Climate change is a big issue of our time.

It is pretty much everywhere, however for the Cambodian young generations, flood water is where most of them grow up with. Between August and October each year is the dry season of Cambodia. Kids swimming in the muddy water, families using the flood water for household cooking, fishermen catching fish from. And least but not the last, farmers irrigate their farmland with water,which is often unbearably too much for the rice paddy.

Majority of the Cambodian generations, struggling to be bread-winners for their families is,perhaps,the most urgent and important purpose,above all.

Something you really can’t miss to talk about, whenever you meet any Cambodian youth elsewhere, is not just how they live with the constant flood,but also how to get more education to quit poverty.

26-year-old Sora, who’s keen mandarin learner, hopes to be a tour guide. He has been given a scholarship to study agriculture and fishery in university. Yet he’d rejected and works daily as a Tuk Tuk driver near Siem Reap. Asked what’s his dream, he told us that he long hoped to earn more so he could support his family. Ever wanted to go to school? “But I have to support my family. Each month, I spend a proportion of my earning to buy books. Books are very expensive.”

Education has a price, which most Cambodian families can not afford at all.

Sora is not lonely. He is one of the majority. According to UN statistics in 2010, the average size of household in Cambodia is 4.7 persons. The GDP per capita in Cambodia was US$1,036 in 2013, as enclosed in UNDP report. In other words, most Cambodians earn less than US$3 per day.

University scholarship is rare and tuition fee in public school is around US$500 and private universities can be as high as $9,000USD per year. However primary education is free in Cambodia, being educated doesn’t always guarantee that you would be well-equipped to fit the market. What may also appear as one reason to explain the low literacy rate there is that parents lack the incentives to invest on the education of their children.

In a visit to Pursat Alumni Association in Phnom Penh, we encountered a handful of university students there. Questioned what’s their dream, surprisingly, quite a few of them shared one common wish: to have their own private business. They claim that by doing so, they could earn more for the family.

In some other more backward and remote communes, the needs for shelter, food and clean water are even more acute. Health centers and teachers are far from enough.

It has been reported more than 100,000 Cambodians working in Thailand as cheap labors. Their earning generally is about 150–200 USD per month. Compared to a regular Cambodian farmer or fisherman, who’s constantly suffered from loss of crops induced by flood and fish death due to serious down flow of poisonous pesticides from upstream, working in Thailand is deemed as the only less disaster-prone option for them.

“Young people will not learn about their beloved land anymore, if they always choose to leave the country for a long time.”

Hort Hak is a commune farmer living near the border of Thailand and Cambodia. Asked what’s his feelings about massive youth working in Thailand, he couldn’t help at all. He has four children, and all work in Thailand.

80% of Population under 30 by 2020, told by the PM

During an Asia-Pacific young profession conference this year in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen,the Prime Minister of Cambodia, highlighted that by 2020, more than 80% of the population in the country would be 15-30. The Cambodian government is to launch various campaigns and policies ,which advocate youth participation and eco-tourism, as mentioned by the PM and his cabinet officials.

80% Cambodians are engaging in fishery and agricultural.

The country has abundant labor force.With reference to the Millennium Development Goals Of Cambodia by UNDP in 2014, more than 80% of the population currently lives in the rural areas and mostly engaging in fishery and agricultural occupations.

The Khmer Kingdom has been one of the vulnerable countries in Asia-Pacific region in terms of its adaptation capacity to combat with climate change. “Rural populations are most at risk to destructive climatic events such flood and drought”, as UNDP reports.

Since its recovery from the brutal years of Khmer Rouge rule, Cambodia is pushing forward to heading to progress. All countries around the globe faces climate change and day-to-day challenges in various issues. What we see in Cambodia is that the scope of improvement is limited, especially when looking at its more successful neighbours and the its education curriculum is limited a mere 5-years of schooling to the average educated Khmer, as UNDP reports in 2013.

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