A Small Step to Change the World: The 2nd Emerging Leaders Conference of the World Youth Alliance (Asia-Pacific)

- September 19-21, 2013, Thursday to Saturday.

- I attended my first major conference of the year from Thursday to Saturday, and was held not too far from my house. The 2nd Emerging Leaders Conference organized by the World Youth Alliance (Asia Pacific) was held at Bayleaf Hotel in the heart of Intramuros, the old and historic walled city. Although it happened in Manila (as the WYA Asia Pacific region's office is located in Metro Manila,) it was an international conference with a very varied age group that was suppose to constitute the "youth;" I guess both the diversity in age, culture, and language, have all added more perspectives and dimensions to the conference theme. The conference theme was about the "Millennium Development Goals," which were a list of goals ranging from health, education, and other sectors, that were formulated during the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, and were supposed to be achieved by 2015. The objective of the conference was to show us how some people have tried to improve some of these goals, and to inspire us to continue with our advocacies and change the world.

- The World Youth Alliance Asia-Pacific office is located in Katipunan, Quezon City, and is one of the six regional offices in the world. The other offices include the New York (main,) Beirut (newest,) Mexico, Brussels (center of the European Union,) and Nairobi. The main goal of this NGO is to promote the dignity of people, especially the youth, in order to create a sustainable environment for future generations. The Emerging Leaders Conference in the Philippines was first done last year at the same venue. I had some doubts in joining the conference because I saw from some photos that the majority of the attendees were Filipinos, and just a handful of foreign delegates. It's not that I don't like interacting with Filipinos, but knowing that the WYA is supposed to be international - and it just so happens that the Asia-Pacific regional office is located in Metro Manila - I expected that the participants would be/should be representative of the different parts of the Asia-Pacific region. This year, there were 14 students from Mahidol University in Thailand, 1 from Vietnam, 2 from Japan, and 1 from Indonesia, among a big swarm of Filipinos. Despite this observation (and personal sentiment,) the Filipinos whom I was able to meet were really friendly, awesome, and passionate. (I felt intimidated sometimes by some of them, but I'd like to believe there was a good reason why I was chosen to this conference. Hahahaha. There were 600 applicants, and only a hundred people were chosen. Just in case you were wondering, no, the conference was not free, and I had to pay the application fee; it was a bit cheaper for local participants.)

- I arrived rather early at Bayleaf on Thursday morning, and got to talk to some of the organizers, and some participants. While waiting for my friend Danna, my classmate in one of my classes in UP Diliman, I got to know Laura, a linguistics student from UP Diliman too. We became quick friends; she became quick friends with Danna too after Danna came in. Some Thai delegates sat with us, Mike, The, and Fluke. Through the three of them, we slowly got to know the other Thai delegates.

My classmate Danna.

Danna, The, Fluke, Laura, Mean, and me.

Now with Mike.

With Nat.

- The conference started with some introductions, and after that we proceeded to lunch. After lunch, the Sustainable Development Policy after 2015 was reviewed, and then continued to our two plenary sessions, which made up the bulk of the afternoon. The first plenary session was entitled "Moving Towards a Healthy Population," and were handled by Dr. Christian Lubaton, owner of Health Shots Philippines, and Ms. Anna Kristina Coscio, a registered nurse and educator. The second plenary session was about "Strengthening Human Capital through Education," and handled by Dir. Luz Almeda from the Department of Education, and Ms. Margarita Delgado, the co-founder and chief executive office of Teach for the Philippines. I personally liked the Education plenary session best simply because it had the most holistic discussion of the topic, meaning it went beyond the Philippines, and while the Philippines was the main case study of the talk, the introductory parts seemed to put the Philippines on the map, and compared it with other countries and their educational systems.

Ms. Christine Violago, the regional director.

Scribbles.

Was able to meet with Ms. Ma'an Tan, my former INTACT facilitator and career counselor in Ateneo.

Some "jives" before closing the night. Aashay from India is in the center, and Zhikai from Malaysia to the right of the photo.

With JM, Byt, Clara, and me after JM interviewed us about the event.

- We had dinner after the plenary sessions, and prepared for the following day.

- Tuesday morning started with a brief visit to the Baluarte de San Francisco de Dilao, a small bastion with some cannons, located right outside our hotel. Since my hotel room was too cold, my camera fogged itself and I had to wait until the fog went away to have clear photos. Still, I was able to talk an eerie photo of the baluarte with a guardia-civil, which made the guardia-civil look like he was a ghost walking around the old fort.

