opposition forces coming into power and situations of conflict develop.

Internationally, Cambodia is under-represented, her sovereignty and territorial integrity not respected and occasionally violated either directly or indirectly by neighboring countries in both commercial and political activities.

Education as a career and a commitment

With my undergraduate academic background in education and work experience with diplomatic corps community as a political and economic researcher, I keep myself well aware of current development events and affairs both in my society and the world.

Having witnessed the problems my society faces while living with thousands of my parents' past recounts and memories of unforgettable hardships during the country's brutal and barbarous genocidal regime of three years, eight months, and 20 days, I have never forgotten my parents' advice. I find myself admiring them and my people for how they managed to rebuild their lives and society from scratch, following the collapse of the so-called "Year Zero" era, as well as Vietnam's invasion which to me was unimaginable.

I began to ask myself questions concerning my current existence in the world, my purposes and end goal in life, and the things that I should and should not do to contribute to my society's development. This is also in gratitude to my parents who went through so much suffering in their lives so that my siblings and I could attain higher education.

I feel I am among one of the luckiest persons in this world to have been born to such a family that values education and allows me to freely choose my way to broaden my horizons. My end goal and life mission is to become a diplomat so that I can work for and represent my society both domestically and internationally.

Keo Sovannarith in ESSC.

Learnings gained at the University for Peace

With this, I realized clearly that it is crucial that I should first involve myself in peace building processes that are critical in establishing a perpetual peace or a "positive peace," as espoused by Johan Galtung, one of the founders of the field of peace studies. Peace for him is not defined merely by the absence of war but also by direct and indirect (structural) violence.

This motivated me to choose this scholarship since I am more than convinced that I can apply the knowledge I gained from both Costa Rica and the Philippines to help heal the current chronic diseases of my society and to spread and mainstream the practices of the concept of culture of peace to my future generation, either through education or other development-related work.

I believe that the promotion of a culture of peace plays an important role in helping bridge the aforementioned gaps in my country. Education is of particular interest as I have noticed how education, in Cambodia's neighboring countries, can be negatively used. Education can be used as a tool to develop ultra-nationalism and a culture of hatred and aggressiveness against their neighboring countries including mine. This is done through teaching and disseminating invented and fake history, as well as designing controversial curriculum policies to brainwash their citizens. This creates unnecessary tensions among nations and within the region as a whole.

In the past 14 months of studies at both Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, and the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica, I find myself realizing that I have so far learnt and been equipped with a broad range of theoretical concepts, academic perspectives, and knowledge concerning central issues of peace and security.

I found myself and my life transformed, motivated, and inspired by several useful concepts and theories which I hope I can apply them in the challenges that I will face during my future development or peace building work.

I have obtained more confidence in my thinking and my emotions with humility and inspiration. I developed more mental coherence and more compassion, as well as a clear understanding of myself. Combining these with critical thinking skills, I can formulate better responses in establishing networks and building trust with the community and sharing experiences as well as lessons learned.

With the knowledge gained in my academic life at the University for Peace, I am convinced that I can be an effective advocate for marginalized groups since I know how to show sympathies through active listening and close dialogue. I learned that these contribute to mutual understanding by mitigating conflict and transforming this conflict into opportunities for developing cooperation. I also hope that I can transfer such knowledge, inspiration, and motivation to those I work with.

I briefly highlight what I have learnt so far from a number of selected courses I consider important during my studies at the University for Peace:

Foundation Course on Peace and Conflict Studies

I learnt that the meaning of peace is not limited to just merely the absence of war which is also known as the negative peace. Peace has different meanings for different people. An understanding of the different notions of "negative peace" and "positive peace" should be well established. A positive peace is actually not easy to attain and a lot of work is needed, especially during the peace building stage. The course taught me to understand peacekeeping (conflict management), peacemaking (conflict resolution) and peace building (conflict transformation).

Aspects of Conflict: Introduction to a Systemic Approach

This course inspired me a great deal about how I view my surrounding environment, the world, and myself. Several concepts that I learnt include treachery peace, dialogue, multi-track diplomacy, development, paradigm shift, and creativity. Theories that were introduced include the double bind theory, system theory, chaos theory, inutile theory, and re-evolution theory.

Research Methods

This course allowed me to better understand quantitative and qualitative research and I learnt how to create questionnaires, analyze and interpret data through the application of the SPSS software.

International Cooperation and Peace Building

This course provided me with a general understanding of the UN system and its agencies, the different roles of international organizations and development agencies in helping promote peace building through international cooperation, regionalism, and integration.

BePeace Foundations Course

The practice of BePeace is a combination of coherence (connecting heart to the brain) through appreciation, and connection to universal needs through empathy and honesty (holistic way of practice: top-down, bottom-up and inside-out).

Practices of Conflict Management

This course provided concepts in negotiation, mediation, good offices, and dialogue processes.

Human Security and Development in Asia

Far from the traditional concept of national security, I learnt the seven core values of human security as stated in the UNDP 1994 Human Development Report, namely: economic security (threatened by poverty), food security (threatened by hunger and famine), health security (threatened by injury and disease), environmental security (threatened by pollution, environmental degradation and resource depletion), personal security (threatened by various forms of violence), community security (threatened by social unrest and instability) and political security (threatened by political repression).

Human security in this sense tends to be: people-centered, multidimensional, interconnected and universal. The 2005 World Summit Outcome introduced "freedom from fear" and "freedom from want" as an approach to human security.

Environmental Security, Sustainable Development and Peace

This course further broadened my understanding of the interrelations between peace, environmental security and sustainable development. I learnt about the evolution of sustainable development concept and the interdependence of economic development, social development, and environmental protection as the mutually reinforcing pillars (2005 UN World Summit). I also learnt about sustainable development strategies and that its key principles mainly focus on people, especially the youth.

Also, I learnt the concept of development as freedom and the relationship between the two. This course made me understand clearly the relation between environment and the security of humans and nature, ecological services, the roles of environment in peace, conflict, destabilization and human insecurity, and community resource management.

It sharpened my knowledge and raised my awareness on environmental related issues including climate change, pollution, resource curse and scarcity, as well as the extractive industry through a number of cases studies in the Philippines, India, and a number of countries in Southeast Asia including the transboundary water conflict along the Mekong River Basin.

Furthermore, the field trip to Sitio Bendum expanded my horizon with regard to the actual problems faced indigenous peoples face in the presence of changes, development, and migration. It allowed me to learn and understand more about the rights of indigenous peoples as enshrined in the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous People.

From school children on Cambodia.

Peace, education, and the youth

I strongly believe in education and the power of knowledge and I want to commit myself to the education sector either as a lecturer or by actively engaging at educational policy levels, including curriculum design. This will allow me to serve as a role model and a proactive citizen working for positive social change. In this sense, I would like to apply the social learning theory which means that education does not only occur in schools or classrooms.

I would also like to commit myself to working with the "peace media," particularly radio and television, so that I can advocate for educational programs and mainstream culture of peace that can be more broadly disseminated. I view the media as an effective and efficient way in helping raise awareness among the public especially the youth and creating a culture of tolerance, understanding and peaceful coexistence, as well as improve social norms, morality and solidarity.

Lastly, I want to commit myself to be an author so that I can produce publications that raise awareness and positive social change among the youth, and foster a culture of reading in my society. It is my dream to have several inspirational and self-help books published in my language so that these ideas can be shared with my people.

I firmly hope that with my above strong commitments, one day in the future, I can see positive impact in my society through the new generations of Cambodians.

Mr Keo Sovannarith is from Cambodia and is a student of the Dual Campus Master of Arts Programme in International Peace Studies, Asia Leaders Programme at the University for Peace, SY 2009-2010. Keo also holds a bachelor's degree in Education from the Institute of Foreign Languages in the Royal University of Phnom Penh.

ESSC had the opportunity to engage with Keo when he attended the course Environmental Security, Sustainable Development and Peace last May 2010. Pedro Walpole was the lecturer for this course and this is his reflection paper after a visit to the Pulangiyen community in Bendum, Bukidnon, Philippines.