ASEAN Youth Volunteer Program (AYVP) 2017: A Platform for Youth Volunteers to Learn Disaster Risk Reduction
By Zoealya Nabilla Zafra
Editor Zoealya Nabilla Zafra
BANDUNG, itb.ac.id – From Jastip.org, ASEAN countries are disaster-prone areas. Earthquakes, forest fires, landslides, floods, tsunamis, and other disasters are things ASEAN people familiar with. This makes dissemination of information about disaster risk reduction important. The issue is then carried even further by ITB and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), in collaboration with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and ASEAN Secretariat and Ministry of Youth and Sports, to 2017 ASEAN Youth Volunteer Programme (AYVP) which was commenced on Thursday (01.08/17) at Aula Barat ITB.
2017 AYVP involves 50 volunteers aged 18-30 years old-coming from 10 different ASEAN countries-with addition of 10 facilitators from Indonesia. The program will run for a month, from this Monday to the last Saturday of the month (01-26/08/17). Themes adopted by this year’s AYVP is Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). This event, officially commenced by Prof. Dr. Ir. Kadarsah Suryadi, DEA (Rector of ITB) and Prof. Dato’ Dr. Iman Ho Abdullah (Vice Rector of UKM) was also attended by Remy Rohadian (Senior Officer at the Education, Youth and Sports Division, ASEAN Secretary), Nils Bergenson (ASEAN Affairs Officer USAID), and Sharon Nwanko (USAID)
“AYVP Program aims for the youth volunteers participating in this program to give innovative solutions to regional issues that confront ASEAN countries, one of which is disaster risk reduction,” said Nils Bergerson. During the next one month, all 50 representatives will learn technical and administrative competencies relating to disaster risk reduction.
Participants will also learn about proposal preparation, disaster mitigation project creation, and disaster risk reduction activity directly at disaster sites. Moreover, there will be discussions with experts to discuss ideas from volunteers. Volunteers will get continuous support from the AYVP to apply their experience during those four weeks in their respective hometowns.
