For the first time in history, Malaysia hosts its first SDG Youth Summit. I have heard and attended the Youth Summit last two months or back. It was hosted by the US, the timezone can be a little overwhelmed, with a 12 to 13 hours difference.
How did I get to be a part of this team? As always, I was scrolling through Instagram like any other day. I saw my friend Marsya, posting that Malaysia was going to hold the first-ever SDG Youth Summit and they needed volunteers to help out with the event. Without any hesitation, I signed up for the event. On 16 October, we gathered for the first time to have a meeting. When Zoel asked who would like to be emcees for the event, I raised my hand virtually. After that, we were broken up into breakout rooms.
The following week was to delegate which room we were going to take on as emcees. At the same time, I was in another role - proofreading for the e-program handbook. I stayed in the main room for a while before going into the emcee room. All of us have to at least attend a rehearsal before the big day. I was absent on 30 Oct, as I was attending an online Buddhism camp, I missed that out.
Four days before the event, my emcee partner - Hanim and I started to write our emcee scripts. The next day, we had a final rehearsal. The day of the Malaysia SDG Youth Summit has arrived, everyone is dressed in their best. An hour or two before the event, we have a final briefing for the emcees. Faiq even joked that his parents thought he was going somewhere. We're all in places, off we go to our respective rooms.
One of our speakers, Clarance from the Scout Association Malaysia dropped by our room. We did ask him anything there is needed to attend to. He says nothing is needed. After the opening ceremony, the participants started to come in. The room that Hanim and I were in was Room 9: Engaging Youth in SDGs by the Youths. With the signal from Melody, I started by welcoming all of the participants and speakers to the summit.
The first two speakers were Theodore Clarance and Puteri Faten about localising Sustainable Development in the Malaysian Scouts community as well as Sharan and Cikgu Royson on implementing the SDGs as global citizens and in schools respectively.
Finally, we had a special intervention from the RCE Panel. They praised us for being the first ever batch of youths for hosting the SDG Youth Summit at a national level. The good news is we are going to have another SDG Youth Summit in the first half of 2022! I hope it would be a physical event that time around.
Thank you to everyone! Especially the emcee department, my partner for room nine, Hamim and of course the Summit Director - Ms Zoel Ng herself for leading the team. This is Kar Marn from the Malaysia SDG Youth Summit singing off!
