Wei Heads to Nebraska for the YSEALI Academic Fellowship Program
by Siu Tzyy Wei
A few months ago, I recently completed my first academic fellowship under the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI). From the 1st October to 4th November 2022, I had the opportunity to meet and learn from 21 other young civic engagement leaders from all over Southeast Asia as we ventured across the United States of America together.
The YSEALI Academic Fellowship Program is a fully funded leadership program sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The YSEALI Academic Fellowship Program provides opportunities for the young leaders to learn, build professional networks and gain new experiences and perspectives from each other. Simultaneously, the program also provided exposure to the United States non-profit and government scene in Nebraska. I was accepted as an academic fellow representing GAIA as well as Brunei and for the Civic Engagement theme at the University of Nebraska at Omaha as the host institution.
Upon arriving at Omaha, I was warmly greeted by the organising team, and a bit later, by other fellows who had arrived earlier than me. Just like my previous YSEALI trip for the Regional Workshop in Kuala Lumpur, I was pleasantly surprised about how easy it was to be friends with the fellows; I felt right at home with people who eventually became not only my colleagues, but my friends as well.
I spent my first three weeks based in Omaha, Nebraska where we attended lectures conducted by Program Directors Dr. Patrick McNamara and Dr. Jodi Benenson. Simultaneously, we visited government institutions like the Lincoln State Capitol Building, museums like El Museo Latino in South Omaha and local non-profit organisations like the North Omaha Music and Arts Academy in North Omaha. These lectures and site visits were strategised to expose us to the multiple forms of civic engagement in the United States.
It allowed us to learn that there is more than one method, and in extension, more than one solution to bridge the multiple gaps that we each see in our own society. In these site visits, we got to meet community leaders and have conversations with them that allowed us to find common grounds between the civic engagement scene in our home countries and in America.
The final two weeks of our fellowship were spent on road trips going to neighbouring states, specifically South Dakota and Minnesota. I was able to experience my first snow at Mount Rushmore, but more importantly, we also met many Native Americans - most of whom were from the Dakota tribe - who shared with us their extensive and complex history with the nation.
On the following week in Minnesota, the most memorable site visit was to the George Floyd Memorial; here we met friends and colleagues of the late George Floyd who became our local guides and shared with us the deeply moving effects and movements that was founded as a result of racial violence and the movements that were reignited once again with Floyd’s murder in 2020.
We also returned to University of Nebraska-Omaha to present our action plans. Together with a colleague from Singapore, I proposed the creation of an online, multilingual depository for aspiring academics interested in contributing to the literature of ASEAN affairs. In the near future, we hope to be able to bring this idea into fruition in our shared goal of bridging the gaps we witness and experience between the Global North and the Global South, especially in the realms of academia.
The fellowship aligned with my academic and professional interests back home. As a fresh Sociology graduate, I developed a deep interest in racial politics, in particular, how political systems are the indispensable stakeholder in determining racial harmony and racial division within a society. As a Research Associate at GAIA that strives to work towards bridging educational gaps in the realm of international affairs and research, this fellowship allowed for a rich, two-way learning experience. Beyond the classes and site visits, one of the best parts of the fellowship was committing to what we all strived to practise. Across my weeks in America, I discovered the goal was to not only create a safe space, but to also engage in difficult yet critical conversations about gaps in our own societies before joining hands to develop solutions on how to better serve our communities.
All in all, I am highly appreciative of this opportunity to learn from all of my colleagues in the United States of America and being able to observe its society in its raw and candid form. I strongly believe that it is with awareness of our own shortcomings that progress can be achieved. I am excited to see the lessons and skills I have learned from my time in the United States come to fruition with my work here in Brunei and my future in academia.