At a random coffee break on the road from Koh Kong towards Sre Ambel I met a Cambodian man who spoke fluent English. He gently led the con­versation towards the language school he was working at, mentioned a German volunteer who previously spent a few weeks here. Nothing exiting so far, yet when he introduced the background of the school, I became really interested. Unlike many other English Language Schools in Cambodia, their overall objective is not to gain profit from teaching English but to improve the life in the small town and educate the villagers about environment protection and sustainability. After a few hours I went on, and after a week I came back to Andoung Toek and the BCDO (Botumsakor Community Development organization). Not only to teach some English, but to help them with the setup of their own homepage. To complement their ideas, I could introduce the teachers to my own theory about awareness of money dependency, a topic I've been long contemplating about.

BCDO works on several linked sub projects starting with education in waste management, forest and wildlife protection and foreign languages. To an extra income for the people of Andoung Toek, tourist information is provided to travelers and several guided tours are set up. Raising the awareness for money dependency among the villagers, low cost alternatives such as organic farming and bio-gas installations are promoted. Figure 1 illustrates an outline of the cross connection and expected feedback loops of the BCDO projects, and their impact to community life and environment.

Environment Protection ( 3 Articles )

Natural resources such as fresh water and soil are vital for sustainable agriculture, and the forests surrounding Andoung Toek play a crucial role in both maintaining ground water level and soil preservation, plus give natural living space for a wide range of endangered wildlife species.

An important part of BCDOs mission is the education of the young generation about the impact of deforestation and poaching and the advice about environment-friendly alternatives.

Biogas

Currently, daily cooking in Andoung Toek is done on open fire using charcoil or wood. As a result, large amount of firewood is needed and cut in the area. BSILEC is promoting small low-cost biogas installations as an alternative to the firewood. Unlike the big power-generating installations in Europe, these small biogas reactors can be fed with livestock dung and kitchen remains. As a side product, the remains of the biogas process can be used as fertilizer for organic farming. Using gas lamps could further reduce the costs of electricity.

Waste management

Littering is a big problem in rural areas in Cambodia. People are just not aware that thrown away plastic bags, bottles etc, do not decompose naturally, and with increasing consumption of modern plastic-wrapped goods streets, rivers and fields get more and more polluted.

BCDO educates and encourages its pupils to keep the environment clean to address this issue, therefore raising public awareness through the young generation. Complying to easy slogans, a lot can be achieved already.

"Waste management is easy!"

1. Avoid waste
2. Do not litter
3. Encourage your friends

Joint actions with the State school to clean public areas are held every month. In the future, BSILEC would like to establish public rubbish bins and promote recycling.

Illegal Poching

Even though it is illegal, locals do hunt wildlife such as boar, civet, pangolin etc. For them, wildlife is not only a source of food, but due to the high prices achieved on the black market a great and easy source of income. For example, one kilogram of Pangolin is worth more than 150$ here.

Since it is difficult to change habits at once, BCDO educates its pupils not to hunt endangered species in future, thus hopefully decreasing the poaching in the long run.

Reduce Poverty ( 3 Articles )

Located in an area with few goods to sell, BCDO gives advice how to reduce the demand respectively the dependency on money. Further, organic farming and community-based eco tourism are promoted to raise additional income for the area.

Organic farming

Instead of logging and poaching, BCDO wants to encourage the villagers to invest their time into organic farming and livestock as a additional source of income. The demand for such products is increasing in the nearby tourist areas. Further, with the related education about healthy food, BCDO wants to help the villagers to live a healthy life.

To set up organic farming on the BCDO premisses, a well is urgently needed. If you would like to contribute, please read here.

Tourism as additional income source

Being located in the Botumsakor National Park (NP), Andoung Toek has the potential to become a tourist destination for trekking, boat rides etc. With the related infrastructure like restaurants, a market and a guesthouse already in place, it requires little additional effort to serve tourist needs. BCDO will continue to promote the Botumsakor NP as a tourist destination in the related websites to raise more public awareness about the village.

Still now, passing through tourists often do not find English information in the village, or receive misleading statements and leave Andoung Toek quickly. BCDO serves as a tourist information center to ensure tourists receive the information and services they are looking for.

Further, BCDO educates potential tourist guides in English language, establishes the required logistics and negotiates fair prices for tourist services with the local providers.

Awareness of Money Dependency

Life has changed greatly for Cambodians within the last decade. Modern qualities such as electricity, mobile communication and motorbikes are available nowadays, and are heavily used. When there was no electricity available ten years ago, now many villagers have TVs with big speakers and amplifiers. Motorbikes are used even for small distances, as well as mobile phones. Obviously, owning TV, motorbike and mobile phone is sign of wealth among the young people, yet it massively increases the daily need for money. BCDO offers lessons to increase awareness on the costs for these modern comforts and suggests alternatives respectively advices about wise usage of these modern toys. The table below illustrates the example daily, monthly and yearly spending of an average family:

As an example: As in many underdeveloped regions, electricity prices are enormous in Andoung Toek - 1 kWh electricity costs almost 1 US. With fancy big speakers and amplifiers connected to the TV sets at home, easily 500W are consumed, resulting in 1.5$ daily spending for TV only (based on an average of 3 hours per day, 1$/kWh).

Such calculations are not only useful for people in the Third World - even many people in the developed industrial world could benefit from a structural approach to find reasons for their enormous need for money.