Open Workshop on Creative Expression

Posted on March 09, 2011 by seavyi

Here are some details on the next Open Workshop, covering creative expression and cross cultural communication!

Objective/Description: To share an experience of self-discovery and dialogue through the creative arts; writing, movement, visualization and a hands-on art project.

You don’t need to consider yourself an artist to engage in creative expression! Join us at a Creative Arts Open Workshop to enjoy the process of creative self-discovery – for yourself and with your colleagues. Learn how to communicate and express your ideas and concepts in a variety of different ways and reap the benefits this has to offer when working cross culturally. Don’t let different languages and culture be a show stopper. Explore new creative ways to communicate in the workplace this Saturday!
Kinyei will provide refreshments and a Khmer translator for the workshop. For those who express interest in attending we will send a vocabulary list through so participants can start thinking about the types of creative concepts that will be discussed and referred to often in Saturday’s workshop.

For whom: For colleagues who would like to explore new and creative ways of communication and to improve their own personal and professional development. Ideally, we are looking for 5-7 pairs of colleagues, one foreigner + one Khmer.

Who’s behind the workshop: Amit Janco is a Canadian woman currently volunteering at the Emergency Surgical Centre in Battambang. She has been involved with the creative arts since childhood; dancing, singing, writing, gardening, photography, design, sculpture, pottery and many other art and media projects. She has spearheaded community-wide arts projects and led art classes in Nepal. After surviving a serious accident two years ago, Amit turned to the arts as a therapeutic and meaningful way of rehabilitating from her injuries and to deal with pain. She has since been leading creative arts workshops, primarily for groups of women and sufferers of chronic pain. Wherever she lives and travels, Amit is always excited about engaging others in creativity, in helping people discover their unique gifts and potential for self-expression.

Open workshop on women’s reproductive and sexual health

Posted on March 04, 2011 by matthew

On 10 February Kinyei’s Open Classroom hosted its first women’s reproductive and sexual health workshop. Speaking to 17 participants from diverse backgrounds, a team from Battambang’s Romero Center presented the three hour workshop covering anatomy, mentrual cycles, sex, pregnancy, common diseases and treatments, when you need to see a doctor, and hygiene.

The second half of the day saw a “training for trainers” workshop, where fourteen social workers and housemothers received tips on how to present workshops on women’s health effectively. Most importantly, the participants learnt how to navigate sexual health issues in Khmer culture and how to help participants feel comfortable sharing their problems.

The workshops were attended by representatives of five different local NGOs, showing that the Romero Center’s program will have a lively future in Battambang. Participants enjoyed the workshops immensely, with one 40 year-old woman saying, with a beaming smile, “[t]his is very good, I have never been able to talk about these things before.”

Tedx Phnom Penh

Posted on March 02, 2011 by matthew

If things have seemed a bit silent over here at the Kinyei site this is because the team has been busy helping organise Cambodia’s first TEDx conference! Over 150 people attended, with many more viewing via a live web feed as some of Cambodia’s most inspiring speakers presented on the theme “building the future.”

A representative team from Kinyei attended including Phalla, Untac, and Alex. Speaking for all the attendees, Phalla felt positively “motivated to make changes in society” after the conference. It’s hard not to agree after watching the talks, which are all available online here.

The team were particularly impressed by ex-ad-man Mike Rios, who urged people to ask not “how to make money,” but “how to make meaning.” Mike’s energetic style raised plenty of laughs from the audience and his theme of changing cultural values was carried further by Kounila Keo, who described how young Cambodians were finding unprecedented freedom of expression and escape from social restrictions through blogging.

Besides a change in values, many speakers suggested changes in Cambodians’ education. Sithen Sum urged people to take their education into their own hands, while Phloeun Prim reflected upon the importance of cultural and artistic education to a rebuilding nation.

In the context of Phloeun’s talk, the music, dance, and live visual art performances throughout the day, including live painting and chapei performance by Keeda Oikawa and Kong Nai, hip hop dancing by Tiny Toones, and traditional smot chanting by master Keot Ran and student Srey Peu showed the way forward for the “transformation of the nation through the arts.”

The event was received very positively, with Tharum Bun claiming that the line-up “collectively represent[ed] some of the brightest observers of modern day Cambodia,” and Thomas Wanhoff praising the day for being not just “rational,” but “emotional.” Blogger and social business entrepeneur Leigh saw the event as “an incredible blend of thoughts and cultures.” Congratulations to all involved!

Kickstarter completion!

Posted on January 25, 2011 by matthew

Thanks to all who made our Kickstarter campaign such a resounding success! We managed to finish the 45 day period with $10,186. That’s $1,686 beyond our target! The extra funds will support staff wages and recoup unforeseen start-up costs (including the espresso machine customs saga). The support from the local and international community has been overwhelming, even past the Kickstarter completion date when all sorts of in-kind support has been offered.

Looking forward to a great year of Battambang espresso! Listen to our favourite Battambang anthem!

“What do you want to create?”

Posted on January 19, 2011 by katie

Backers, cheerleaders and enthusiasts! Thank you for your unceasing support!

