Bounheng Southichak, a "naturally passionate" project coordinator
Bounheng Southichak, 47, founder and director of Lao Youth Radio, passes on his passion for nature to young people each day. Coordinator of the Media for One health project in Laos, he is looking forward to supervising some new field news reports on environmental and animal health.
The young talking to the young! At 47, the heart of Bounheng Southichak, founder and director of Lao Youth Radio since 2015, still beats to the tune of the youth of today: "In Laos, young people make up more than 60% of the population. Yet very few media outlets give them a chance to speak...".
But what kind of child was Bounheng, "surrounded by ricefields, rivers and forests"? His older sister, Vanpheng, recalls with amusement: "As a child, he liked to paint animals and mountains and collected rubbish to educate people about the need to protect their environment. Today, he is still committed to improving the quality of life for everyone. Our mother nicknamed him 'Heng' (editor's note: 'Lucky' in Lao), but my brother doesn't just rely on luck, he works hard and puts his heart and soul into his work."
His mother, a market seller, taught him "the value of hard work". Her father, a teacher, passed on his "love of reading". From a very early age, this shy child discovered a natural passion for languages and other cultures. After his baccalaureate, he studied agribusiness in Thailand, followed by a master's degree in civil engineering and a PhD in climate engineering in Japan: "I wanted to understand how we can use technology to solve problems that harm nature."
"Infectious enthusiasm"
Back in Laos, he founded Lao Youth Radio in 2015. His colleague, Phonesavanh Sangsomboun, told us: "Bounheng is always looking for new ways to help the community. We inform and educate young people about environmental issues. They can then help us to spread the message."
It's a message that Bounheng Southichak also helped spread between 2019 and 2021, as the coordinator of CFI's Mekong: Sustainable News project in Laos: "With a team of 12 Laotian journalists and content creators, we discussed with local people how climate change is affecting their plantations. By publishing these news reports, we wanted local communities to understand the interdependence of nature and find solutions." Clothilde Le Coz, responsible for the international development of the Agora for Journalism, was the project's regional coordinator at that time: "I appreciated Bounheng's infectious enthusiasm, which gave us a lot of hope at a complicated time for journalists."
Portrait by Emmanuel de Solère Stintzy (Journalistes Médiateurs https://www.journalistesmediateurs.com/)
*The "One Health" approach invites us to think differently about health, recognising the interdependence of the wellbeing of humans, animals and the ecosystems they share on our one planet. It uses the close and interdependent links between these three facets to develop new methods for monitoring and preventing disease (source: World Health Organization).
