Arrival day at the workshop on GCED in South Korea

13:30 Paris - Seoul

After travelling for almost 16 hours I arrived in Seoul at 9 am, there were two other youth delegates waiting for me together with someone from the organisation. I didn’t expect that but I was very happy to finally see someone. Even I didn’t knew them, it felt good to have someone waiting for me in the airport. Also Deepika Joon from UNESCO MGIEP (Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development) arrived together with us. So I got the chance to get to know Anish Sapkota from Nepal and Nalini Singh from New Zealand and Deepika Joon from India during the last part of the trip from Seoul to Busan. All of them were very interesting and doing amazing things in their country.

So the ice was broken, the stress went away and I felt ready to meet all the other delegates.

View from my hotel room

Around 2 pm we finally arrived at the Nongshim Hotel in Busan. 

During the rest of the day the other delegates were arriving in Busan. At 7pm we had to be ready to go for the opening dinner. So I got some time to catch up on sleep.

I had an amazing nap and I was totally ready to go to the welcome dinner. We went to a traditional Korean food place where we had to sit on the floor to eat. The food was amazing! Lots of fresh fish, fresh vegetables, very tasty seaweed and of course sushi! We attended the welcome dinner with almost 30 delegates, so there were still delegates arriving later on the evening. During dinner I got to know more delegates. I felt blessed already to be there! Every single person is so interested so motivated and we were all looking forward to the beginning of the workshop tomorrow! 

First experience with chopsticks for some of us ;) 

Lovely fresh food!

 Some funny/ strange things I saw at the airport of Seoul and Busan :) 

Luggage?? 

Very clean people in Korea!

Amazing opportunity!

Dear blog followers,

It’s been a while since I wrote something on my blog. I think that’s obvious as I’m not in Cambodia anymore. Still I was planning to keep you posted on the other activities I do with VVOB or activities that had to do with what I’ve done in Cambodia. So here I am.

Since my last blog message about the awareness activity I didn’t stand still. I kept on studying for my masters degree in Pedagogical Science and therefore I had another internship at VVOB. This time it was in Brussels. I was doing a three month internship from September till November 2014. I worked on a research report about “How are central tests used to improve the professional development of teachers in Flanders and South-Africa”. The main purpose of that research was to write recommendations for teachers, for directors and for the test creators. People who are interested in the results, please contact me at Griet.Vandeburie@vvob.be.  

In general my internship in Brussels was another amazing and very interesting experience I had with VVOB . As I’m pretty much “stuck” to VVOB ;) I decided to do my master thesis in cooperation with them. I’ll do a qualitative research about the influence that interaction with the global South has on the way teacher trainers think about diversity and how they handle with diversity.

This was a very brief catch up with the things I have been doing. In the following part I’ll inform you about my new adventure!

                “Global Citizenship Education (GCED) creates an awareness and attitude of solidarity with others in the world. Mutual understanding has to grow, and prejudices and stereotypes have to disappear. GCED should lead to a greater sense of connectivity and solidarity and it is a priority to achieve people’s respect towards their environment as well as other communities in the world.”

Above you can read the description about GCED I gave on the application form for the Global Youth Advocacy Workshop on GCED from the 30e of March until the 4the of April. I knew about this workshop through one of the education advisors at VVOB Brussels. She thought it would be interesting for the VVOB ambassadors from this year and last year to apply for it. So I tried.

I had to answer following questions very briefly (only 350 characters!?!).

• Specify which aspects of GCED you have been engaged in and for how long.
• List your achievements in advocacy activities related to GCED and/ or youth engagement.
•  Explain how your actions have brought about change at the community, local and/ or national level.
• Explain briefly how you’ll apply the outcomes of the training workshop to your ongoing/future      advocacy activities.

My answers were based on what I did in Cambodia and what I did in Belgium when I came back. I didn’t have expectations when I gave in my application because there would be only 50 people selected all over the world, but on the 7^th of March I got an email starting with this: :) !!

Dear Griet Vandeburie,

Congratulations!

We are thrilled to inform you that you are one of the 50 youth leaders selected for the Global Youth Advocacy Workshop on Global Citizenship Education (GCED) to be held in Busan, Republic of Korea, from 30 March to 4 April 2015.

A bit more information about the workshop:

The United Nations Secretary-General’s (UNSG) Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) recognizes Global Citizenship Education (GCED) as one of its three priorities. UNSG GEFI has generated momentum for GCED which has since been included in the target of the education goal in the Muscat Agreement 2014 and in the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Open Working Group. The proposed SDGs will provide the basis for further intergovernmental negotiations on the post 2015 development agenda.

