I spent last week at the Action Asia Peace Building Forum. Action Asia is a network of peace builders across Asia that came together about 10 years ago for mutual information sharing, encouragement, and resource sharing. Every 2 years they have a forum somewhere in Asia. This year's theme was Transforming Our Woundedness For Peace.
The forum consisted of a key note speaker and a ton of workshops focused on different countries. Because of the theme, a lot of people shared the story of their personal journey toward peace building. Also, one day we went to visit a floating village and the Cambodian Cultural Village. In the floating village (on the water for 6 months a year) we met with their community organization to hear about what they are doing to lessen poverty in the community. The Cultural Village is a tourist attraction with a ton of Khmer and ethnic minority dancing shows. They also enacted a traditional Khmer wedding. It was great because they pulled people out of the audience to play roles in the show.
The best part of the conference was being so warmly welcomed by these incredible people that I instantly admired. I was treated like one of them even though I don't have any experience. I met a ton of people who kept saying 'here's my card, if you come to India/Nepal/Myanmar/Indonesia/Philippines call me' So wonderful. I also met some people who work in Phnom Penh, Cambodians and expats. I look forward to building those relationships. My boss from Peace Bridges was also there, so I got a chance to get to know him better as well.
Anyway, it was a wonderful week that filled my brain with so many new thoughts and questions its hard to even process to write about it on here. Another great week in Cambodia.
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