The Don Bosco Technical School and Brother Sun Scholarship Program for Rural and Indigenous children and youth of Kep Province celebrated the second edition of the Media Communication Training for Young Indigenous Leaders from 4 to 8 May 2026. The event gathered 40 Indigenous children (grades 9–12) and 40 Indigenous students enrolled in technical programs (electricity, media communication, secretarial studies, and information technology). Participants represented the Jarai, Tampung, Kreng, Kraveth, and Lun peoples, accompanied by 10 Cha‑Thom elders, who ensured an intergenerational dialogue where youth contributed their natural affinity for technology and elders shared ancestral wisdom and tradition. The program is sponsored by ROOTS Asia, the Catholic Network of Asian Indigenous Peoples and the Don Bosco Foundation of Cambodia.

The program was designed to foster teamwork between generations and open communication among diverse Indigenous groups, with Indigenous participants themselves leading the activities. Through the creation of a video, a song, and a dance, the training became a living expression of Indigenous identity. This approach deliberately moved away from the conventional model of workshops where Indigenous peoples are passive recipients of external instruction. Instead, it sought to cultivate organic intellectuals – leaders emerging from within the communities – capable of guiding the spiritual and cultural awakening of their peoples.

At Don Bosco Kep, where most students come from rural and Indigenous backgrounds, the campus itself is envisioned as a space of nature, tradition, and spirituality, rooted in local cultures and promoting transculturality. Within this environment, the Salesian Preventive System is contextualized through interculturality and inculturation, awakening ancestral wisdom as a path of education and formation. This stands in contrast to global trends where formal education often alienates Indigenous youth from their communities, imposing monocultural models, national languages, and religious practices that risk erasing ancestral languages and traditions. The training at Don Bosco Kep thus represents a counter‑movement: education as reconciliation, where Indigenous voices, traditions, and creativity are not only preserved but empowered to lead.

Education should be a space to affirm Indigenous identities, not to erase them. Within traditional Indigenous communities, children grow immersed in family and social values, in deep connection with Mother Earth, guided by the ancestral wisdom of elders as spiritual leaders, and nurtured by a spiritual reading of the territory and the Mystery of God through what is called the spiritual word. Centuries of colonialism have inflicted profound damage on Indigenous peoples worldwide, shaping perceptions and practices that continue to affect communities today. Within this colonial network of mentalities, education has often become a tool of subjugation, imposing a single model of society, culture, economy, and religion, while silencing Indigenous voices.

The elders or organic intellectuals, shared with the young people their experience of ancestral wisdom and the youth worked in the production of a video. The topics included knowledge about plants, the meaning of ancestral rituals such as wedding and funerals, the worry about the loss of Indigenous identities in the middle of globalization and the need to work and respect Mother Earth. The last day was a short excursion to the Kampong Trach Kiri Mountain, where a local elder, a woman, is the spiritual guard of very ancient caves that keep the traces of the Cambodian history, such as the destruction and violence of the Khmer Rouge regime and other conflicts, and the respect for ancient sites as a sign of connection with God and ancestors.