Sustaining Discourse on Youth by MENDAKI: Strategies and Trajectories beyond the Youth Symposium

By: Suffyan Othman

Youth Symposium 2012: Garnering Generational Dividend signifies a culmination of efforts from various engagement platforms with the Community and Young which started with the Forward Planning Exercise in 2010. While the Symposium was a build-up of youth-related engagement from the past few years, it was hoped that fresh ideas and proposals arising from it can propel further the communitys efforts towards nurturing a Conscientized Generation. The Youth Symposium brought together a congregation of youths and various community stakeholders in addressing issues surrounding the lived realities of youths today - with an understanding that youth are themselves responsible to be in the forefront for change towards the future that they want. In this Youth Symposium, it was hoped our youth would be convinced of their place in this society where they are firmly rooted as active citizens and are a part of the social fabric of this nation. Background Before addressing the ideas and proposals that came out of the Youth Symposium, it is important to understand how the symposium came to be. In 2010, Yayasan MENDAKI organized the ConsultativeParticipatory Forward Planning Exercise (FPE), where over 90 young and emerging professionals from different disciplinary backgrounds came together to envision the Malay/Muslim Community of 2020. These youths came up with four Forward Thrusts and ideas to take the community further in the journey of progress in light of rapid changes in the current socio-economic landscape. In terms of individual youth development, there was focus on both lifespan development and the cultivation of transferable lifeskills. From the FPE 2010, four Forward Thrusts for collective action where adopted. They are: i) To establish strong social networks to ensure circulation of social capital among individuals

across different generational groups and social strata. ii) To establish a supportive environment that encourages exploring and learning in order to

embrace diversity, celebrate multiple pathways of success.

iii)

To cultivate an enterprise-driven ecosystem in order to have creativity and resourcefulness

in the future workplace. iv) To rejuvenate the citizen-leader in every individual in order to own the process of nation-

building and reach a shared vision of excellence. Guided by these four thrusts, three focus areas for action planning were consolidated and recommended for community leaders to immediately adopt. One of them was to harness the youth as energy for the community and is an important commitment by MENDAKI, to continue engaging the youths of our community. All of these are to nurture a Conscientized Generation. There were also parallel engagements during this year-long exercise. These include a street festival where musicians, artists, poets and filmmakers showcased their craft, and several forums to engage on policy issues pertaining to both youth and community issues. One example was for ITE students, entitled Independent Thinking Explorers (ITE) Seminar and another was a day camp entitled Rumah Empat Bilik or Four Room House where views from aspiring professionals where collated. 2011 was a busy year with follow-ups from FPE. The CLF-Labs, an initiative allowing fresh ideas with new perspectives to emerge, be developed and piloted, to further contribute to the Malay/Muslim Communitys continued progression, was created. The CLF Labs was launched on 12 Feb 2011 via a forum, discussing the report published for the FPE process. This was a recommendation from the FPE 2010 and works as a funding mechanism for groups of youth with ideas they can experiment with. The first in a series of Youth Forums was the Pre-University Forum where students from Junior Colleges and Centralized Institutes and Madrasahs and with the objective of increasing awareness amongst the participants on the outcomes of the FPE, so as to draw them into the conversation as well as process of building a Community of Excellence. Another engagement was a literary day camp with the same audience entitled Gema Nusantara focusing on a better exposure of a communitys literary treasures in the form of the communitys language through various mediums. The main feature for 2011 was the Imagining Youth Seminar: Towards a Youth Charter. The seminar was a platform for various stakeholders to address ideas, issues and concerns towards developing a youth charter for the community. The audience were youth workers, policy makers and youth activists, providing a different perspective on youth issues and approaches. The development of a Youth Charter is another of one of the key recommendations of the FPE 2010 and it was the seminar was to kick-start the discussions towards crafting a Youth Charter for the Community.

