Bridging the Past, Present and Future (Malaysia) | United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC)

Name of the organization:

United World College Alumni Association Malaysia/Architects of Diversity

Architects of Diversity Malaysia organized Bridging Past, Present and Future (BPPF) Short Course for 20 youth between the ages of 16-19 from all over Malaysia from 17 July to 25 September 2021. The project helped youth participants to identify how political and historical narratives are constructed in order to become better agents for greater empathy and tolerance in addressing Malaysia’s ethnic conflict. Throughout a bootcamp and multiple workshops, participants engaged with challenging content as well as interacted with historians and young politicians. They embarked on an independent capstone project at the end of the programme where participants researched or advocated for a current conflict or urgent issue in their communities. Let us highlight two of these projects:

Allison Choong, an 18-year-old student from Penang, said “I got to become amazing friends with other students from all corners of Malaysia who I would otherwise never, ever meet if it weren’t for this Short Course. My favourite discussion was about conflict resolution because it felt like I got to take a magnifying glass to another person’s brain and learn about their thought process”. For her capstone project, Allison made a 3-episode podcast series published on Spotify that discusses the challenges of the Penang art industry as a bridge to learn more about different communities and to highlight the importance of arts as a tool for conflict resolution. “I want to immerse my audience into the world of the arts. I want them to understand that the absence of the arts will be very detrimental to our society,” she said.

Muammad Syamel Haikal, an 18-year-old student from Putrajaya, created a website to track an ongoing environmental conflict in the Klang Valley. Reflecting on his project, he said “I managed to understand the complexity behind the forest situation in Klang and how opaque the forestry departments act when it comes to protecting forests. Initially, I thought it would be easy to accomplish my project of making our forest conditions more transparent, however, it slowly hit me that the data about our forests were incredibly difficult despite Klang Valley itself being a well-documented region when it comes to forests.” Overall, Syamel said “the short course had provided me a platform to make new friends and discover new ideas about Malaysia and the society in a fun environment”.

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Description of Organization:
Architect of Diversity (AOD) is an initiative under the United World College Alumni Association Malaysia that bridges communities and identities among youth in line with the United World College movement to use education as a force of peace and a sustainable future. AOD is one of the leading voices in diversity and inclusion in Malaysia that provides tools to critically engage in sensitive conversations about race, religion and class through empathetic experiential learning and listening.

Context:
Malaysian population consists of people of many different races, ethnicities and religions. This makes the country exceptionally rich in heritage, culture and tradition but it might also bring on challenges of polarization and negative attitudes towards ethno-religious minorities. Due to lack of spaces to discover and discuss, many young people fear dialogue around sensitive topics, which might lead to lack of understanding, respect and empathy for marginalized communities.

Proposed Project and Expected Results:
Architects of Diversity’s research project will explore the process of narrative construction, consumption and dissemination through deconstructing political and historical narratives. The project will enable youth to better evaluate and assess the motivation and biases of sources, news and narratives, and become more empathetic towards Malaysia’s minority groups.

The project will equip young people with tools to question narratives, construct alternative discourse, and devise solution-based approaches to identity-based differences in Malaysia through experiential learning followed by capstone projects delivered by participants in their communities. The project will aim to develop a database of alternative narratives made by youth.

Project Coordinator: Jason Wee

Contact Information: jason@aodmalaysia.org

Website: https://www.aodmalaysia.org/