13 April 2014, Bayon Temple, Siem Reap
My highest respect to Venerable monks.
With due respect to:
H.E. SOK An, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister in Charge of the Council of Ministers, and Lok Chumteav
Excellencies Members of Parliament
Excellencies Members of the Royal Government of Cambodia
H.E. KHIM BUNSONG, Governor of Siem Reap, and Leadership of Siem Reap Municipality
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen from APSARA Authority
Excellencies Ambassadors, Distinguished Delegates and Representatives of Embassies in Cambodia
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen as International and Regional Partners and Dearest Friends of UYFC
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen and dear all compatriots here!
On behalf of the Union of Youth Federations of Cambodia and organizing team of Angkor Sånkrānta event, I am honored standing here to express my warm and pleasant welcome to Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, brothers and sisters, friends, national and international alike, for joining us to officially launch Angkor Sånkrānta event this afternoon, the eve of new B.E. 2558 of the Khmer New Year.
Today is a solemn and festive day for all Cambodians across the nation, who await to greet and receive the blessing of the new year Tevada (angel) tomorrow and to happily celebrate traditional New Year until the 16th of April 2014.
For this auspicious occasion, allow me to share a short brief of what have been done by our teams and our youth volunteers in organizing this big event in Siem Reap.
This is the second year of Angkor Sånkrānta, which is organized by UYFC in close cooperation with relevant ministries, departments, authorities, and private companies, as well as many other partners, so to:
create an atmosphere of festivities for all Cambodians to happily engage and celebrate their Khmer New Year.
provide youths the opportunity to learn and promote their own culture and civilization, hence their sense of national identity and pride.
offer visitors, local and international alike, to discover our traditional dances, games and our heritage.
“Angkor Sånkrānta” is all about unity, solidarity, happiness, harmony, national pride among Cambodians, and the sense of belonging to one Khmer family.
Within the next four days from the 13th to 16th April 2014, this year’s Angkor Sånkrānta has grown in terms of space, number of events and spread to more locations, totaling to 6 different places of attraction; including the park in front of Angkor Wat Temple; the surrounding area of Bayon Temple; Elephant Terrace; Siem Reap river banks and the park adjacent to the Royal Residence (Preahreach Damnak); Pub Street and night markets; and last but not least Angkor-Kyung Yu Exhibition site. Angkor Sånkrānta presents many diverse and attractive spectacles aiming to contribute to the promotion of Khmer culture and civilization among Cambodian youth as well as among foreign visitors to Siem Reap.
May I also take this opportunity to express my deep thanks to relevant institutions that have extended assistance and cooperation that make this event possible. Angkor Sånkrānta cannot be realized without the support and contributions from the Royal Government of Cambodia via the 8 ministries, namely Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Cult and Religion, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Ministry of Education Youth and Sports, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Industry and Handicraft, Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training, Ministry of Tourism. Municipality of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap province, APSARA Authority, Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, some 30 TV and Radio stations, newspapers and magazines, all provincial UYFC branches, private companies and individual donors are also taking part to provide invaluable support to this auspicious event.
On behalf of UYFC team and myself, I would also like to express my gratitude towards Excellencies Ambassadors and representatives of Embassies to the Kingdom of Cambodia, that have provided UYFC team a courtesy call to make a self-introduction and present Angkor Sånkrānta 2014. The mentioned opportunity given and Your Excellencies’ presence here today really show great attention and support, in particular, to the promotion of people-to-people, youth-to-youth interaction in many fields of cooperation including that of culture.
Today we are also delighted to receive our UYFC’s international friends and partners. Present here today are delegations representative of Asian Youth Council (AYC), Committee for ASEAN Youth Cooperation (CAYC), Majlis Belia Malaysia (Malaysia Youth Council), and the People’s Association of Singapore. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, friends and colleagues who have flown long distance and spend time to visit and participate in this Opening Ceremony and Angkor Sånkrānta. Your presence here to share the happiness, smile and joy of our festivities clearly demonstrates the level of close relationships between our organizations, of which I would like on behalf of UYFC family thank you for your support in our Angkor Sånkrānta event, and cultural heritage. This will ferment our relations for generations to come. On that note I wish Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen a comfortable and joyful stay in Cambodia, along with festive mood to celebrate traditional Khmer New Year, together with members and volunteer youths of UYFC, as well as Cambodian people as a whole.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!
All Brothers and Sisters, Youth Volunteers!
Cambodia has gone through many ups and downs, the happy times, the sad times, the challenging times, the darkest of times, nonetheless we should be proud of our history that makes up our identity as Khmer. We should be proud of what we have been through, every portion of our history, and today it is the more that we celebrate what it means to be Cambodians. It has been quite a long, hard and even costly, way for Cambodia to be where we are presently. With
more and more opportunities being created and national pride is being incubated, restored and owned by our youth, by understanding that without severe sacrifice, dedication, commitment and love for our country, paved by youth generation before us, we will not be where we are today.
The Kingdom of Cambodia with the motto Nation Religion King, where we are gathered today is no longer Cambodia of the past. Cambodia today is full of potential, promising talents, happiness, beauty and charm; no longer haunted by a dark and shadow past, and Angkor Sånkrānta is one such personification.
It is important for us as youth to understand, cherish and be proud of our history, culture, traditions, identity and country, so to be equipped with the foundation and experience already set by youth generation before us, and take part in shaping further our country development and national identity, with love, dedication, and commitment to hard work, which Angkor Sånkrānta is our first step together. “Together we can, and together there is nothing we cannot do”.
As a matter of fact, Angkor Sankranta today cannot be realized without concerted effort put forth by Cambodian youth, and so I would like to take this opportunity to present my sincere and deepest gratitude to each and every youth volunteer of each working groups (totaling at more than 3000 youth), for their passionate dedicated participation, and who have so far joined together as one Khmer family to organize the whole event of Angkor Sånkrānta.
I have witnessed their great attention and strong sense of responsibility to realize this noble mission to preserve our national identity and reputation. They provide a sense of harmony and happiness, prosperity and pleasance to all visitors, national and international alike, with their strong sentiment of love, joy and warm hospitality; although they have to face some tiredness and miss their own family gathering which occurs traditionally every New Year.
Clearly, this shows their potential through high commitment, strength and dedication, which are important criteria of our youth volunteers who are the promising human resources for Cambodia’s future development.
All members of the UYFC, youth volunteers and the young public here, as well as those from all over the country as of today are the fruit of peace and stability as a result of struggle and sacrifice of our youth predecessors, of course without forgetting the support from international communities.
Many of our international friends present here have also witnessed the hard times, the good times of Cambodia; and we thank you. By this same token, we Cambodian youths organize this event and celebration in order to show our happiness, unity and spirit of solidarity, joy, smile, and love, among members of one Khmer family. And sincerely, we would like to share this celebration of what Cambodia is today with all our international friends and colleagues.
I strongly hope that the whole Angkor Sånkrānta event will be a great success for no one but all Cambodians and Cambodia as a whole.
Last, I wish all Venerables, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, brothers and sisters during this traditional Khmer New Year, the four gems of Buddha blessings; and happiness and success for non-Buddhists.
Thank You.