what youth can do towards ASEAN Community 2015 part. 3

Facing the Diversity through Youth Coordination

Donny Bagus Prasetya

ASEAN has been actively moving towards regional integration. Starting with its agreement on the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1992, followed by the ASEAN Vision 2020 in 1997, which set out a broad vision, leading up the year 2020, for peace, stability and prosperity in ASEAN through regional development and cooperation. In 2003, ASEAN adopted the declaration of ASEAN Concord II, which aims at the establishment of an ASEAN Community through the realization of three communities: Security Community, Economic Community, and Socio-Cultural Community. In 2004, ASEAN adopted the Vientiane Action Programme, which outlines a road map for the ASEAN Community. The adoption of the VAP accelerated the process of integration that aims to create a single market and production.

ASEAN consist of diversity among its society, not only the race and culture but also the diversity in each country internal circumstance such as political characteristic, economic growth, information and technology, and perspective in human right and democracy. The existence of ASEAN Community aims to stimulate the welfare for the entire people. The misunderstanding of each country leads to the failure of ASEAN Community. This essay aims to explain the emergence of facing the diversity towards the establishment ASEAN Community in youth level as ASEAN generation who will hold and involve in ASEAN Community six years later. The misunderstanding in perspective towards other ASEAN Countries will break the true meaning of ASEAN Community. Facing the diversity through the coordination will lead to the reducing of the misunderstanding towards other ASEAN countries characteristic. But, what coordination has been done and should be improved to strength the sense of belonging of ASEAN Community towards ASEAN youth?

The establishment of ASEAN Community needs participation from the entire element of each country such the Government Level-Professionals-Youth-Academic. In this essay, I’d like to concern the involvement of Youth as student to explore coordination and its functions towards ASEAN Community. The involvement of youth in national and regional activities will encourage the sense of belonging of ASEAN Community through coordination among youth of ASEAN countries and reduce the diversity among ASEAN countries for the achievement of ASEAN Community and its aims to the three pillars of ASEAN Community, ASEAN Economic Community, ASEAN Security Community, and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.

The governments of ASEAN Countries as the main actors in the ASEAN Community already facilitated the youth collaboration through activities in student exchange among ASEAN Countries. The activity helps promoting the ASEAN awareness in youth level by sharing information and experience for cooperation. In the other hand, ASEAN youth cooperation must be encouraged to promote the involvement of ASEAN youth in national and regional activities. The activities stimulate, discover, and develop youth potentials in leadership, social management, civic responsibility and promoting the opportunity for youth to watch the decision making process and procedure in ASEAN forum. The involvement of ASEAN youth in national and regional activities contents two specific aims, they are that the involvement of ASEAN youth will converge the ASEAN youth as the first step to promoting the awareness of ASEAN community and second that youth can participate in “managing the social impact of economic integration” and “promoting an ASEAN identity”.

Cooperation among ASEAN youths wish leads to the awareness of belonging of ASEAN community. ASEAN community aims to stimulate the welfare for the entire people of ASEAN. Therefore, the cooperation among youth does on many ways such as leadership and cross cultural understanding. The ASEAN youth exchange will conduct these aims by learning and understanding other ASEAN countries social and culture. The student exchange also proved the cooperation in which ASEAN student involve in facing the needed of discussion about ASEAN opportunity and challenge as regional community. Team building of ASEANM youth community will lead us the future cooperation as generations. Here, the diversity will color the ASEAN community and its diversity will complete each other towards the establishment of ASEAN community and lay the youth role as generations who involve in the process of regional organizations purposes.