Wei Deep Dives into Civic Issues at the YSEALI Civic Engagement Alumni Summit
by Research Associate Siu Tzyy Wei
On 26th to 29th of May 2023, I was given the opportunity to participate in the YSEALI Civic Engagement Alumni Summit (hereafter referred to as YCEAS) representing Brunei and as a Research Associate from Global Awareness and Impact Alliance. With a total of approximately 200 other delegates from all Southeast Asian nations and Timor Leste, we spent three busy days in the city of Bangkok networking and having dialogues with each other on our advocacies and work in the civic engagement sector.
YCEAS is a fully funded program sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and is a follow-up summit from our 5-week YSEALI Academic Fellowship in Civic Engagement in the United States of America. For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, YCEAS successfully brought together 6 different civic engagement cohorts from Fall 2019 to Fall 2022. As such, it was a golden opportunity to connect with past cohorts who have embarked on their fellowships in different universities across America - namely Kennesaw University, Portland State University, Arizona State University and University of Nebraska - Omaha.
It was the first reunion with my cohort since we completed our YSEALI Academic Fellowship at the University of Nebraska at Omaha seven months ago. While I knew I was in for an amazing adventure with my cohort in our fifth city together, I was also excited to meet other Academic Fellows who were placed in different universities and had different advocacies and passions in civic engagement.
Over the three jam-packed days, we were brought to our preferred site visits and attended breakout sessions, tailored to our specific areas of interests and advocacies. In particular, the site visit to the US Embassy in Bangkok was memorable - we were given an opportunity to engage with the Public Affairs team on the topic of utilising social media as a public diplomacy tool.
In addition to this, I also had the opportunity to be a facilitator and a panelist alongside my colleagues and friends Jefferson Hilario from the Philippines and Luxy Farez from Indonesia for a interactive session on "Action and Engagement: YSEALI Action Plan Lessons Learned" moderated by our YSEALI Academic Director Dr. Patrick McNamara. The session covered the challenges, solutions and future action plans when developing, implementing and most importantly, being accountable to our respective action plans for our community and causes.
If there was one lesson learnt from this massive summit, it'll be the reminder that success is subjective. For some, it's the numbers - grants secured, the number of followers on our platforms, increased number of participants, KPIs achieved. For others, it might be different - the smiles of our communities, achieving work-life balance, or even taking a step back. Regardless of the many different definitions of success, I am also reminded by my YSEALI friends and mentors, both old and new, that we are always allowed to take up space. As young leaders of a world whose future we will eventually bear, we should take up space, especially when the going gets tough.
I would like to sincerely thank the US Department of State, the YSEALI team at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and my friends from all over Southeast Asia for this golden opportunity to network and learn more from each other. YSEALI has been the most crucial in my journey as an aspiring foreign policy researcher, and I am very grateful for the lifelong lessons it has brought me and my future endeavours in my role as a GAIA Research Associate as well as an incoming Masters student.