Stronger together

Bangkok hosts the One Young World Summit from today until Saturday, with over 1,300 delegates from around the world. We talk to the young Thai leaders who will join the conference to propose their ideas on how to make the world a better place.

Kasidej Phulsuksombati, 23On Education

'I want to evaluate my competency by what I can give back to society, not from the money I earn," said Kasidej Phulsuksombati, a mathematics teacher at Chumchon Moobanpattana School.

With a degree in pure mathematics and computer science from Stanford University, Kasidej had only one semester left before he got his masters in applied mathematics when the 23-year-old decided to drop out of the prestigious university and make his way to his hometown to be a teacher in the Teach for Thailand programme.

"For many years, I've been talking with my friends about all of the problems in our country, and we believe that the root cause is education," said Kasidej, who will join One Young World Summit to share his experience. "Before, I couldn't really complain about it, but I just seized the opportunity to see what I can do for Thai education."

After two months of training, Kasidej has been teaching classes in Bangkok for a month and is contracted to do so for two years. His first hand experience in Thai education has revealed that the biggest problem is disparity in education.

"According to OECD, although 100% of Thai students have the opportunity to enter schools, only 93% of students who finish Prathom 6 pass the literacy test, meaning that they had the opportunity to learn but some schools just don't meet the standards. From what I've experienced, students in those schools have knowledge that is about four to five years behind what they actually should be."

Kasidej's goal for this two-year-programme is for the kids to obtain higher O-net scores in mathemetics than the country's average.

"If that comes true at least it would show how a teacher can make certain changes to students' futures and I believe that if a teacher can do it then other teachers would think they can do too. This way people would still have hope for education."

By participating in One Young World, Kasidej believes that he will meet more people who share the same vision and give him more confidence that his dream is not far-fetched.

Aushim Merchant, 26 On Climate Change

'If we don't stand for something, we will fall for everything."

Aushim Merchant, a 26-year-old delegate from Thailand, will deliver this message when he gives a speech on climate change during the One Young World summit as a Thai representative.

After travelling to many countries, Aushim realised that Thailand is actually a country blessed with uncountable bounties, and the only reason it is being held back from becoming a top destination is the lack of concern for the environment.

"We're not the last people to live in the world and the environment is the only legacy that we can leave to the next generation," he said.

Aushim has been a volunteer in different environmental activities. He has been on a six-week spring fellowship programme on Legislative Governance & Public Policy with an emphasis on renewable energy and environment sustainability. He has also joined various projects on water management and conservation, drip irrigation and value addition with farmers in the Asean region.

In his upcoming speech, he will focus on innovative initiatives and solutions on pressing environmental issues. But at the end of the day, what he really wants to see is stringent restrictions imposed on polluting industries responsible for greenhouse gas and carbon emissions.

Aushim is now CEO of Alphasakorn Polymer & Energy Company, which turns post-consumer/industrial plastic waste into crude oil. The company has been able to produce over 4 million litres of crude oil from 6,000 tonnes of non-recyclable plastic waste, with an impact of a reduction of approximately 7,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

"If we were able to address even 10% of the plastic waste that ends up improperly disposed, the main benefit would be job creation, reduction in imports of crude oil and a significant reduction of our carbon footprint."

Apart from his interest in the environment, Aushim's concerns extend to education, youth empowerment, civic society engagement and sustainable community development.

"The youth are often underestimated in terms of their potential, thoughts and ability, but they can do more than what they think they can," he said, "and I think the change has to be brought by young people because the world belongs to us."

Social Enterprise Projects

A highlight for this year's 100 Thai delegates chosen by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is the competition on social enterprise projects. The topics are categorised into four areas: environment, education, poverty and health.

Four teams will be presenting their project at One Young World, and a 2 million baht prize will be given to the winner to run their project.

Life talked with representatives of two of the teams.

Piyapattra Chaimahawong works with Tidy, a group of young people whose concern is waste management.

"Many of us don't even know how to sort garbage properly, or some know but just choose not to do it as they believe that the garbage collector will just throw everything together anyway," said Piyapattra. "So we've matched this problem with saleng, as they're often looked down on by society." Saleng are people who go around town on tricycles scavenging garbage and selling it on to make a living.

Tidy's project aims to encourage household waste segregation and improve salengs' social conditions and quality of life. Whenever people have a certain amount of recycled garbage they can request a saleng through an app. The registered saleng will then pick up the garbage and take it to the centre. Instead of just selling it, they will be trained to recycle the garbage by product. In return, people can receive either free recycled products or money when they have reached a certain amount of points.

"This way, people would start to realise how important garbage is and saleng will be more recognised and respected," she said.

To be a part of One Young World, Piyapattra has raised her concerns on the lack of public participation among Thai people.

"Some think that we're too small and too insignificant, we won't be able to make changes. But once people start to share about what each can do for society, we'll start to see what the problem is and how can we go from there."

Piyapattra has been working with Socialgiver, a social enterprise where a percentage of the money spent shopping will go to a chosen social project the shopper wants to support.

"This social enterprise is similar to the foundation but the big difference is how it can sustain itself. It's a business-based model that focuses on positive impact over profits," she said.

Another project that has made it to the final round is Trawell. The group focuses on tackling poverty by tying solutions to tourism.

"One thing we realised about poverty is that there are so many people that are poor but who have skills and resources," said Tanyamai Anantakoraneewat. "They just might need some support."

The model proposed by Trawell is to improve the community by promoting its uniqueness to bring in tourists, while locals should retain their integrity and not sell out to capitalism. Trawell plays the role of middle man by matching a community with other parties who can provide some sort of help and technique in order to improve the community for tourism, and thus bring in income.

For example, a co-ownership model would be introduced for improving property -- by turning it into a hotel for instance -- so that locals would still receive the benefit from it and a sense of belonging would still remain.

Another thing Trawell has proposed for some communities is to match designers with local artisans in order to add value to local products. Activities like workshops can be introduced and again bring in more tourists.

"This way, locals can still retain their way of life while visitors can discover hidden gems we have here," said Tanyamai, adding that this might be just one of a million ways to tackle the problems of poverty.

"I believe that in order to make the world a better place, the more ideas and the more people we have, the better chance for the idea to become true and I believe that these kind of people can be found at One Young World."

One Young World is one of the biggest forums that bring youth leaders aged 18-30 from across the globe to build a lasting connection to create positive change for a better world.

Founded in 2009 in London, UK, the sixth edition of One Young World will be held in Bangkok from today until Saturday.

More than 1,300 selected delegates from over 190 countries who have demonstrated leadership ability and a commitment to effecting positive change will debate, formulate and share innovative solutions for the pressing issues the world faces.

Discussion topics for this year initiated by One Young World Ambassadors (previous year's delegates) covered six areas — education, environment, global business, human rights, leadership and government, and peace and security.

The youth delegates will also have a chance to discuss with counsellors who are international public figures. Some of the big names to arrive in Bangkok to speak to the delegates include former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan; former Thai PM Anand Panyarachun; musician and activist Sir Bob Geldof; Nobel Prize laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus; US goalkeeper Hope Solo; social entrepreneur and hip hop artist Akala; a Pussy Riot member Nadezhda "Nadya" Tolokonnikova; photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand; film producer John Landau and many more.