KUALA LUMPUR: The 2024 Solutions Summit concluded today (Friday) after a series of intensive discussions, workshops and site visits, bringing together former participants of the Community Solutions Programme (CSP) from across the globe.
Held from May 13 to 17, the summit served as a platform for participants and panellists to exchange ideas, share best practices and collaborate on youth engagement for sustainable community development.
Participants engaged in a series of discussions and workshops that facilitated knowledge-sharing and capacity-building, where they were equipped with practical skills to effect positive change in their communities.
Sagar Prasai from Nepal said the summit provided a valuable opportunity to reunite with fellow CSP alumni and exchange experiences.
A CSP alumni from the 2013 batch, Prasai is the founder and director of Diverse Patterns, which focuses on providing digital accessibility services to businesses and organisations in his country, besides ensuring that digital documents and products are accessible for people with special needs.
Prasai, during the workshop breakout session titled "Digital Empowerment for Community Action", highlighted digital accessibility for people with disability (PwD).
At present, he said that 92 per cent of websites were inaccessible to such people.|
"It is a huge issue that does not get a lot of attention, with only activists or those who are affected raising the issue.
"Hence, during this summit, I was able to share with fellow alumni the need to prioritise digital accessibility in their community projects, subsequently promoting equal access and engagement for everyone.
"Together, we can amplify our impact and drive meaningful change in our respective communities," he said.
One Malaysian panellist in the summit was Richard Joseph, who is with the Dignity for Children Foundation.
He said the summit allowed him to share about youth engagement from the Malaysian perspective.
"Basically, I get to share with fellow alumni how to get the youth more involved in terms of economy, policy and advocacy among others.
"I also get to share how we bridge the gap between the older and younger generation to ensure sustainable community development," said Joseph, who is a 2022 CSP alumni.
"I believe that we should not look at the age group, but look at what they bring to the table and be open about it.
"For the older ones, they bring a sense of maturity, experience and all these kinds of things. For the younger ones, they bring the flame and the heart, so you have to work together for your respective sustainable community development," he said.
During the summit, the participants visited Mereka, a talent development ecosystem preparing professionals and entrepreneurs to be leaders and innovators.
They also visited Dignity for Children Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that provides holistic care and education for urban poor children in Kuala Lumpur.
CSP programme director Les Miles said the summit had several goals, namely exchanging expertise to promote effective engagement of youth in community development; foster relationships and expand professional networks among summit's participants; identifying collaboration opportunities within the CSP community; and, strengthening leadership and facilitation skills.
He said Malaysia was chosen as the location for the summit due to its promising good practices for youth engagement.
"We have many alumni of this programme who are innovative and doing interesting and exciting projects and we wanted to learn from their experience," he said, adding that there are about 900 CSP alumni around the world.