A Conscientized Generation The underlying purpose of these series of engagements and platforms is to continue nurturing a Conscientized Generation. But what exactly is a Conscientized Generation? From A Conscientized Generation, the word Conscientized is derived from the term Conscience. Nurturing a Conscientized Generation Adventurous-Nurturers, Enterprising-Learners & Citizen-Leaders that has a deep conscience and consciousness of society and the shared living environment; that is appreciative of the past, co-creators of opportunities for the present and responsible towards future generations.i It is important for the Malay/ Muslim Community to have a commitment to nurture the conscience of every member such that individually and collectively, we reject mediocrity and cooperate in grooming new standard bearers.ii The term is also derived from prominent Brazilian educational theorist Paulo Freires idea of critical consciousness from his seminal work the Pedagogy of the Oppressed.iii The term itself is a direct translation from Portuguese and means consciousness rising or critical consciousness and it becomes as a pedagogical tool that engages learners in questioning the nature of their historical and social situation. The goal of critical consciousness, according to Freire, should be acting as subjects in the creation of democratic society.iv From here, the importance of nurturing such a generation will then be integral in the creation of a Community of Excellence. Youth is an important part of latent reserves which are present in every epoch. It depends on the social structure whether these reserves, and which of them, if any, are mobilized and integrated into a function.v Through the commitment shown by MENDAKI and the Malay/Muslim Community as a whole, moving away from merely remedial measures but to nurture them into a generation that is conscientized, it is hoped that the quest for excellence becomes even more likely. To fully embrace the youth, with the possibilities and challenges that comes with it will test the communitys resolve to this commitment but the benefits will be meaningful. Beyond the Youth Symposium 2012 Following from the theme of the Youth Symposium 2012, that is to garner generational dividend to ensure that the Malay/Muslim Community can continue to nurture a Conscientized Generation, resource building and the commitment to utilize the resources that have been created prior and to pass them on to successive generations while adding on to the communitys resources are integral elements in this quest, looking at both material and non-material resources. While the platform of the CLF-Labs and the Youth Charter for the Community as still utilized and being looked into, what more can be done to continue engaging and empowering the Malay/Muslim youth?

While the divide between the haves and have-nots are growing in Singapore and that the divide within the Malay/Muslim Community is no exception, the mission of engaging and empowering youth, to nurture them to be a Conscientized Generation has to continue. It will therefore be useful to relook into the social compact that exists within the Malay/Muslim Community and the heritage that has evolved over hundreds of years, an essential element of the communitys non-material resource. One of the possibilities is to examine the idea of citizenship education. With a heritage and value system that has been evolving, these are important resources that can be utilized by the community to assist in nurturing a Conscientized Generation. Following the idea of new citizenship, citizenship education is an important means for bridging the ever-increasing gap between the public sphere, the arena of intersection between an individuals interests and those of the larger community, and the private sphere, the locus of the individuals own interests.vi From here, an organic growth of what it means to be a Singaporean Malay/Muslim can be discussed, examined and utilized to nurture the youth. This builds on the idea of positive freedom or liberty as discussed by the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin in his essay, 2 concepts of liberty, where the real self may be conceived as something wider than the individual (as the term is normally understood), as a social whole of which the individual is an element or aspectvii. Therefore, every individual has roles and responsibilities, depending on agreed upon community standards, that he or she has to realize and it is important to disseminate the ideas and standards that came about through the various youth engagements and to also look into concretizing these evolving values that has anchored the community. These positive values can be reinforced and used to mitigate the impact of negative labels ascribed to the community. While there needs to be a continued engagement with the youth, be it through seminars, workshops, focus group discussions, newsletters and presentations, amongst the many means available for MENDAKI and other groups and organizations, it is important to retain the common thread of nurturing a Conscientized Generation. And this can be sustained through the overview of citizenship education through the lens of the Malay/Muslim community and the larger Singaporean society. The importance of identity and pride, with the youth having different identities and identity markers to understand and be proud of can be made more accessible through citizenship education. Members of the Malay/Muslim community and especially the young who are in their early stages of socialization need to be educated and trained. This training emphasizes the importance of understanding civic rights and encourages regular participation. Civic efforts need to be placed

within a context broader than that of individual volunteering. The New Citizenship attempts to enhance the quality of democracy by bringing together people from different backgrounds, in a spirit of toleration, respect, trust, and social and political engagement.viii This will allow the organic growth of a Singaporean Malay/Muslim identity and meet the challenges that the present and the future bring. In quest of excellence, a Conscientized Generation will be an integral element to achieving it. The process of nurturance has begun and while it will take time for the seeds of conscience to take root and blossom into a Community of Excellence. The elements for this to occur are already in place and the Malay/Muslim Community must continue striving to achieve this vision.

CLF 2010 FPE Secretariat, A Conscientized Generation: A Retrospect of the Malay/Muslim Community over the Last Decade & a Projection of the Way Forward. (2010) ii Ibid. iii Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970) iv Ibid. v Karl Mannheim, Diagnosis of Our Time. (London: Routledge & Paul, 1966), p. 36 vi Craig A. Rimmerman, The New Citizenship: Unconventional Politics, Activism, and Service. (Colorado: Westview Press, 2001) p. 5 vii Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958) in Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969) p. 9 viii Rimmerman, The New Citizenship, p. 4