In support of UNSG GEFI, UNESCO held its Second Global Forum on Global Citizenship Education on Building peaceful and sustainable societies: preparing for post-2015 from 28 to 30 January 2015 in Paris, France. The Forum aimed to identify GCED related inputs to the emerging Framework for Action on Education for the post 2015 development agenda, as well as key dimensions of GCED in relation to peace. Furthermore, it had a youth dedicated concurrent session on Driving the GCED agenda forward: acting with and for young people to assemble the perspectives, ideas, and priorities of youth on GCED.

Thus, the proposal for an international 4-day training session, co-organized by GEFI, the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) and UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) aims to build the capacity of dynamic youth leaders from countries around the world to advocate for GCED. Participants will be selected on the basis of their previous experiences, present engagement and future commitment in educating youth at the local and national levels.

The training objectives are:

• To build a common understanding of GCED and its key priority areas by building on the dialogue initiated at the Paris GCED Forum.
• To allow the participating youth leaders to elaborate an advocacy strategy suitable for implementation at the local and national levels to advance the GCED agenda beyond 2015.
• To establish a wider network of youth advocates on GCED to advance the agenda globally.

So, I think this is more than enough information to be able to follow my next posts during the workshop. I’m really looking forward to it. I hope to contribute to the workshop from an educational point of view. It is going to be a great experience and an amazing opportunity to get to know the other selected youth leaders.

VVOB ambassador

For the people who didn't know ...

In November 2013 I won the first price for the best sensitisation/ awareness- raising activity. 

First of all I want to thank all the people who helped me and supported me in setting up these activities. Without your help I would not have won this award.


I'll shortly describe the activities that I did to win the award. In August I had an interview with Johan Santy about my internship, the volunteering work, my point of view about my studies and my further life. This interview appeared in the newspaper: "De Krant van West-Vlaanderen" together with a nice picture from the VVOB team in Cambodia. 
An other part of the activities was my blog. My blog exist since I went to Cambodia for my internship, and I kept on writing about what I was doing there during my volunteering work. Through this way I kept the people at home informed about everything, and also people I don't know were interested in reading my blog.
The most important activity was the exhibition with pictures about my internship and volunteering work in Cambodia. The exhibition took place in the town hall of Zwevegem from the middle of November till the end of February. During the opening I was there to give people more information about what VVOB was doing in Cambodia, and what my role was. Otherwise there were also information signs below the pictures to make everything on the picture clear. Now I'm moving the exhibition to Ghent, where I'll place it in the Artevelgehogeschool. You can read more about the competition and the awards in the article on the following link:

http://www.vvob.be/vvob/nieuws/vvob-kiest-haar-ambassadeurs

Welcome!

Never ending story?

After three months of being home from Cambodia I realise that I never wrote a ‘last blog message’. I think I have some reasons for that. I also have some video material that I still want to do something with. I promise that will happen but not sure when. You can watch already some interviews and lessons from one of my Cambodian students who I was teaching in 2012 and is now a teacher herself.

Before I left to Cambodia for the second time I decided to start my Masters in Educational Science. As I left in January I just did one semester. So when I got back home I had to start studying for some exams that I had to retake because I was at the other side of the world already. Since October I’m a fulltime student again. So that’s why I didn’t find time to ‘finish’ my blog.

But does my blog have to end? Maybe there is another adventure, experience, job, ... waiting for me! I’m sure that I’ll keep you all posted! 

Video:

Sophyroth invited me to visit her in her hometown. I could stay for two days at her house where she lives with her parents. We went together with her family on a trip to visit some other family members and to go for dinner. It was a lovely day! The day after I went to the secondary school where Sophyroth is teaching Biology and Earth Science.

Arriving, adapting, growing, changing … leaving …

October 2012, Ghent:

Sitting in a café with four unknown students from Arteveldehogeschool who will go to Cambodia in January 2013. Answering the most strange and funny questions about live, work, teach ... in Cambodia. (“How much underwear should I bring?”)

They will do their internship at VVOB while I’m working as a volunteer for VVOB. One of my tasks will be to follow them up, supervise and guide them during their internship.

They all look very friendly, I can feel that they are a bit nervous to go on that big adventure, which is very normal I think. I’m wondering how it will go ...

