Message from the People of AYF

Tieza (President)

What is AYF all about?        

 AYF is about the youth and young people coming together as one, to tell the world that we care about the future. It’s about living life to the fullest by learning and at the same time, having fun with our fellow young Asian leaders. AYF is also about friendship and camaraderie, which allows us to understand and appreciate our own culture and look back to our traditions, roots and identify ourselves relative to the world we live in.

 AYF is about looking at the world before us and all the challenges that it offers using an Asian perspective. This common perspective enables us to stand up as one and realize that we can make a difference.

AYF is about encouraging the youth and bringing out the best in them so that they could voice out their concerns and act on it. It is about accepting that we are global citizens and embracing the responsibility it entails. AYF is about making a positive legacy to the world and for generations to come.

 The reason why we at The Asian Youth Forum International continue to be a strong international youth organization is that we remain true to our commitment with sincere dedication to inspire the rest of the youth in Asia and the world. Our goal is to bring together young people in Asia together and develop them into culturally aware and socially responsive leaders of this new generation.

 We believe that the young people today are the present and future of the world. They hold the key to a better world, where love, peace, friendship, and solidarity abide.

 AYF is about seeing that there is hope and it is about believing and coming up with a vision of hope.

T (Vice President)

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area (or 29.4% of its land area) and, with almost 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population.

This is the first thing you get when you google Asia. That’s right. It’s a huge continent with so many people. But what do we know of Asia? What do we know of the countries in Asia? Their names? Their capitals? Other than some tourist attractions and tasty food, what do we know of Asia?

I, for one, thought that I was very global. I had chances to study abroad, chances to meet people from different backgrounds, but all those time I spent with them, I didn’t learn anything. Of course I learned in school that China’s GDP grew over 10% in 2006, 67% of the world’s poor are in Asian region, and more. Facts are what I learned, what we learned, facts given to us by corporations and governments. Knowing these facts could help me in case I live in that country? I don’t think so.

Everyday we study. We study in school, study from newspapers, internet, and more. The flow of information is so great, that we do not know where to begin or what to look for. As a result, too much information made all information useless. Who cares if Chinese GDP grew over 10% in 2006? Do you think a Chinese friend sitting next to you could feel the difference that his country’s economy grew so much?

In our home countries, majority of people have very limited opportunities to meet someone from a different background. When these people go abroad, they easily could make mistake because they do not know of other cultures. Even within a country there are conflicts due to cultures, how much more in a different environment? We need chances to learn about other countries around us. Not for the maximization of your satisfaction in traveling, but to become a better individual and make better choices in the future. We need to learn about others so that we can have maximum efficiency when we cooperate. After all, the world is becoming smaller and every county in Asia will have to hold hands.

Asian Youth Forum probably will not make the headlines tomorrow or the day after. Asian Youth Forum probably will not change the world overnight. However, Asian Youth Forum has already started to bring Asian youth together. We started to learn that last things we need is prejudice and barriers. We start as a small group of youths, but is it not always the small group of people who changes the world one day? It will not be the day after tomorrow, but, we started to learn, and what we learn will make the difference. I am proud to say this. Asian Youth Forum has started.

So, how about we go together?

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Hoirull (Vice President)