Asian Youth Group Searching for Identity
Friday 7 Dec 2007
by Woon SG-Thailand
As we had such a limited time yesterday, we hoped to discuss the main issues more in details today at our 3pm. meeting. The main concerns are the kind of organization we want to have and the mission statement. Having so many interesting events going on here, I initially wished the meeting to be brief. However, it did not seem to be so.
We started off being a bit loss in direction. Yet, the reason soon revealed why it was so. When we do not know what we need, it was naturally difficult to know what we want to have. Thus, we stepped back to have a more firm foundation; the first step is to identify the needs, looking from bottom up. Our special guests from the International Youth Group made a significant contribution as well. “Don’t rush it. Do it when the time is right, not when the time is convenient.” That was the words of advice from their personal experience. Definitely, more research on existing organizations and their needs must be done and that will be the purpose of our network’s existence. For this initial stage, we see that basic skill sharing and capacity building among existing organizations will help us to perform better. Also, we can be another step toward the establishment of International Youth Network as now, we have American, African, and Australian network already. Asian ones should get united too in order to work our way up to international level.
The picture became much clearer. A long path lays before us to walk on. Yet, for now, I walked away from the meeting into the plenary hall with a light smile.