January 2013, Bangkok:

Four smiling faces are waiting for me at the airport in Bangkok. It’s nice to see them, they arrived well and figured out our trip to Phnom Penh for the day after. After a trip of more than 15 hours (luckily I had nice company and it was a good start to get to know each other), we finally arrived in Phnom Penh. The next morning we went to see the VVOB staff. It was amazing for me to see everyone back! And the students can finally place a face on the names that they heard a lot about, emailing with ... the last few months. They were all very positive about the VVOB staff.

February 2013, Phnom Penh:

After two days in Phnom Penh it was time to “drop” the students in the city where they will be working for the next 3 months. Nathan and Marieke went to Kampong Cham and Michiel and Simon went to Battambang. We had a good feeling when we left Simon and Michiel “behind” in Battambang. They will stand their ground!

A few weeks later I visited Marieke and Nathan in Kampong Cham. They found a big and nice house to live in already, they discovered the city, visited tourist attractions, taught their first lessons at the RTTC  ... They tried their best to install and feel themselves at home in Kampong Cham. 

March 2013, Battambang - Kampong Cham:

Enthusiastic, motivated and well dressed ;) One by one, they were teaching very good lessons. Each in their own way. It was amazing to see them growing, to hear them reflecting about their own lessons, to see how they deal with feedback, how they adjust their lessons to the comments and tips they got, ... I think (I hope) that they learned a lot, but I have to admit that I learned a lot too! I would never have thought that giving feedback, being a supervisor, ... could be so difficult sometimes.

April 2013, Phnom Penh – Battambang – Kampong Cham:

Experiment boxes, experiment boxes and again experiment boxes. I almost couldn’t hear the word anymore...

Marieke, Nathan, Simon, Michiel and I got the task to develop experiment boxes for four science subjects: Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science and Physics. (As you can read in my blog message from April). Without the organisation skills, critical thinking, discussing, bargaining skills and a lot more other useful skills ... from the students, we would never have been able to provide such a nice product! Even though I say it myself, we can be proud of our work. 

At the end of April it was time for the students to go for the last time to their Regional Teacher Trainer Center. Both groups of students organised a special activity at the Regional Teacher Trainer Center. In Regional Teacher Trainer Center Kampong Cham they organised a science fair. All the science teacher students had to prepare, invent a new experiment and show their experiment in front of a jury of teacher trainers and Nathan and Marieke. Nathan and Marieke were very impressed about all the experiments that they saw during the science fair. So their special day was a great success. In Regional Teacher Trainer Center Battambang they chose for typical Belgian dance, film and games. The Khmer students thought them how to dance some typical Khmer dances and vice versa. The Khmer students also got introduced to some Belgian funny movies and games. That was a lot of fun!

Mei 2013, Phnom Penh:

Two more weeks and “my kids” are going back to Belgium. I know now already that I’m going to miss them. These ‘two more weeks’ were very busy for me. I had to make sure that all their evaluation forms, lesson observation forms and other Artevelde forms were completed and that is not something you do in a blink of the eye.  It took more time than I expected but again I learned a lot from it.

At the 9^th of May, we organised a small farewell drink for the students. They deserved it! They fulfilled a very good internship at VVOB. It was a pleasure and very instructive for me to see them growing, changing and getting to know themselves better. I think I’m a very lucky person, to get the opportunity to supervise these four students!

Meanwhile they arrived well in Belgium. I wish them the best of luck in everything they will do. Nathan, Simon, Marieke and Michiel thanks a lot for all the good lessons, hard work, funny moments and the good team spirit!

Crazy week!

Some background you need to know: VVOB Cambodia has several programmes. One of the programmes is the SEAL programme ( Improvement of Science and Life skills Education at Teacher Training Centres). For the SEAL programme, we work together with 6 Regional Teacher Trainer Centers (RTTC's). These RTTC's have around 6 or 7 secondary schools were they work together with. In these secondary schools the student teachers from the RTTC's doing there practice = internship.

We want to distribute experiment boxes to these secundary schools. This is one of the many things that the SEAL programme is working on.
My mission together with the 4 Artevelde students: Making experiment boxes for the science subjects (Earth Science, Physics, Chemistry and Biology), for the 40 secondary schools.

What can the teachers at the secondary school do with these boxes?
When they are teaching and they want to use experiment from the manuals that we will spread.   They will be able to find all the materials that they need for these experiments in the box. Every school gets two boxes. One box for Physics and Earth Science and one box for Chemistry and Biology.

