Approximately 70 participants including facilitators attended the 2019 Youth Leadership Conference held by BEAM and JUMP! Foundation from November 1-3, 2019 at Funruk Resort in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The main theme for this youth leadership conference was environmental issues specifically. The slogan for the youth leadership conference was titled “Youth Action, Green Action,” and its further motto states, ‘‘One climate, One future, Empowering Youth for Action.” The goals of this conference were to enhance participants’ leadership skills, communication skills, project design skills, to facilitate community and network building, and to promote social cohesion in a peaceful environment for young people(migrant youth, Thai youth, and Thai ethnic youth) living in Thailand. Collectively tackling the challenges defined by participants’ through youth-centered workshops, we hope to inspire a change-maker mindset for youth. Ultimately, we aim to contribute to the development of youth, particularly those most disadvantaged and vulnerable, so that they gain greater sense of agency, sense of community, as well as social entrepreneurship mindset and practices.

BEAM Education Foundation and JUMP! Foundation has been organizing youth conferences for 4 years to empower youth to develop and implement innovative ideas and projects that address challenges in the communities.

Participants getting to know each other on the first day.

Teamwork Building

From day 1 of the Youth Leadership Conference, the participants were involved in friendship-and-team-building activities facilitated by the facilitators and the MCs. Later on, the participants were divided into groups of 5, each group supported by the 2 facilitators. During the smaller division teams, many team building activities were workshops such as the “storytelling workshop,” in which the participants’ shared their own life stories with group members.

Furthermore, the winning teams from last year conducted presentations of their Community Impact Projects, which helped the participants get inspirations and learning lessons. At the end of day 2, we had the talent show at night where the participants enjoyed connecting with one another through singing, K-pop dances, ethnic traditional dances, magic tricks, etc.

Problem Solving

The main objective of this youth conference was to inspire the youths to develop their own problem-solving skills, which are essential to transform their ideas and projects into practical uses to address real life issues. Moreover, the participants had the “Open-space” sessions (each at least an hour and a half) to brainstorm together as teams to solve environmental challenges they encounter and see in their daily lives.

In this year’s conference, participants come from three diverse backgrounds such as Thai nationals, Thai ethnic minorities, and Myanmar ethnic minorities; therefore, 3 languages had to be used: English, Burmese, and Thai. While the youths were trying to gather information, talk about environmental issues and challenges, and find ways to solve such problems, language barriers were a major challenge for everyone. However, with the help of the translators and youths from the same team, conversations for most of the teams went well.

Participants voting for top five community issues to focus on as a whole group

Project Designing

“Design thinking” workshop was conducted so the participants knew how to professionally and systematically come up with prototypes by the end of the second day. On day 2, the participants made the prototypes and presented them to other team members in order to receive feedback. Therefore, on the last day, the participants had open-sessions to prepare presentations that showcased their ideas and prototypes of their Community Impact Projects.

Small group analyzing the environmental issues in their communities.

Later on, each team presented their projects, with 8 minutes of presentation and 2 minutes of Q & A sessions. The judges gathered round the table and determined three the winners for Community Impact Projects: 2 teams received 15k baht and 1 team received 20k baht. The first place team is made of BEAM GED students, who will implement a recycling and waste management program in Mae La Refugee Camp along the Thailand-Myanmar border. Both of 2^nd place winning teams are students from Chiang Mai University: one will implement a waste management project at construction sites and the other will implement a straw-to-pillow recycling program. All teams collaboratively and creatively worked together to address environmental issues in their communities.

The first-place team will develop a project to implement a recycling and waste management program in Mae La Refugee Camp along the Thailand-Myanmar border.

Thank You

The 2019 Youth Leadership Conference “Youth Action, Green Action” was made possible with the collaborations of the community members, facilitators, MCs, teachers, professors, staff members, translators, as well as the participants.

The conference was a success thanks to the hard work of the volunteer facilitators who led both big facilitating groups and small group activities from November 1 to November 3 of 2019, conducting in 3 languages such as English, Burmese and Thai.

This year’s facilitators and staff had a great time working at the Youth Leadership Conference!

And of course, this event would not have been possible without the help and support of BEAM Education Foundation and JUMP! Foundation. This was the 4th program continuing the partnership between BEAM and the JUMP! Foundation. Thank you to these lovely people for making this conference come together and for supporting students and facilitators become new leaders in their communities!

BEAM Education Foundation (“BEAM”) is a non-profit organization that enables sustainable social change through education. BEAM serves and empowers migrants and underprivileged learners from Myanmar. Since its founding in 2010, BEAM has built pathways for thousands of underprivileged youth through access to higher education, vocational training, mentorship, research, advocacy, and much more. To learn more about BEAM’s programs, visit: http://beamedu.org/

The JUMP! Foundation (“JUMP!”) is a non-profit experiential education organization established in 2006 in response to a need in youth education for programs that address issues of leadership and global citizenship. JUMP! acts as a collaborative platform for participants to come together to challenge themselves, inspire one another, and influence change in their surroundings. For further information about The JUMP! Foundation, please visit http://jumpfoundation.org