CALOOCAN CITY, Oct. 3 (PIA) -- “Crisis is the best time to transform challenges into opportunity”, shared Louise Mabulo to hundreds of youth participating in the recent interactive webinar series entitled, "#ASEANYouth and COVID-19: Success Stories and the Way Forward."
As a business champion, Louise provided insights and encouragement on how the youth can be social entrepreneurs during the second part of the webinar. Louise is the founder of the Cacao Project, a social venture aimed at equipping farmers for sustainable success, ensuring food security, and establishing resilient livelihoods.
The series of online polls during the webinar showed that most of the youth from the 10 ASEAN countries, 46 per cent of whom are students, enjoys studying and interacting with people through the digital platform while acknowledging that the new normal is challenging and they are most concerned about health.
When asked where they want to work in the future, almost half of the audiences responded that they want to set up their own business. In particular, they aspire to be a successful “socio-preneur” and work in a start-up or social enterprise that will enable them to create more jobs in their community.
However, the youth audiences also shared that the lack of funding support, guidance from a mentor, and confidence in their business ideas, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic are major factors that prevent them from fulfilling their entrepreneurial dreams.
The 3rd episode of the Youth webinar was moderated by youth leader Marie Lan Anh Ngo, president of the ASEAN University Student Council Union (AUSCU). Marie’s engaging way of moderating kept the audiences actively participating and voting in the two-hour webinar. Marie was joined by Thuy Nguyen, project lead in Asia-Pacific of the World Economic Forum and Mary Anne Therese Manuson, assistant director and head of Education, Youth and Sports Division of the ASEAN Secretariat, in the role of commentators.
The conversation on Education and the Future of Work featured Tyovan Widagdo, founder of Bahaso, a mobile app, which has picked up more than 100,000 users and was used by Indonesia’s president to track infrastructure systems. Zwe Ye Htet, assistant HR Development Manager of Myanmar Red Cross, also spoke about human resource practices.
Kaelyn Hui Ling Liew, co-founder of Reef Stakes® Malaysia, advised the youth to sustain their optimism during the new normal to achieve their goals. Kaelyn is an advocate of integrating creativity and fun in empowering individuals to take an active role in environmental conservation.
As one of the facilitators of the webinar, Mika Tan, coordinator of the ASEAN Youth Biodiversity Programme funded by the European Union, said the webinar showed the resilience and ability of the youth to effect real change for a better society and environment.
“In building back better post-COVID-19, the youth have a large role to play as we are resourceful, digitally adept, and natural collaborators wanting to work across silos to achieve a vision of living in harmony with nature,” Mika added.
The four-part interactive webinar series was organised by the ASEAN Secretariat, ASEAN Foundation, ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The initiative aims to contribute to the implementation of the ASEAN Work Plan on Youth 2021–2025, the ASEAN Working Group on Nature Conservation and Biodiversity (AWGNCB) Action Plan in mainstreaming biodiversity in human health and wellbeing, and the ASEAN Working Group on Environmental Education (AWGEE) Action Plan in fostering active participation of empowered youth in promoting environmental protection. (PIA NCR)
Source: Philippines Information Agency (pia.gov.ph)
0 Comments