Taking Initiative

A big part of this effort to help Cambodian people involves finding potential opportunities. You simply can’t be perfect doing this, and a lot of it is discovery. Beyond that you have to be willing to strike out in new and unusual directions simply because you might find something there.

One good example is my class at Khnar Tmei this year. I know I can’t stay in the village year-round and teach computer classes. But with the unusual gender gap of boys without jobs, I sensed an opportunity. They have the training and experience I’ve given them over the years plus the ability to build on that knowledge. After all, they figured out how to get Internet access through their mobile phone (and I confirmed through another source that it’s a whopping $3 per MONTH for plenty of data). So now I’m teaching kids how to be teachers. Man, I wish I had paid attention better in class. I was never a great student and the prospect of teaching kids how to teach is daunting for me. But this is Cambodia, and there’s a great need for leaders and teachers. I’m not going to let my own reservations stop me from seizing this opportunity.

Another example caught my eye on the news. Oh, what a pleasure it is to get news here. I can choose from Deutsche Welle out of Germany, BBC, Al-Jazerra (which is easily BBC quality), News Asia from Australia, or CNN International (which is far from the regular CNN). Most of these ran stories on the current ASEAN summit with Hillary Clinton attending. I then heard that she was coming to Siem Reap and thought there might be more to that story. After a bit of Googling, I found the “COMMITMENT TO CONNECTIVITY | US - ASEAN Business Forum” happening this Friday, where she’s a keynote speaker. There are quite a few good sessions happening and I’m betting I can gain a few more connections from the event: http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/tab2.aspx?EventID=1112855. Again I took the initiative and found out that registration is a whopping $65. Are you kidding me?!? It looks like I need to check the dress code because I'm booked.

Whenever you run into a problem, don’t shy away from it. You might just find yourself discovering new and unusual ways to solve it. Or… you could end up at a business forum in southeast Asia with a wide variety of foreign dignitaries and the US Secretary of State.