Foggy camera, when it was supposed to be a very clear, sunny morning.

Tsk tsk, shooting the City Hall.

With Danna and Laura.

Hello Bayleaf!! :D:D:D:D

Dog.

DOT and the National Museum.

City Hall.

The Golden Mosque in Quiapo.

Manila Cathedral (still under renovation after how many months.)

Mike looks Korean, and many people initially thought he was.

Got a bit bored at some parts.

Danna. LOL.

- Our third plenary session was entitled "Building a Sustainable Future" by Ms. Catherine Maceda, managing director of Center for Clean and Renewable Energy Development, and Dr. Emmanuel Lallana, chief executive of IDEA Corp. The fourth plenary session, the last actually, was "Best Practice on Person-Centered Development" by Ms. Meryl Grace Agudelo, executive director of I CAN Make a Difference Inc., Mr. Matthew Lapid, proram associate of Ashoka Philippines, and Dr. Phua Kai Hong, associate professor of health and policy and management at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy from the National University of Singapore. Both plenary sessions were done back to back, and tacked very heavy themes in one morning; I had a hard time absorbing everything, but I tried to.

- For the afternoon, we attended one of the three breakout sessions available. I attended the breakout session (a smaller lecture) on alternative environments for education, handled by Ms. Shaina Tantuic, co-founder and executive director of JeepNeed, an NGO project that was dubbed the "Magic School Bus of the Philippines," since jeepneys were used to bring interesting and low-cost science experiments for public schools in very remote areas of the country.

- Our workshop time after the breakout session was used to share what we have learned, and prepare for the solidarity night. We were given around an hour to prepare a creative performance about all the things that we have learned. Little did we know that they were going to make it into some kind of competition among all the three breakout-session groups.

A nice quote that I quickly had to jot down, so pardon the handwriting.

Practicing.

- Many of us changed into our national costumes for solidarity night. Apart from some Philippine folk dances by the Lyceum dance group, and some song numbers by WYA's former interns, our Thai friends from Mahidol did a Thai song, a harvest dance, and some popular dances. (Needless to say, I enjoyed the Thai performance too much.) One of our Filipino co-delegates also did a capoeira demonstration; apparently he was a capoeira instructor too apart from his day job as a professor. The highlight of the night was of course the three solidarity performances. Although our group did not win the contest, I do think that all of us, even the other groups, enjoyed planning and doing our performances despite the very limited time. I only felt the weight of the whole day immediately after the performances. I opted to rest in my hotel room, while some of the other participants still had the energy to go out at night. It was also a smart decision to stay in the room since it also rained suddenly and heavily that night.

With roommates James and JB.

NAAAAAAT.

With Thanya, the musician.

With my Indian friend Aashay.

With Mike the popular Mahidol kid.

I like the goldness of The's suea praratchathan.

With Singaporean Selina at the far left.

Pandanggo sa ilaw.

Tinikling.

Song rendition by former interns.

Harvest dance.

Capoeira!!

First group, the group from the Health breakout session.

From Education, and with our Bruno Mars kalokalike Danilo from Cagayan de Oro.

The huge group from the Sustainable Development breakout session. (They won.)

More jives to cap the night.

Mike the photobomber to Laura and Fluke.

With Ms. Christine Violago.

With Nicha in red, and Lao the Thai costume-collector (like me) in green.

Crazy congo line.

Laura with Nuam.

And of course, Byt.

-  The last day started with a lot of tired people (although I assume that we were all happy.) After breakfast, we immediately proceeded to our last breakout sessions. I chose the breakout session on the importance of preserving cultures in development, a topic on sustainable development. It was handled by Ms. Marinella Mina, co-founder of Visual Pond Artspace Inc., and an associate manager of Ayala Museum for Collections. After her talk, another workshop was done to synthesize our learnings and some personal commitments to education, health, and sustainable development.

Sharing.

- After checking out and lunch, we listened to Davao Congressman Karlo Nograles for his keynote speech. To cap everything off, some closing remarks were given, and one of our delegates also planned a surprise song number for all the organizers. More invitations to activities were given, and of course, our group pictorial.

Congressman Nograles.

The surprise performance by the delegates.

- Some goodbyes were done very fast, while some very emotional. The other non-Manila/non-Philippine delegates stayed, since most of their flights back home were scheduled the day after. As for me, I had to come home quickly to fix some documents for another, and a more academic conference this October. I did not regret my brief goodbyes, because I know that I will be able to meet them again some day. (And how I wish I could visit my Thai friends from Mahidol in the near future too!)