OUTreach/ Bridging Across Borders
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Manila, 7 December 2016 — Indonesian Embassy officials invited young leaders in the Philippines to build bridges with Indonesia and support the ASEAN community together. What can we learn from their discussion?
A delegation of the ASEAN Youth Leaders Association (AYLA) and the Asia-Pacific Youth Exchange (APYE) was received by Minister Counsellor Trini Gunarti and First Secretary Basriana Basrul of the Indonesian Embassy in Manila to explore new opportunities for young leaders to build bridges among ASEAN countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines.
Lessons learned from the discussion touched on three areas.
First, the importance of learning more about each other's countries, languages and cultures as a foundation for effective collaboration in the ASEAN community, and for young leaders in the Philippines to take benefit of scholarships offered by the Indonesian government.
Second, to make more use of today's opportunities for young leaders in provincial cities in Indonesia and the Philippines to connect directly with each other through AYLA and APYE and start working on common challenges in support of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Third, for Indonesia and the Philippines to use ASEAN's 50th anniversary in 2017 to show how young leaders can be actively engaged and supported by governments and businesses in building the ASEAN community, through networking, business start-ups and social ventures.
The AYLA team was led by Secretary-General Neil Soria, and the APYE team by its Philippines Coordinator Eka Meñez.
The visit was supported by Director Hyoungmin Kim of the Urban Youth Academy, Delane Kim of Futuready.Asia, Janita Himawati of Neru Indonesia, and Coach Wouter of TransformationFirst.Asia.