Enough background I think ...
This week was mental!
First of all we had to try and find all the materials in the markets. Luckely we had two teachers who were helping us with that. But we still had to haggle to get a fixed price because we didn't need just one knife or one kilogram of sugar .... We needed at least 40 or 80 or even 160 times as many!!!

After two day's of crazy shopping we started to divide everyting in the boxes. We also had to make 5 diffrent models for biology (= 40 x 5= 200 models in total)!!

On Wednesday and Thursday we had some help from 10 students from the RTTC in Kandal. They did a very nice job.
While Sokha and I were finishing the shopping in Phnom Penh. The 4 belgian students took the lead in RTTC Kandal. Show the Khmer students what they can do, where they can help with, ... And of course they have also worked a lot!! Marieke, Michiel, Nathan and Simon are a very good team! Thanks a lot! I also want to thank Sokha and Chanly (VVOB's accountants staff) without their help we would never have been able to buy all the material and they are the best at bargaining! ;)

During this crazy week we also had a lovely Khmer New Year party at the office. And on Thursday the 11th of April I had a wonderful birthday party! :) Thanks to everyone for that!

After all, I survived the 'crazy' week and now it's time for Khmer New Year holiday!

Happy Khmer New Year!  

Update from Cambodia!

After another 5 weeks in the Kingdom of Wonder, I need to update my blog.

As I’m getting used to the travelling between Phnom Penh, Battambang and Kampong Cham. Why not leaving again to Kampong Cham after 3 days being back from Battambang J

But the last two weeks were my last weeks of travelling. I’ll be in Phnom Penh now for a while. I like the travelling, because Battambang and Kampong Cham are really nice cities and it’s nice to follow up the Belgian students, but it will be lovely to be in one place for a while!  

Sokhany during the preparation inset training in Kampong Cham

In the beginning of March we had a good “preparation inset training” workshop in Kampong Cham. I also observed and evaluated some interesting lessons from the Belgian students (Nathan and Marieke). On Monday evening the 4the of March, we were invited by Sokhany’s family to have dinner. I never had such good food! There was an amazingly good fish curry and a very good chicken curry! I’m still salivating if I think about it.

Nathan doing the experiment

Waiting to see a 'spectacular experiment' from Nathan...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chanly, the best in buying refreshments for the workshop :)

 

Thanks for your hospitality Sokhany and ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.... for the delicious food!

International Woman’s day! I’m in the right country because that’s a holiday over here J I Had a very lazy day of tanning and reading at the pool. In the weekend I went cycling with some friends. We took the ferry to the other side of the Mekong (Areyksat). There we had an easy cycle trip in the country side with some nice views. So different from Phnom Penh, but still so close!

Cycling trip to Areyksat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The week of the 11the of March almost all my colleagues went to Belgium for the seminar from VVOB. I have to admit.... I was jealous! It would be nice to be in Belgium for a week, see my family and friends! But ... we also enjoyed the quiet time in the office, and we had our own “Belgian party” ;)

Belgian party at the office ;)

 

 

 

The weekend when my colleagues came back was fantastic; they brought a big package from my family for me. The box was filled with delicacies from Belgium (Lots of chocolat, cheese, honey,  ... ) and lovely letters and cards! Thank you so much!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Côte d'Or :)

In between working, travelling, evaluating, ...  I also had some lovely nights out with my friends here in Phnom Penh.

See you next time!

You can see more pictures on my facebook album: Sab bay nas

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152039334877080.509136.778757079&type=3

PS: Happy Easter on Sunday!

 

Strengthening workshop in Battambang (18/19 and 21/22 Feb 2013)

Live from Battambang:

Strengthening workshop in RTTC Battambang.

Last Monday and Thuesday there was the Biology and Earth Science workshop.
During these two days there were 4 lesson try-outs for Biology and 4 for Earth Science.
Some lessons were better than others, but it was a very good moment for the teacher trainers to give feedback on each others lessons.
I saw some nice experiments and a lot of Student Centered Approach (SCA).

Thuesday evening was the last evening for the Biology and Earth Science teacher trainers, and I didn't know that before, but that group of teacher trainers is a "party group" ;)
We went to a karaoke and it was real fun, a lot of Khmer dancing and singing!
Luckely Wednesday there was no workshop, so we could work in the hotel, with a bit less stress.

