Ever wonder what it feels like to be encouraged to speak up when one grew up in militaristic Burma/ school system that did not support critical thinking? If you’re curious, keep reading.
In July 2016, I traveled to Daegu, South Korea for three days to participate in the 5th Asia-Pacific Youth Parliament for Water (APYPW for short) as a delegate of Myanmar. APYPW selected around eighty young undergraduate students from the Asia Pacific Region to investigate pragmatic solutions for water-related challenges and agree on a resolution at the end.
It was my first time joining in a governance and political decision-making process.
The parliament simulation was challenging in many way. We had to brainstorm policies and guidelines as a group. As we come from all over the world with different circumstances, the priorities we hold are not always the same. People from third world countries were concerned with low literacy rates and lack of internet becoming a barrier for equitable water sharing while the South Korean professor is more concerned with people joining local governments and influencing decisions. When I first heard his lecture, I liked it but I also thought this is not feasible for many countries. Overcoming this was one part.
But the real challenge is to have develop strong interpersonal relationships and have continuous negotiations with fellow committee members to persuade them to support one’s agenda. Personally, the second part was tiring and I couldn’t imagine doing that as part of my career. I consider myself very talkative and extroverted at times and yet I was exhausted from the constant energy needed to engage with the rest of the committee members. Still, I had a great time because everyone encouraged me to contribute and valued my inputs as well.
Looking back, it was an interesting. I had to think critically on my feet, speak to persuade and write effectively and quickly. I’ve never done this kind of activity. It’s scary but also exhilirating!!! I’ve done a lot of self reflection and ‘critical thinking’ because I had to write essays for college application so I felt ready to share what I am thinking.
Being present and speaking up in front of people is not easy and I wish more young people have the chance to do this. I would like to see more events where young people convene and debate to find resolutions for the political and social ills of their communities in Myanmar. This way, english fluency does not need to be prerequisite to join debate. Right now there are national events like ModelASEAN and the Ethnic Youth Conference but they’re too big and too fancy. I’m talking about creating more localized and smaller gatherings at schools, universities and public spaces. (I don’t mean chitchat at the local tea shop either but rather structured debates at local schools and public spaces.)
With the transition to democracy of the national government of Myanmar, there is an opportunity to share our expectations and offer constructive criticism to the state. And people should use it. I can already imagine: public debates between students, academics and professionals drawing curious crowds and bringing light to issues that are previously ignored issues such as domestic violence, waste management, and climate change.
The former cloud of dictatorship is over. So let’s not waste time and take advantage of the freedom. Now is the time to build a momentum for better public engagement because who knows when the right to speak and think out loud will be gone again?
Finally, I have to show some love for my fellow international and Korean delegates. I must admit I was not the best guest at all times and yet their hospitality never wavered. They extended their generous friendship to me and this has left a deep impression on me. Thank you friends who made this experience a fond one …and thank you South Korea for making this possible!
Thank you for reading.
My name is Juliet. My interests are definitely not one-dimensional (hence my handle name: Juliet>1). Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment.
(ႀကိဳက္ရင္ 💚 ေလးကိုႏွိပ္လိုက္ပါ။ ဒီလိုဆိုရင္ သင့္ရဲ႕သူငယ္ခ်င္းေတြလည္း ဂ်ဴးလိယက္ေရးထားတာ ကိုျမင္ပါလိမ့္မယ္။ 🙂)
Final Notes
If you’re a college student, you should definitely apply — check out their website. Learn more about APYPW or visit their Facebook Page.
Thank you Dennis for taking wonderful pictures of us. More of his work here.
APYPW 2016 on Youtube:
