Having 10 members across the Southeast Asian region, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is an exceptional. Uniting those countries with various tribes, languages, and religions, ASEAN uniqueness lies in the richness in culture, natural resources, and human resources. This has led to a great potential to become the largest association in the world, which can even compete with the European Union.

 

     The establishment of ASEAN Community, ASEAN Political-Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community has shown ASEAN efforts towards unity as well as to be a strong organization. However, we cannot deny that many regional issues are still unresolved, mainly due to the high economic gap among ASEAN members. In facing such problem, the existence ASEAN youth becomes very important. Youth is the right figure to be the agent of change with their fresh ideas, creativity, fast-learning skill, productivity and good stamina. The trends since 1970 showed high population growth in almost all ASEAN countries. As the result, the current ASEAN population is dominated by those who are youths, which are more productive than the elders. This is a good start to drive the wheels of ASEAN development.

 

     Indonesian Student Association in Malaysia (PPIM) is a non-profit organization where young Indonesians who are currently studying in Malaysia are gathered. By raising the jargon for “mengindonesiakan jiwa, menduniakan Indonesia” or “putting Indonesia on heart, globalize Indonesia”, PPIM believe that Indonesian students outside the country must be able to adapt to changes in global but at the same time should not bleed in terms of identity as an Indonesian.

 

     Being students in the ASEAN region, PPIM members get to interact with other ASEAN students in various activities. Realizing the rapid development in Southeast Asia, PPIM thinks that our youth should be able to dig out the best potential for us as the future generation before and can adapt in all terrain we will encounter later.

 

     In a brief, PPIM will be holding “ASEAN Youth Conference 2017” to invite ASEAN youths to respond to the problems that are and will be faced by ten ASEAN countries. This will be the very first leap on the youth movements, in which our youth become the initiator of big changes in the future, which will be realized by using all the potential of the ASEAN diversity.

 In this event, PPIM will unite the entire youth in ASEAN to share their thoughts, aspirations, and ideas in order to solve problems that occur within ASEAN.