Aulia from Indonesia -April 2013 admission

I joined World Humanitarian Summit Global Youth Consultation in Doha, Qatar on 1st-2nd of September 2015. It was my 3rd time to join such international youth forum in this year, previously I joined ASEAN-Japan Youth Forum in Indonesia and United Nation Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Sendai. This was my first time to visit Middle-East Country, thanks to all the sponsor team who paid our travel expense and accommodation in Qatar, I really had a good time during my stay in there. The first thing I noticed was the difference in temperature. Kyoto's summer is hot, but Qatar is much hotter, the temperature is above 40, and it may reaches until 50 Celsius degree. I arrived in Doha on 31st of August 2015, so I had time to travel around Doha City. The good thing about joining such forum is that we can get many new friends from all over the world and also improved our experiences and knowledge. I visited Museum of Islamic Art and famous traditional market in there.

This consultation, facilitated by United Nation Major Group for Children and Youth and Reach Out To Asia (ROTA), was aimed at engaging youth from different backgrounds and experiences to discuss where youth stand in the current humanitarian landscape, what they can provide, how to maximize their potential, how they can have stronger voice in humanitarian issue. Some panel discussions included humanitarian effectiveness, serving the needs of people in conflict, transformation through innovation, and reducing vulnerability and managing risks.

From this forum I learned many things, which I did not get in university. I realized there are many conflicts in this world, and youth can play critical role to help solving those problem. I met many friends from conflict area, such as Syria, Palestine, and Africa. I heard their stories; I felt they did a lot of things to save their community. For example, in Africa, many people became victim of Ebola disease. Some people died from this virus, some of them have been cured, but they lost their education, jobs, etc. some youths engaged their community, some activities they did for example: spread the knowledge of Ebola, give psychosocial support for children, orphan, collect the voices of people and tell to government official and United Nations, etc. They also told strong message to us.  “Please help us to act from now on, otherwise we will have a generation without education in near future!” Another story from Palestine. We know Palestine-Israel conflict has not stopped until now. But I want to focus on the children who became victim. They lost their family, home, school, hospital, and other infrastructure. Even so, they did not lost their motivation to continue study. They studied in the open-air classroom with high-spirit and enthusiast. I really hope the best wishes for their future.

While after this conference, I realize I am so lucky to have good chance to study in good university, in a peaceful place. It will be bad if I am lazy to study, remembering those children who do not have chance to get the education. Therefore I have to study much harder, to be professional in the future, so with the knowledge I have, I can help other people too. One of the panelist said, “Those smiling face of children make us never tired to try our best to help them”. Education for children is a great investment. I really wish I could help the children and youth in conflict area to have better access to education in the future. It is our role, as a youth, to make this world become more peaceful from now on.