AFLES’s Inspirations and Its ASEAN Youth Community Development (ASEAN Future Leaders Summit)

Abstract

This article is discussing about experiences of conducting AFLES (ASEAN Future Leaders Summit), which started in 2013 with the collaboration between Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Prince of Songkla University, Thailand (PSU). AFLES is an action-packed summit meant for ASEAN youth with exciting forums, discussions, lectures, team-work, outdoor activities, community work, services, sight-seeing and cultural events. With the main objectives of developing ASEAN youth community in terms of their leadership skills and to serve as a platform for ASEAN youth to get together and connected to each other, AFLES for the last sixth term (2013-2018), has evolved to be a looking after summit to participate by ASEAN university student leaders. Over the years AFLES has developed and progressed with a few more collaborators, namely AKEPT (Malaysia Higher Education Leadership Academy), UiTM (Universiti Teknologi MARA), UUM (Universiti Utara Malaysia) and UKM (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia). Community development, ASEAN unity and harmonization, and Internationalization of Higher Education Institutions in ASEAN are discussed regarding to the sustainability of AFLES in conducting an international program for youth across ASEAN region.