GREEN UMBRELLA
Rebuilding after the Cambodian Genocide
The Green Umbrella/Global Health Alliance partnership is the home of our GrassRoots Onsite Work (GROW) committee's work.
Green Umbrella and Global Health Alliance at the University of Michigan have been partnered since December of 2017. Since then we have worked together to build the foundation of our partnership for years to come. This has involved establishing relationships, establishing and communicating our goals and getting familiarized with each other’s communities. The summer of 2018 was our first GROW trip to Cambodia, comprising mostly of getting to know Green Umbrella and the community intimately. We met students, teachers, Green Umbrella staff and community members through teaching english at Karuna Kumar School and the Green Umbrella English School, teaching ocular and dental hygiene at community schools, training in first aid to both eighth graders at the public school and teachers at the public and Karuna Kumar Schools and lastly working with youth leaders to begin to facilitate a waste management program at the public primary school.
The summer of 2019 was the second GROW trip to Cambodia. We worked closely with the staff at Green Umbrella to continue teaching the students about the importance of health and hygiene, but additionally worked on the Waste Management Project directly. We partnered with the Youth Group to educate young members about recycling, composting, and environmental preservation. We also partnered with high school students to perform a community assessment of the current state of waste management in the Takeo Province, and ultimately wrote a research paper from the data.
In the next five years, we hope to improve youth participation at Green Umbrella, provide health and environmental education to the community, and encourage young leaders to be able to influence others in their community.
Particular obstacles in Cambodia include a lack of specialization in skilled labor and low levels of volunteer participation. Cambodia is building their country and economy after the recent genocide of 1979 and is targeting education and health programs at their youth.
Human capacity remains an issue in the community surrounding Green Umbrella, as stated earlier, the society is still rebounding from events that severely impaired human capacity and labor of any kind. Within the community, there also remains a disconnect between what is happening in the community and what the government expects. The national government is currently stressing the value of the youth in creating development within their communities. However, the country struggles with engaging youth in such programs. Lastly, the community struggles with environmental degradation, pollution and littering with limited resources to combat such large issues.