From Education to Environmental Action
BambooShoot started in 2009 with an education mission. Since 2018, it has worked with communities on Tonle Sap to keep plastic out of the lake.
Four steps, one idea: the next generation.
2009
Education first
Sophal Sea starts NGO2 BambooShoot to help girls from rural villages go to high school in Siem Reap.
2018
The lake's plastic
The organisation turns its attention to plastic waste in the water communities of Tonle Sap.
2018 to 2022
Communities respond
Seasonal clean-up festivals begin in December 2018. During Covid, families start keeping their plastic in exchange for rice.
Today
Action around the lake
Harvest Plastic, the Inland Ocean Festival since 2023, education work and research on tangled propellers.
2009
It started with girls going to school.
For girls from poor rural areas, finishing school was hard. There were costs, distances and family pressures. BambooShoot gave selected students housing, tuition, supplies and leadership training so they could attend high school in Siem Reap.
Many went on to university. Former students now work as teachers, police officers and nurses, and in marketing, accounting and business administration.
The scholarship programme was later paused for lack of long-term funding, and Covid closed schools. BambooShoot hopes to restart it when funding allows.
Founder
Sophal Sea
Founder and president, NGO2 BambooShoot
Sophal studied tourism management and became a tour guide. He started BambooShoot in 2009 to honour his sister, who had helped him with his own education. The first funds came from his work as a guide.
Guiding also took him onto the lake. He remembers taking visitors by boat to Prek Toal and seeing propellers caught in plastic and old nets. In 2018, he turned the organisation toward the plastic in the lake.
The idea behind both missions is the same: better conditions for the next generation.
Life Afloat: Sophal's work on film.
In 2024, the US non-profit Rivers are Life released Life Afloat, a 14-minute film about two river heroes working where the Mekong and the Tonle Sap meet: Sophal Sea and Sarin Rouen.
Film: Rivers are Life, 2024. Watch on YouTube
A lake that breathes with the seasons.
Largest
Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, and one of the most bio-diverse.
Seasonal
From May to October the river reverses. The lake spreads across the plains and deepens from about 1 metre to 10 metres.
Lived on
Floating villages live on the water. Most have little or no waste collection.
Exposed
Plastic is burned or ends up in the lake. It hangs in the trees in the wet season and lies on the ground when the water falls.
With communities, not around them.
Environmental work only lasts if it fits daily life. Harvest Plastic follows the rhythm of the rice harvest, a routine every family knows. Clean-ups follow the rise and fall of the lake.
We work with village leaders, local government, volunteers, schools and partners. Families keep their plastic and young volunteers check it.
- Work that fits local livelihoods
- Families and young people as participants
- Village leaders and local authorities involved
NGO², for the next generation.
NGO² stands for non-governmental organization for the next generation. A bamboo stalk grows section by section, each one building on the last for height and strength. That is the idea behind BambooShoot.
Be Part of the Next Step
Support community-led action for a cleaner and healthier Tonle Sap.