Sep, 2021
"SDGs Youth Exchange 2021 -Learn! Challenge! Break! The Status Quo-" organized by AAEE (Asian Educational Research Organization) was held from August 22 (Sun.) to 28 (Sat.), 2021. This was the first time for AAEE to collaborate with Indonesia in a bilateral international student exchange program.
On the final day of the program, the participants were divided into three groups and presented live plays, debates, and presentations on solutions to various inequalities. The final program was held on the last day of the program.
Before the program, a pre-prgram (August 16) was held to prepare various activities such as preliminary study, discussion, and ice-breaker on SDGs, so that participants could meet each other before the program.
On the first day of the program, the opening ceremony was held with many guests from BINUS University in Indonesia and AAEE. After that, we listened to a lecture on the theme of racial inequality and had a lively discussion from the first day. They also wrote essays and creative writing as output activities, and were able to apply what they had learned that day in their individual work.
On the second day, with the theme of inequality among nations, Mr. Yuta Nagasaki from JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) was invited as a guest speaker to talk about the relationship between Japan and Indonesia in trade and the trade issues of each country. At the end of the day, the students participated in a Model UN where each of them was given a role as a representative of a different country, and thought about cases of racial inequality, policies, and future policy models in that country.
On the third day, we had an academic lecture on the theme of gender inequality in the world, using statistical data, which allowed us to not only share our thoughts in group discussions, but also to gain new ideas. For the output activity, we had a group presentation, which was interactive and creative despite the short production time.
On the fourth day, the students were divided into two groups to debate whether or not the government should supplement the minimum income and whether or not the percentage of female legislators should be 50% of all legislators. This time, we used parliamentary debate, which gave us a chance to learn a different kind of debate.
On the fifth and sixth days, all the participants worked together to prepare for the final event after completing the four-day study on the theme of inequality. The final event is the best opportunity to show the results of the four days of learning about race, gender, national and economic inequality. Because of this, participants worked hard to come up with diverse ideas to create something good, and to prepare for the final role play, debate, and presentation.
The final event can be viewed at the following link.
https://youtu.be/kN_2ddfnqAo
In addition to academic learning, this year's program included ice-breakers (simple games to ease the gathering and create an atmosphere conducive to communication) on all dates in order to bring Indonesian and Japanese students closer together. For example, on the first day, we did a creative self-introduction to remember the participants, and on the middle day, we all did radio calisthenics to exercise our bodies. By incorporating games as well as learning, we made communication easier.
The participants who communicated and became close to each other actively interacted with each other outside of the program, such as watching Japanese and Indonesian movies in the evening after the program.
Written by: Mao Nagata
