Sopanha Yous

About Me My name is Yous Sopanha, I was born in1965, I have a wife and one son and we live in Siem Reap Angkor. I have been working as a tour guide for many years in Angkor Archaeological site as well as other tourism sites around Cambodia. I hold 2 Bachelor Degrees from Phnom Penh University in Social Science (history, philosophy…). In Khmer Rouge regime, I was over ten years but I was forced to work very hard in the Children Mobile Unit. I lost a lot of relatives and parents. After the liberation from Khmer Rouge in January- 07- 1979, new government gathered me to live with thousands of orphans in Orphanage Center. Most of kids joined the army excepted me, I didn’t join but I studied very hard…in 1988 I passed High School Diploma, very few of us could pass High School. Even we got out of Pol Pot regime but we still didn’t have anything to eat…I just ate the bottom of banana tree, something else we had never eaten before. Cambodia became Communist, the country was under nil, we had nothing…., even a piece of paper. It was Cold War, so it was dark time for Cambodian people in Communist Regime. I went to Phnom Penh University 1991 and then Faculty of Pedagogy. I got married in 1995 while I met my wife at University. After marriage, I moved to live with my wife family. That is the tradition in Cambodia, the man has to move to wife’s family. What happened there? My wife has got 7 orphaned nieces, my obligation has to feed them all too. I work every hard in my life to support my big family, only me work, the children go to school. The people of my age could not do like me but EVERYTHING IS FROM MY HEART, how could I quit them?. I have to work for my big family. Even though it is very hard for me……that’s my CONSCIENCE. 1992-2002, I was a teacher of English. 1995 -1998, I was a high school teacher, I taught Khmer History, Culture and Civilization. 1998-2003, I was working for NGO (program manager). We had main projects in 1- Literacy 2- Gomestic Violence 3- Micro-Credit 4- Water- Pump Well + Besides, my 2 Bachelor Degrees form Government University, I also obtain some more Certificates in specialized skills in: 1- Acounting 2- Planning 3- Monitoring 4- Evaluation 5- Community Learning Center ( CLC). We focused on illiterate people and domestic violence, because of almost 2 decades of civil war, many people became illiterate...and it caused domestic violence in families. Since 2004, I become a licensed and professional tour guide, I have many friends and visitors from everywhere in the world and I take thousands of them to see my amazing country. I am not only a tour guide, I am also an interpreter in a formal meeting or in workshop and a fixer for journalist, photographer, writer and researcher, who need to make a story…like; I help writers to search about Local Khmer healer, mental people and street children… I am also a professional Lecturer in universities, workshops about: - Non-Formal Education - Domestic Violence - Khmer Civilization and Culture - Civil War - Khmer Rouge