Case Study: Young Woman Environmental Defender

Chen Leakena is 24 years old. Currently, she’s living in Kampong Pang village, Kaing Cham commune, Thala Borivat district, Stung Treng province. She’s indigenous Proav. Due to living in a poor family, her parents moved from the Sambo district, Kratie province in 2007. Her mother is a coconut buyer, and her father is a boatman. In 2019, she was forced to drop out of high school in grade 11^th because her parents couldn’t afford her studies. Her floating school is in the middle of Mekong’s Island. That’s why she needed to pay for a boat fee every day from home to school.

In 2023, Her father passed away. He was the head of the Prey Khmao community in Stung Treng province and was a member of the Pery Lang community network. His name is Kong Ry. Since her father died, this young woman has become involved and learned more about environmental protection and joined various networking including the Chheutal Forest community, Prey Lang community network, and The Cambodia Youth Network Association.

The Cambodia Youth Network Association (CYN) has equipped her with a series of capacity development on human rights and participation in protecting natural resources. The first Activity that Leakena joined, was The Forest Defenders Project in 2022, it was Sithibal camp and PreyLang festival because of her active participation in every project of CYN, she has a lot of opportunities to build her capacity on basic human rights concepts, advocacy skill, legal training for women rights activist, and co-organizer of Cambodia Youths forum which focus on an environmental issue. Leakena became a great negotiator with the perpetrators who were trying to destroy the natural resources. Currently, Leakena is a leader of the SKY youth club in her community.

As a leader, she regularly conducted sharing sessions and training on Human rights, Environmental protection, the importance of natural resources and forests, adaptation, and climate change with her members and 100 students at Koh Sralay High School. She is trying to engage with young people because she doesn’t want them to drop out of school and immigrate. That’s the reason she worked hard to lead her club, building community networks with young people. She indicated her commitment to engaging with the community to protect natural resources because we all need a clean environment and oxygen to breathe. She added that equal participation of men and women is to contribute to the protection of natural resources but the number of women in protecting the environment is still limited.

Leakena is a young woman with a vision to see natural resources, especially the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, better protected with the participation of all parties. Forest conservation is not only for the environment and ecology but also contributes to the economic development of local communities. She believes that it will reduce migration in her community.

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Chen Leakena is 24 years old