Mr. Monila Bidi (32)

Mr. Monila Bidi (32) is a Cambodian Ph.D. student at Chiba University’s Graduate School of Science and Technology. His field is Hydrology, with an emphasis on safe groundwater.

Under Pol Pot’s government, Monila’s parents were forced into marriage, but his father was killed as an intellectual soon after Monila was born. His only knowledge of his father’s face is from a single photograph that he has. When he was born, his mother was 20, and supported him by farming and sewing. When he graduated from junior high school, the two of them moved to Phnom Penh, where they lived in a slum. There, she supported his studies by working at a market.

After studying crocodiles at the National University he decided to study abroad with a scholarship. He came to Japan in 2002 and entered Chiba University’s Faculty of Science, where today he majors in hydrology and ground water. Following Pol Pot’s decimation of his country Japanese NGOs went there to dig wells for the people. However, many of them turned out to be poisoned by arsenic. Monila’s aim is to supply safe wells to Cambodian residents.

In 2007, he was a chairman of the Cambodian Student Association in Japan (CSAJ). The Nippon Foundation established a scholarship in 2004 for students of a teacher’s school in Phnompenh and as a part of this program, the foundation invited students with high-grades to visit Japan in 2007 and 2009. At that time, Monila helped out as an Cambodian interpreter, playing an important role as a go-between for Japan and Cambodia in the educational field.

He is currently writing his thesis about ground water, and will graduate next March. After going back to Cambodia, he wants to work for the government or an NGO, utilizing his knowledge of hydrology. He said “I want Cambodians to be able to drink safe water. I want to make Cambodia better.” He also dreams of being a politician.