For the last Kickstarter update we wanted to celebrate surpassing our $8500 target and our 100+ backers, so the Kinyei Cafe staff took the streets to interview the folks of Battambang, and get their ideas about what they wanted to create and achieve in life. Check out the update, and the video by our fantastic team of amateur journalists below. It’s here in time with a mere 50 hours left on the Kickstarter!

Please watch this video and get a glimpse of what people here in Battambang hope to create.

What do you want to create?

Pass it along and help us smash 10k with our final 48 hrs!

Love, Kinyei

Film crew – Sakana, Srey Pheak, Untac, Phalla, Sean, Enrico Producer – Justin

How to tie a kromah

Posted on January 11, 2011 by matthew

Srey Pheak and Sakkana helped put together a guide for those who will be receiving kromah scarves for donating $50 or more to our Kickstarter campaign. The distinctively Cambodian kroma is a ubiquitous, all purpose item that can be worn in many ways, including:

The "fisherwoman" and the "men's working belt"

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The “fisherwoman” style sported by Srey Pheak (left), which is worn to help protect the wearer from the sun. Sakkana (right) is wearing her kromah around the waist in the style of male laborers, who use the kromah as a sweat rag and towel for a midday bath.

The daydreaming "market shopper."

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Srey Pheak’s introduces the whimsical “market shopper.”

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Stylish young people wear their kromahs on the way to work and on trips back to their homelands.

The 'grandma' and the 'rice harvester'

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The “grandmother” kromah style is loosely arranged (left), while rice harvesters wear their kromah tied tightly across the forehead.

It should be noted however that this is not an exhaustive list and that your kromah will also make a handy grocery bag, nappy or makeshift concrete sieve, when required ;)

2010 Reflections – collaborative learning spaces and emergence vs control

Posted on January 08, 2011 by matthew

Collaborative learning spaces like the Phnom Penh Hackerspace, Kinyei, Barcamp Phnom Penh, and unconferences around the world are born of two common realizations. Firstly, people actually want to learn, share ideas and make things together. Secondly, a lot of traditional institutions just get in the way of this. While Hackerspaces generally run with this principle in a very technical direction, Kinyei was started to adapt the same principles to community development, as a response to a lot of the well meaning but suffocatingly top-down and community development initatives you get from large NGOs. Our belief is that groups can self-organize, and that self-organized groups can do more, or at least different, things for their communities than any outside help can hope to.

Kinyei started in 2010 as a facilitating outfit for projects that came to us looking for a sounding board. business coaching, and help connecting with global conversations on their specific issues through social media. We’d just connect them with the people and resources they were looking for. As of the last few months we’ve been setting up a physical space for all this to happen in, which will hopefully grow the community of people doing things here, and the help they can give each other. The only structured thing we run is our popular open classroom: high school kids teach each other email and facebook, something they’d normally have to shell out at phone shops to learn; Travelling volunteers share their passions and groups run sessions amongst themselves on topics from Khmer poetry to child protection.

Next year we’re going to launch a fuller schedule and a few unconferences—barcamp-style conferences where the schedule is made by the participants and anyone can present—to get people excited about using the space as a platform for collaboration and peer-learning. The obvious wins for us have been the sessions that have grown organically out of being available; the basic tech peer-learning sessions have added real value in areas that are clearly important to people, and have cost next to nothing, and there have been a few social projects that have come a long way because they had the space to use to meet and present in.

Our successes have been met with as many dilemmas and questions about how to proceed. One of the main, ongoing problems is balancing between being “open” in a supportive way and being “open” like the park down the road is open. If you offer too much support then you bleed out all the initiative from people that they require to make their projects work. If you don’t offer enough, then why are you even there?

That’s been an ongoing issue that I’m not sure we’ll ever really solve. Every time a scheme stalls here we wonder if we got it right. There have been enough successes though to make us believe we’re on the right track, and as we continue to tweak the process and add fantastic partners into the mix, we’re really excited to see what will emerge from Kinyei’s first year in full operation, 2011.

Justin Lorenzon

Kinyei co-founder

Global Toast

Posted on December 30, 2010 by katie

Hi Everyone,

You guys have been awesome and it’s been great to see people pledging over this time of endless social/familial obligations. We’re now at a handsome 60% and are gearing up for a final push to bring this puppy home before time runs out, so here’s the plan:

Our friend Keagan in the great city of Denver, CO had the fine idea to contribute cover charges from his NYE bash towards the Kinyei Kickstarter campaign. We’re honored to factor into their holiday shenanigans and we want to invite you to join in.

All you have to do is shout Kinyei a drink on New Year’s Eve.

Here’s how you get in on it:

Step 1: Pledge the cost of one drink towards the Kickstarter, and get a drink for yourself

Step 2: Take a snap of yourself raising said drink to Kinyei

Step 3: Tweet/facebook/email that pic to Kinyei and your friends with the text: “Global toast for Kinyei! https://www.tinyurl.com/kinyei“, plus whatever “cheers” is in your area.

Step 4: Get as many friends as you can to do the same

We will be collecting pictures you let us know about on facebook or twitter on the facebook fanpage and www.kinyei.org/global-toast

We’d love to see 6k by 2011. Join Kinyei for new year’s and take your NYE party global!