It’s been quite awhile away from my writing column, I was away to Japan for 10 days to meet other 21 youths under an environmental education and facilitating the program. “DENSO YOUTH for EARTH Action” (DYEA) is an international program for “human resource development for the environment” to support youths who engage in activities related to coexistence between humans and the environment in Japan and ASEAN countries.
Earlier on I post about DYEA Local Program, which was the program before the international phase. 3 people were chosen to proceed to Global Program, and as usual, I joined the program with my baby project MESYM.COM in mind.
There’s certainly more than words to describe what I have learned in DYEA, my personal opinion would be, it’s the best environmental issue facilitating program anyone could find so far. I am saying from the point of view of being actively involved in the youth programs of environmental issues for the past 2 years, having gone through some international platforms/programs, DYEA offers you a truly diligent platform of training you, thanks to the 2 major factors I would say, facilitators and also the location, Japan, which has much more to offer, nothing major about technology really, but people and community.
I wouldn’t describe much about what the program is about, as I hope the video below can give you a picture what we did. I think the best way to describe it is that we manage to understand some aspects of Japan in which even Japanese in the Urban context doesn’t even know about, the local traditional food, the issues.. and the ancient wisdom.
But as I have shared in the wrapping up session, I wish that other participants could have taken my place, or in fact, anyone who is as passionate as I am could have just been here for the 10 days to go through the program as well. I used to word “RELEARN” to describe on my 10days journey, we learn many things in this life, but we need to relearn why, why are we doing this. In this program, I have indirectly ignited the answers for myself. In any causes or any passions one does, there’s always a checkpoint you will need to align back again if this is the life you really want about.
I choose to give up on my professional architecture profession to go into Green Building consultation, to learn knowledge from scratch and hoping that I can bring a change to the construction and building industry, on the other hand at the soft side, I just hope to see more youths and communities standing up for the nature to where they belong. and thus I hope MESYM can be a platform of making people understanding the forefront of ‘greening Malaysia’. I think that’s the essence of happiness for me, many times people ask me why am I always doing all these, I really don’t know how to put it in words too, perhaps it’s just the way I am.
And yes, 10 years down the road, I know that I will turn my head back to now and say that I have no regrets doing this. DYEA is one of my highlighted moments for my 20s I would say, it’s not the program itself, but meeting up with all the people in this program and aspirations that can keep you pushing forward to think that you are never small enough to bring a change, I think that’s what made it awesome. Thanks again DYEA.
For more information or interested to apply for DYEA, kindly proceed HERE