Yesterday and today there was the Physics and Chemistry workshop.
It was nice to see some teacher trainers that I recognised from last year.
I learned a lot during the Chemistry lessons, it was an opportunity to refresh my Chemistry knowledge.
Concept cartoons, traffic cards, concept cards, 3-2-1 methode, ... it was nice to see that the teacher trainers tried to use all these methodes.

https://picasaweb.google.com/105102279593966504533/StrengtheningWorkshopBTB1819And2122Feb2013?authkey=Gv1sRgCJqOnqfZgtPFQw#

I think we can close this workshop with a good feeling. The teacher trainers got the opportunity to give the try out lessons and give feedback to each other. They can go home with some good tips for improvement. Hopefully they will apply the tips in there lessons.

On to the next RTTC: RTTC Kampong Cham.

After the strengthening workshops we have the preparation of the inset training on SCA and on experiments for Biology/ Earth Science / Physics and Chemistry.

                                          The SCA manuals

 

Last night of the Biology/ Earth Science workshop: Time for some karaoke!

 

And luckily there were some English songs too.

 

See you soon!

Cambodia the sequel...

Here I am, back in Cambodia. I’ll start my first blog message from the beginning: The trip from Brussels to Phnom Penh …

Brussels → Abu Dhabi → Bangkok → Aranyprathet border crossing (Thailand- Cambodia) → Poipet → Battambang → Finally Phnom Penh

The first part of my trip was luckily with the plane. But from Bangkok to Phnom Penh everything was by bus.

So on Friday the 25the of January I left Brussels two hours late to Abu Dhabi. There I had a perfect connection to Bangkok. The students from Arteveldehogeschool were waiting for me in Bangkok. Meanwhile it was already Saturday evening. We spent the night in a hotel in Bangkok and on Sunday morning at 7am we had a ‘bus’ to Phnom Penh…. What an adventure….

After an hour of driving around in a minivan, we finally left Bangkok. Around lunch time we had a break for 40 minutes where we had to fill in the visa forms. Around 1pm we arrived in Aranyprathet where we slowly ;) crossed the border of Thailand with Cambodia. Around 3:30pm we were dropped in some sort of bus station in Poipet (Cambodia). There we had to wait for 2 hours before we had a bus to Phnom Penh. So at 5:30 pm we had a bus to Phnom Penh (who was stopping everywhere) and we finally arrived in our guest house at 3 o’clock in the morning….!! WHAT A TRIP.

 

Luckily on Monday we could sleep long, Stefaan rescheduled the program for us. In the afternoon we went to RTTC Kandal. It was so good to see the VVOB team back! Unfortunately some lovely colleagues are not working there anymore.

 

Tuesday was the second introduction day. I have the feeling that the students from Arteveldehogeschool are having a good time and they are very enthusiastic about their internship at VVOB.

On Wednesday they had to say goodbye to each other. Simon and Michiel are going to Battambang and Marieke and Nathan to Kampong Cham. Sokhany and I went together with Simon and Michiel to Battambang.

Thursday we had a meeting with the very friendly director of the RTTC in Battambang. Michiel and Simon were introduced to the teacher trainers and to their group of students that they have to follow up during the practicum.

In our free time we visited some nice places in Battambang, we saw millions of bats coming out of a cave, we went on the bambootrain, ... we were real tourists :)

After the meeting with the students, discovering the city, ... Simon and Michiel were even more enthusiastic to start their internship! So Sokhany and I could go back to Phnom Penh on Friday morning with a good feeling.  

You can see some pictures in this album: https://picasaweb.google.com/117599487615681139672/FirstWeekInternshipArteveldestudents# 

Weekend time!

My lovely friends from last year arranged a weekend to the seaside of Cambodia.

Friday evening I arrived in Kep where I met my friends. For dinner we had the amazingly good grilled crab with kampot pepper! On Saturday we went with the motorbikes to Otris beach. Oh and before that I was ‘acting’ for the TV show Loy9! In March I’ll be on Khmer television, Yay! That was a really nice and funny experience, thanks to Julian for that!

 

After a safe motorbike trip (to bad we had a flat tire, but that was fixed fast) we arrived at the wonderful Otris beach. We had a swim in the sea, watched the stars, had some fish BBQ, … LOVELY!

Sunday was a lazy but beautiful beach day.

After a nice morning swim in the sea on Monday, we were fully equipped for the motorbike trip back to Phnom Penh. 

 

My first week back in Phnom Penh was very busy and with a lot of traveling but it is fantastic to be back! And I think I’m very lucky to have a first weekend like this in the Kingdom of Wonder!

 

Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152017324282080.507182.778757079&type=1