7 August to 13 August 2022: Two SYCA members, Dorcas and Terese, represented Singapore at the Regional Conference of Youths – Asia and the Pacific, held in Ormoc City and Baybay City, Philippines.
Below is a reflective recount of the pair’s experiences.
DAY ONE
as i hugged my friends goodbye, as i handed my boarding pass to the uniformed officers, as i stepped into the fancy carpeted floor of the departure hall, i still found it hard to believe what i was in for. a month ago i would have laughed if you had told me that i would be off to the Philippines for an international environmental conference. and now i was here, dizzy with emotions running wild: excitement at attending my first international conference, worry that i was under-prepared, and, of course, the thrill of travelling without my parents.
Regional Conference of Youths – Asia and the Pacific. what would it be like? would it be real and genuinely keen to hear youth voices, or a superficial display? as a youth without long career and leadership experiences, how equipped was i even anyway? would this conference be more one-way, like officials sharing the difficulties of policymaking, or more two-way, with us amplifying community voices to them? in a world where adults and billionaires hold the financial levers, what is the effectiveness of youth voices?
it was a long, two-flight journey to Tacloban, with a transit at Manila. i unexpectedly made a friend on the plane from Singapore to Manila, a Filipino lady who worked as a domestic worker in Singapore; she was returning home for the first time in three years. i first started talking to her because there was only fish and chicken meals on the airplane, so i asked if she would like my fish. we talked about our travel journeys, and i found it super cool when she shared that in Philippines, you build your own house. she was sending money home every month so that her brother and father could build a new house, she said, as she shared with me pictures of it. it was a nice, aesthetic, modern-looking house with a slanted roof and bright colours of day. there was a lot of waiting even after we touched down, and we even became facebook friends at the end.
when we finally touched down to the small local airport of Tacloban, and saw the banner emblazened with our conference name at the gates, the pent-up excitement in me exploded like a firecracker. for the first time that day, i left my friend and ran. “good morning i am a singapore delegate,” i burst shyly to the volunteers even though it was already evening.
we entered the VIP room, and i started screaming, because i finally saw Dorcas, who had travelled separately to Tacloban from me and Li Zhe. we hugged and talked about how much we missed each other even though we just saw each other yesterday. then we met other delegates also in the vip room: Anu from Nepal; Hien, Trang, Phuong and Que from Vietnam; and a few others whose names I’ve forgotten (sorry ><). the organisers ordered for us fast food for dinner, and Dorcas kindly gave me one rice ball as the vegetarians only had a lettuce salad.
i sat with Dorcas on the busride from Tacloban airport to Ormoc city where our accommodation was, and we finally reached Ormoc city at around one in the morning. we did some unloading, showered and finally hit the bed at around 1.45am, ready to wake up at six the next day for our beach trip to Kalanggaman island.
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